Faculty Scholarship Repository
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| Book Chapter |
| Divorce Law in the United States |
| Ira Ellman |
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Cross Currents: Family Law and Policy in the United States and England Sanford N. Katz et al. eds., Oxford University Press 2000 |
| Library Access |
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Abstract: The half-century from 1950 to 2000 was a period of great change in divorce law in the United States. In 1950, proof of marital fault was required everywhere before a court would grant a divorce decree. Divorce by mutual consent, much less unilateral divorce, was not accepted in any state. Parties who agreed on divorce still had to persuade a court that there were sufficient fault grounds to justify the decree. However, by the 1970s, states began to eliminate the fault requirement and even permit unilateral divorce. Recent years, however, have seen a possible reverse in the pendulum’s swing as different groups have sought to rehabilitate fault divorce. Fault proponents claim that their law will staunch rising divorce rates, or rescue women from a financial disaster imposed by no-fault. This paper discusses the merits of these claims, finding that there is little to support them. This paper also examines the relationship between divorce rates and two cultural forces: mobility and the employment of wives. (from introduction, edited)Keywords: dissolution of marriage, no-fault divorce, family law |
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