On Gifts, Payments and Disputes: Divorce and Changing Family Structures in Contemporary Britain

Abstract

"This article considers ethnographic data collected among divorcing men and women in Britain and adopts a Maussian view of exchange in order to understand the cultural dimensions of divorce in more depth. I argue that divorcing men and women express discontinuities and continuities in their relationships by means of particular kinds of exchanges. What is of particular interest is the way that former husbands and wives place discrepant and conflicting constructions on the transfer of money and material goods between them and between themselves and their children. The article illustrates these points by examining the conflicts between fathers, mothers and their children over the emotional and economic significance of particular transactions."

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