New data from the Court Services show that women are more likely to ask for a separation, or a divorce, than men. This is in line with figures from the US and the UK. It begs the obvious question; why are they more likely to ask for a divorce or separation?

Let’s look at the figures first. The Court Services Annual Report for 2015 shows that the vast majority of applications for either a judicial separation or a divorce are made to the Circuit Court rather than the High Court (1,395 vs 35 in the case of judicial separation, and 4,290 vs 24 in the case of divorce).

Women applied to the Circuit Court for a judicial separation in 71 cases out of 100, and for a divorce in 54 cases out of 100.

Because there is a four year waiting period before a couple can divorce, judicial separation is often the first port of call for someone who wants to bring their marriage to a legal end. A couple or an individual will often apply for divorce itself only when they actually want to remarry. The rest do so to completely sever the tie to their previous spouse.

The ratio of women to men asking for a separation here in Ireland is about the same as the ratio of women to men in the US asking for a divorce. In the US, the waiting time for divorce is often very short, so individuals can opt for divorce very quickly without having to legally separate first.

Why are women more likely than men to pull the plug on a marriage? One theory is that they expect more from a relationship than men. Men are more likely to make-do in a less than optimal marriage.

This theory has been challenged by a study that came out in 2015 in the US. It found that women and men pull the plug on cohabiting relationships in roughly equal numbers. The researchers speculate that the reason for the difference is that cohabiting relationships are more egalitarian than marriages and therefore women are less likely to be dissatisfied with the unequal division of labour that is more likely to exist in a marriage than in a cohabiting situation.

However, the theory that the more egalitarian nature of cohabitation means men and women are about equally likely to pull the plug such a relationship is challenged by the fact that female same-sex marriages/civil partnerships are far more likely to end in divorce/separation than either male same-sex marriages/civil partnerships), or opposite-sex marriages.

Figures from the Court Services show that 71 percent of applications to dissolve same-sex civil partnerships in 2015 were made by women.

You would have imagined that female civil partnerships would be strongly egalitarian. If so, why are they so much more likely to break up than their male or opposite-sex counterparts? (The pattern is the same in other countries. See this study, for example).

This seems to bring us back to the theory that women expect more from relationships whether with each other, or with men, than men do. Decide for yourself whether this is a good or a bad thing.