Marriage à la Chatelaine: Negotiating Marriage and Divorce in the 1960s and 1970s through the Pages of Canada’s Leading English Women’s Magazine

Abstract

As divorce became easier to achieve in the 1960s and 1970s, the number of divorces skyrocketed and many Canadians, regardless of whether or not they stayed together, were re-evaluating what they wanted out of their marriages. These changes were propelled, in part, by second-wave feminism and women’s increased workforce participation. In the magazine’s treatment of marriage and divorce in these decades, Chatelaine’s writers, many of whom themselves had experiences of marital breakdown, provided considerable advice to Canadians on how to negotiate this time of tremendous change in marital expectations.