What this led to was a struggle of resource allocation between married couples. When women began to bring in an income each month, there became a new struggle of who was going to control what resources. These economic disparities between partners likely played a role in creating tension or conflict within a marriage. Another major effect of this was the effect on households and motherly duties. For a long time in America, women were responsible for handling a large portion of household responsibilities and the raising of children. However, with women joining the workforce they continued to bear these responsibilities while also working full time (Moors, 2022). In the study done in Gendered Impact of Caregiving Responsibilities on Tenure Track Faculty Parents’ Professional Lives,  they found that women who handled the majority of caregiving responsibilities were negatively affected in their professional career, while men often were unaffected (Moors, 2022). Due to the ideas stated in conflict theory, we can derive that these struggles within relationships played a large role in the increase of divorce rates through the 19th century. 

While I did not grow up during this time, I can personally relate to power dynamics and divorce. From what I know about my childhood, my parents did a great job of collaborating on finances and making things equal. My mother was actually the breadwinner up until a year or two before I was born and was responsible for a majority of the money they put down in their mortgage. However as my mom stopped working, my dad took control of the finances and began making decisions on his own. While he was responsible for the house's income, the power to control the finances began to lead to conflict in their relationship. It even got to the point of making separate bank accounts and credit cards. This struggle has played a large role in their relationship and has had lasting impacts to this day.

While divorce rates did top out during the 70’s, they were consistently high until 2011 when they eventually began to fall (Nunley, 2008). Some people may argue that this is due to counseling, couples maturing, or a variety of other positive causes. In 2008, the world was faced with the worst economic recession it has seen in almost a decade. Many people lost their jobs and faced economic backlash, especially those of lower economic status. However, I would like to argue that it is more out of fear and desperation during these turbulent economic times. This idea is closely related to the sociological theory of intersectionality in the way that societal factors such as race, socioeconomic status or gender can make those experiences worse (Gamst, 2023). In this case, women are already a marginalized group. Then if you factor in those of lower economic status, the problem becomes much greater. While it has never been easier to get divorced in America, it is relatively expensive to file the necessary paperwork to make such a thing happen. Also, if the woman is planning on getting alimony out of the man, they also have to realize that if they are of lower economic status, they won't have any alimony to pay out. From my own personal experience, I have seen parents fail to get divorced and live under the same roof, just to avoid the negative economic benefits associated with divorce. Even though divorce has dropped since 2011, it is likely due to poor economic outlooks rather than society progressing.