Understanding Divorce Law
There has been a sweeping revolution in divorce law in the United States during the past 35 years, and it is still under way. The changes brought about by this revolution have fundamentally altered the framework of how a divorce is obtained and how divorce affects spouses and children. These dramatic legal changes are, as yet, relatively unknown to the general public and are still not fully understood even by the lawyers and judges who administer the new laws. In order to begin the process of your divorce or separation with realistic expectations, it is very important to understand the new framework of divorce law.
Divorce in the United States is governed by individual state law. Each state has its own particular laws to deal with all aspects of the divorce process, from residency require-ments, to child custody, to the division of property. Until 1970, divorce was universally viewed as a social ill, to be avoided and discouraged by the laws of society. Courts in all 50 states granted divorces only on the basis of some marital fault: adultery, abandon-ment, physical abuse, mental cruelty, or some other form of misconduct. There was a winner (the innocent spouse) and a loser (the guilty spouse). The fruits of divorce were passed out according to the fault of the spouses. If a husband was adulterous or at fault in some other way, the wife was often awarded generous alimony, a larger portion of the marital property, custody of the couple’s children, and ample child support. Alterna¬tively, if the wife was found to be at fault, she was often denied alimony, given far less or even none of the couple’s property, and could be prevented from having custody of her children. The innocent spouse was rewarded for having been faithful to the vows of marriage and the guilty spouse was punished for his or her marital misconduct.
This traditional system of divorce began to change in 1970. In that year, California passed the first no-fault divorce laws in the U.S. Since then, the sweeping changes brought about by no-fault divorce have spread across the country, concluding when South Dakota became the final state to embrace no-fault divorce. No-fault divorce is now the law in all 50 of the United States and Washington D.C.
© Nova Publishing Company, 2005