The Extraordinary Benefits Of Divorce

Which marriages meet the requirements for dissolution is defined by legal standards. Over the last 200 years, the grounds for divorce in Western societies have expanded. These expansions have made divorce more accessible. Although the divorce rate has increased, there is not a clear link between the accessibility and this increase. Other key influences effecting divorce rates include economic, social, cultural, demographic and institutional factors.

There has been a long history regarding reform proposals and recommendations surrounding the law of divorce. The first legislation which was introduced in divorce law was the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, which allowed people to obtain a divorce. However, today the provisions within that act are outdated, yet, it represented society in 1857. In 1937, legislation altered to catch up with societal changes and additional grounds of divorce were introduced. This again occurred in 1973, where legislation changed altering the grounds and facts in which a divorce could be obtained. This is the current legislation relied upon today.

There is a staggeringly large amount of divorces in the United States (US). In total, the US had a recorded total of 2,140,272 marriages in the year 2014 alone, and of those marriages, 813,862 ended up in divorce or annulment (Center for Disease Control). This means that as recently as 2014, there was a divorce rate of approximately 40%. This supports the statistics that the divorce rate for the US has stayed within 40-50% since the 1970’s (Austin Institute, 2014). While the numbers themselves are important, it is also important that the causes for the high divorce rate be explored, so that it can be known what pitfalls to avoid when participating in such an important union as marriage. There are many causes of divorce in the US such as conflicting gender roles, socioeconomic status, religious conflicts, physical abuse, emotional abuse, alcohol addictions, and many more (Amato & Previti, 2003). This paper will look at many of these reasons, but it will also focus on the differing reasons reported by men and women.

In the terms of Divorce – the legal termination of marriage, this has increased immensely since 1971 due to the change in legislation that had liberalized divorce, made it cheaper and easier to obtain. The Divorce Reform Act of 1971 was the most important because prior to 1971, one partner had to provide ‘evidence’ that they had been wronged by the significant other (matrimonial offence). Due to the change of the law, it allowed people to divorce on the basis of “irretrievable breakdown”. In addition, since 1984, the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act reduced the time limit for divorce for a minimum of 3 years of marriage to only one year. After this act, the divorce rate shot up again, as it did in 1971. Now, people were finally able to legally to end all connections, as previously when divorce was either too expensive or difficult to obtain, separation was very common, which was when a couple decided to live away from each other.

In The Great Divorce, the narrator suddenly, and inexplicably, finds himself in a grim and joyless city (the "grey town", representative of hell). He eventually finds a bus for those who desire an excursion to some other place (and which eventually turns out to be the foothills of heaven). He enters the bus and converses with his fellow passengers as they travel. When the bus reaches its destination, the "people" on the bus — including the narrator — gradually realize that they are ghosts. Although the country is the most beautiful they have ever seen, every feature of the landscape (including streams of water and blades of grass) is unbearably solid compared to themselves: it causes them immense pain to walk on the grass, and even a

man to bring a divorce case to court he had to prove 1 out of 3

easier for a man to divorce a woman, then women asking for divorce. There new reform created

They require a lot of consideration from the court and many factors, from the treatment of spouses to the potential future one could have had outside of the marriage, affect the outcome. As such, there are many change laws and views on policies. In modern divorce cases, a big issue is spousal support. Spousal support was original thought of as “compensation to a dependent wife for her divorcing husband’s breach of marital vows and responsibilities” (244). However, modern divorce cases have caused for a rethink of this aged idea. No fault-divorces and changes in typical gender roles caused a shift in typical spousal support. To correct this, spousal support was proposed to be seen as a compensation for the dependent spouse’s noneconomic support. Basically, the dependent spouse has provided just as much for the family as the primary care taker. If the court see that the dependent spouse’s contributions have helped the non-dependent spouse’s ability to advance in their career, then they should be compensated for this effort. The dependent spouses are no longer entirely dependent on the primary caretaker. If a couple divorces, one spouse is not significantly disadvantaged for sacrificing their career to help the family. In the case of Dan v. Karen, Karen is not harmed for her efforts. It possible that Dan would never have obtained his road worker job, and thus be as financially well off as he is if Karen did not quit her job and raise the kids.

Divorce is such a personal and common thing in America. There are so many couples who go through the act of divorce every day. According to Kanewicher and Harris (2014), forty to fifty percent of couples will end in divorce within the first few years of marriage. Divorce is the legal dissolution of a marriage by a court or other competent body. There are many factors that may lead couples into divorce. Some of those factors are, marrying too young, low education levels and overall just lack of preparation (Kanewischer, 2015). Although divorce is common now, it was not like this back in the late 1900’s. Divorce was not allowed and most of the time people did not want to get divorce because of all the time and effort they put into their marriage.

Fagan, Patrick F. and Robert Rector. "The Effects of Divorce on America." World & I, vol. 15, no. 10, Oct. 2000, p. 56. EBSCOhost, fortwayne.libproxy.ivytech.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.fortwayne.libproxy.ivytech.edu.allstate.libproxy.ivytech.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=3628746&site=ehost-live&scope=site. Accessed 24 March 2017. Fagan and Rector discuss the many issues divorce can have on a child. They argue that when it comes to divorce, there are primarily negative outcomes for the child involved. Children who are victims of a divorced family have an increased chance to abuse drugs and become involved in crime. These children also have a higher rate of living in poverty, being undereducated, and becoming psychologically

This article talks about how the divorce is expensive for parents for the reason that of the tests of meeting children's economic and socioemotional needs after separation. The article used the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 1,935), and they were discovering whether probable economic and parenting costs had anything to do with divorce. This article was helpful because the author examined that mothers were the ones that expected higher financial costs than fathers, while fathers are the ones that expect more parenting difficulties.

Monogamy was out, ‘free love’ thrived, and divorce represented freedom. Enough people wanted divorce by the late 1960’s that the pressure was on to change the law.

Firstly, in today society money can be very tight, depending on the particular job, but also the location of where they live. Living costs in New York city are way higher than the living costs in small town Dewitt. However, wages are different in such locations, making it capable to live in. In addition, being tied into marriage places both incomes together, usually resulting in having to pay higher taxes. In 1969, there was an establishment of the Alternative Minimum Taxation system. This taxation system was placed in to prevent the rich from receiving tax cutbacks. Even though some couples were not considered “wealthy”, the tax code places many of them in the higher tax bracket while married.

When life becomes unbearable between a women an her husband, they may think of divorce as being a fair solution for both of them to get their “independence” and live a normal life, they may even think that it is suitable for their children. However, this is not the case , divorce may have some serious consequences that can affect the whole society .

Waite and Gallagher also discuss the benefits that marriage gives to couples. Including the financial benefits, in that through specialization and by sharing incomes getting married boosts standard of living by thirty percent and this benefit is not incurred by cohabitating, as those who cohabitate do not share as much and are less committed to the wellbeing of their partner. In addition to the financial benefits, they also discuss the emotional benefits of knowing you have someone who loves you and who would take care of you. Children similarly benefit from having married parents as there are more financial resources available to help take care of them and they get to spend more time with at least one parent.