Since last week’s election, several news outlets have been featuring stories surrounding liberal concerns that new conservative majorities will move to overturn “no-fault” divorce laws in America.
Speaking with Salon, Samantha Chapman, who works with the ACLU of South Dakota, said:
“I am terrified that we will someday reach a point where they do have enough numbers to pass a law that would make it harder for people to escape dangerous situations, like pregnancy sometimes, and like marriages sometimes,” she said.
Simply stated, no-fault divorce is the dissolution of marriage without pinning any blame on either party.
By contrast, at-fault divorce requires one spouse to prove that the other’s actions led to the need of a marital breakup.
Most people tag then-California Governor Ronald Reagan with signing the country’s first no-fault divorce law back in 1969. Although he later called it one of the biggest mistakes of his political life, Reagan explained his rationale for endorsing it.
“I believe it is a step towards removing the acrimony and bitterness between a couple that is harmful not only to their children but also to society as a whole,” Reagan said at the time.
While acknowledging the breakup of a family was a “tragic thing,” he believed it would “do much to remove the sideshow elements in many divorce cases.”
It may have removed some elements – but wound up creating many, many more.
Once upon a time, divorce was extremely rare in America.
In fact, if you go back to 1600s, there was, on average, one divorce per year throughout the Massachusetts and Connecticut colonies. The “Married Women’s Property Acts” in 1848 made it easier for wives to claim physical and financial assets, a change that led to more unhappy ladies filing for divorce.
Variations in state divorce laws introduced what was referred to as “migratory divorces” – couples leaving one state to go get a divorce in another with more permissive parameters. President Theodore Roosevelt was so concerned with this practice that he convened the “National Congress on Uniform Divorce Laws” in 1906.
“I do unqualifiedly condemn easy divorce,” wrote Roosevelt. “It has been shocking to me to hear young girls about to get married calmly speculating on how long it will be before they get divorces. Easy divorce is now as it ever has been, a bane to any nation, a curse to society, a menace to the home, an incitement to married unhappiness and to immorality, an evil thing for men and a still more hideous evil for women.”
The years roll on, but man’s fallen nature remains a constant.
Despite what many feminists and activists either claim or believe, laws regulating and making divorce more difficult weren’t drafted to subjugate women to men. They weren’t crafted as part of some sinister, patriarchal plot. Instead, they were conceived to preserve marriages and protect children.
The novelist Pat Conroy wrote, “Each divorce is the death of a small civilization. Two people declare war on each other, and their screams and tears and days of withdrawal infect their entire world with the bacilli of their pain. There are no clean divorces.”
As Christians, especially, we should advocate for legislation that encourages married couples to slow down any hasty rush to divorce. This doesn’t mean women should be placed in dangerous situations, but it does mean “cooling off” periods can help temper the charge to break up a marriage into a million little pieces.
Focus on the Family’s Hope Restored ministry is designed to provide a much-needed lifeline to married couples on the brink of divorce. The week of “intensive” counseling has proven to be lifechanging for thousands of couples who have reached the end of their rope. If you find yourself in this difficult place or know someone who would benefit, please let us help be part of the solution.
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