Chapter 2

Review of Related Literature and Studies

This chapter represents the related literature and studies after an
absolute search done by the researchers about a specific topic.
B. Foreign Literature
The poem by Heather A. Richardson entitled Painful Tears is about how
the child felt when her parents got divorced. She felt betrayed by her own
father. It really breaks her heart seeing her mother miserable and all. Divorce
happen when a relationship didnt work out for both parties. And maybe
thats what happened to the parents in the poem. The girl used to love and
treat her father as a friend to lean on but after what happened, hatred and
not wanting to see her father is the only thing she felt.
Separation of parents can really affect a childs life forever. He may not
believe in the power of marriage anymore.
The poem entitled Divorce by Anna Wickham is about marital divorce,
but it is also helpful to think of the word Divorce in terms of a separating or
breaking away from something. The speaker in this poem is feeling restricted
and constrained in the house in the valley but is aware of potential freedom
outside. A voice from the dark is calling her, yet she is not frightened. She
yearns to be let free, into a night she associates with liberty and desire.
Notice how the poem turns on the exclamation Wait! in line nine, when the
speaker appears ready to break away from the smothering house and the fire
which has been fanned with her sick breath. Look at the images of drums
and war in the second half of the poem. Her escape is into an exciting, if
dangerous, world, but this is preferable to a life of suffocating loneliness. She
is drawn to the call of the hero at the rocks edge. The poem concludes with
the repeated refrain and the urgent, passionate plea let me go, let me go!
The poem from Brianna K. Slone entitled Through the Eyes of My Child
is about the child longing for his father for almost 15 years after his parents
got divorced. His father didnt see him grow up as a teenager, never see his
achievements, and didnt gave the love of a father. The only thing thats
been gone after the divorce was his parents relationship but not his
relationship with his dad.

Even though their parents got separated, nothing shall ever change
between the relationship of the child to his father and mother and vice versa
because taking care of their child is a lifetime responsibility.
From Mary Ann King entitled Divorce says that divorce is painful and
one of the hardest thing ever. You can feel the pain the person was
conveying. Remembering all the happiness and joy you shared with your
partner is really hard to forget but divorce is better than staying in a
relationship that is not really working. Women are always the stressed ones
after the divorce because they were thinking what will be the life of their
children, how will they explain it. But after many years, they will move on
and forget what just happened and can start over again.
In a book entitled The Impact of Divorce on Children implies that
misunderstanding for partners that leads to divorce really affects the children
especially the teenagers. They think they are the ones carrying all the
burden and sometimes they feel they were the reason why it happened
thats why some of them misbehaved and become a rebel. They messed up
their own life by using drugs, drinking alcohol, cigarette smoking and worst
being in a jail for doing something bad. Teenagers should have the
knowledge or their parents should talk to them why things happened and
why they decided to broke up not blaming themselves and ruining their lives.
Parents should let their children realize that it is not always a happy ending.
C. Local Studies
In the book Philippine Studies by Deogracias T. Reyes, during the
Spanish Legislation, the Philippines was governed by Las Siete Partidas and
by the provisions of Canon Law and of the Council of Trent, the grounds for
the relative divorce to be granted are: (1) the desire of one of the spouses to
enter a religious order with the permission of the other, (2) adultery
committed by the other, (3) or either had become heretic but on March 11,
1917, Act No. 2710, absolute divorce was allowed on the ground of criminal
conviction for: (1) adultery on the part of the wife, (2) concubinage on the
part of the husband but because of the case of Chereau vs. Fuentebella and
Valdez vs. Tuazon, the absolute divorce was the only divorce available at the
time and five justices however, disagreed with this dictum and because of
that absolute divorce was completely remove as a general recourse.
However, while the Philippine laws do not allow divorce, the Family
Code of the Philippines allows Annulment and Legal Separation for
unworkable marriages but because many country allows divorce, according

to Article 26 of the Family Code of the Philippines states that when theres a
marriage between a Filipino Citizen and a foreigner is validly obtained by
either the spouse allowing him or her to remarry, the Filipino spouse shall
have the capacity to remarry under the Philippine Law from an article in
Christian Filipina.
According to Alex Rizada of buhay hiwalay blogspot, there are lot of
reasons that can impact the children and the society thats why they didnt
allow divorce in the Philippines. First is Psychological Disorder, it is said that
most children who belongs to a broken family tends to have a Post-traumatic
Stress Disorders that results to changes in attitude and suicide. Second, the
breakdown of two-parent family youth violence and gangs. Third is teenage
pregnancy. Fourth is child abuse. Fifth is poverty and last is kidnapping.
Because of the increasing rate of women and children abused by their
spouses, pro-divorce wants to pass a divorce law but an article entitled New
Divorce Bill Stirs Controversy in the Philippines states that divorce is not the
solution to decrease the abusive relationship and in fact can actually worsen
the situation since it is nicer to be in a family with a strong bond and good
relationship than a broken family.
On the other hand, a study entitled Dissecting Divorce in the
Philippines says that divorce will not weaken the marriages and families in
the Philippines and we cannot deny the fact that there is a chance that a
married couple will separate due to some valid reasons and because many of
us is Catholic and we are a family-oriented country, the divorce bill is still in
process as of now.
D. Foreign Studies
A study from the Vanier Institute of the Family released in Ottawa,
Canada says that there is more unmarried couple than legally married people
age 15, in which four in every 10 first marriages ended in divorce. From the
data, there were more couples without children than with children and
common-law families were growing faster than any other type of family with
one in every 10 Canadians living with common-law parents. And according to
Statistics Canada, 38% of marriages will have ended in divorce by 2035.
In a study of psychologist E. Mavis Hetherington of the University of
Virginia and her graduate student Anne Mitchell Elmore stated that there
were more children suffering short-term effects than long-term ones and
diminish after a year. However, the comparison between children affected by

divorce and children from intact families had small differences only. This has
proven of sociologist Paul R. Amato at Pennsylvania State University by
conducting experiments. In a 1985 study of Hetherington, children who were
exposed to divorces issues adjust more. It suggests that children who
understood well about divorce may ease the situation.
The study that was conducted by the United Kingdoms Cooperative
Legal Services found out that the most cited cause of divorce was
Unreasonable Behavior. Based on number of filing for divorce cases, 47%
cited unreasonable behavior. For instance, is a husband who made his wife
feel guilty for going out with friends. Unlike in United States, National
Fatherhood Initiative which conducted a similarly study found out that 73% is
because of lack of commitment and 56% for too much arguing.
A research team headed by Rose McDermott of Brown University and
her colleagues performed seven successive rounds of interviews beginning in
1971 and ending in 2001 from residents of Framingham, Massachusetts. The
study showed that the divorce of a friend or close relative can increase the
number of divorce and these findings can also be found through social
network. Sociologists call this phenomenon, social contagion-the spread of
information, attitudes and behaviors through friends, families and other
social networks.
From Marriage and Religion Research Institute, there are several effects
children might encounter after divorce. It affects and weakens parent-child
relationships and children are hard to trust their parents. They have received
less emotional support, financial assistance, and practical help from their
parents. Children have weakened ability to handle and move towards
agreement, lack of social skills, move away from their families and almost
completely lost the bond between it. Their attitudes about sexual behavior
even change and increased trouble in romantic relationships. It also
diminished their faithfulness, capacity as an individual and achievements
which await them. Taken together, children suffer a lot of trouble physically,
spiritually and emotionally dealing with divorce.

Works Cited:
http://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/painful-tears#ixzz3NdcN0P00
http://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/poem-about-divorce-through-theeyes-of-a-child#ixzz3NdrehyTU
http://allpoetry.com/poem/713795-Divorce--A-Sonnet-by-Mary-AnnKing#sthash.iVJ5XQVj.dpuf
http://www.srinstitute.com/proofread-essay-example-on-the-impact-ofdivorce-on-children.cfm
http://www.philippinestudies.net/ojs/index.php/ps/article/viewFile/3455/6024
https://www.christianfilipina.com/research/is-divorce-possible-in-thephilippines/
http://buhay-hiwalay.blogspot.com/2007/08/studies-on-impact-of-divorceand_25.html
http://blogcritics.org/new-divorce-bill-stirs-controversy-in/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/24/divorcephilippines_n_4157099.html
http://www.philippinestudies.net/ojs/index.php/ps/article/viewFile/3455/6024

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-divorce-bad-for-children/
http://www.christianpost.com/news/reason-for-divorce-is-unreasonablebehavior-and-is-most-cited-cause-according-to-new-study-105210/
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/10/21/is-divorce-contagious/
http://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF12A22.pdf