Divorce should not be reason for office discrimination

I am a mid-level manager at a fast moving consumer goods company. I recently went through a painful divorce process and worry that this may impact on my prospects for promotion at the office since my bosses are notorious for promoting those “in the family way.”

I have noticed that work evaluations are not restricted to how well one performs, but also one’s personal life alongside other skills. What can I do to ensure that as I go through this change my image at work is not affected?

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I must presume that when you state that those in “the family way” are favoured, you in fact mean to say those with (stable) families rather than those who are pregnant.

If that be the correct assumption, then yours must be an ultra conservative company totally out of touch with changing times.

In this day and age, there are many single-parent families which come into being either through death of a spouse, divorce, or even pure choice.

The concept of marriage and divorce has changed over the years and continues to change.

A few examples of these changes will illustrate the fact that no single concept lasts for long, and even what we consider normal today could change.

For example, in Ancient Athens a person seeking divorce simply submitted the request to a magistrate who proceeded to decide if the reasons given were sufficient to proceed with the case.

The magistrate’s decision was final and he did not have to hear the other party.

The Roman Empire, on the other hand, held that marriage was “free for all” and either party could annul a marriage at will and without involving either civil or cannonical authority.

A spouse needed only to inform the other that the marriage had come to an end. No papers, no magistrates, no witnesses. Two were enough to start and end a marriage.

In time, and with the spread of Christianity, a view was held that marriage was a sacrament from God, and as many now say on their wedding day; “what God has joined together, let no man put asunder”.

This is the position of the Christian church. What is the position on the ground? Is there indeed a universal view on what marriage is? Is being married a sign of stability? Indeed, does divorce suggest instability?

Divorce rates all over the world rose steadily over the 20th century, a time of great economic success in many parts of the world.

In a sense, success in financial and economic terms seems to have had no bearing on keeping families together.

In the USA, it is estimated that 40 per cent of marriages end in divorce. Most of the marriages end within eight years.

Same faith

In Australia every third marriage ends up in divorce, while Japan and many parts of Europe have high divorce rates.

We are familiar with the high rates of divorce among Royalty in the UK as well as the high and mighty of America.

Celebrities all over the world are notorious for divorce, Tiger Wood is the most recent example.

No single answer explains this tragic phenomenon. We know, for example, that people who marry under the age of 26 have higher divorce rates than those who are older.

People who marry from the same faith do a better job than those from different faiths.

There is also evidence that arranged marriages seem to have greater stability, perhaps because of social pressure from families to conform.

This also in part explains why traditional African practices in which marriage was a matter between clans rather than individuals would have had greater stability.

With the foregoing in mind, it would be a strange company that would base promotions on your family life, unless you showed some other “faults”.

In some cases, people go through a divorce because one or the other of the spouses has developed a psychological illness.

For example, we see people who become very irritable due to a depressive illness. They become withdrawn and difficult to get on both at home and at work.

If you were divorced in the context of depression, this might also find expression at your work place.

If this be the case, your employer would be unfair to punish you for having an illness for which treatment is available.

There are other reasons for divorce that can find expression at work, including paranoid illness.

You might wish to see a psychiatrist if in doubt.