We shouldn’t think of doing away with no-fault divorce
What do Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan, Rudy Guilani, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Nelson Rockefeller, Robert Dole, John McCain, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Dave McCormick and Kari Lake all have in common?
All prominent Republicans, sure. But all of them, at one point or another, broke up with their spouses and got a divorce. Trump and Gingrich, in fact, have made their way through divorce court twice, while Guiliani has done so three times.
This is not to argue that Republicans are any more prone to divorce than Democrats or independents. The first presidential nominee of either major party to be a divorcee was Democrat Adlai Stevenson in 1952. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee in 2004, had also been divorced. The party’s nominee in 2000, Al Gore, split from his wife in 2010, though the couple has apparently never formally divorced. In America, divorce cuts across lines of partisanship and ideology.
But it does seem odd that, given the number of marquee Republicans who have ended their marriages, some figures in the party are now pushing the idea that America should do away with no-fault divorce, which allows either partner to file for a dissolution of a marriage without having to prove there were precipitating factors like abuse or infidelity. Simple incompatibility or irreconcilable differences, whether you’ve been married one year or 40 years, is sufficient.
U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, famous for his religiosity, has suggested that what he has called the “the no-fault scheme” is a component of a “completely amoral society,” while Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, a possible Donald Trump running mate, has also criticized the ease at which Americans can get divorced. In his latest book, “The Perilous Fight,” Ben Carson, the former secretary of housing and urban development and another possible Trump running mate, writes that “for the sake of families, we should enact legislation to remove or radically reduce incidences of no-fault divorce.”
Of course, there aren’t many people out there who relish the prospect of a divorce. It’s tough for a couple and hard on children, if any have come from the union. But if these leaders on the political and cultural right believe that making a divorce harder to get will somehow lead couples to have second thoughts about splitting, boost the prospects of children or make a couple grit out their rough patches, they might want to think again.
First, making divorce harder to get would be particularly brutal for husbands or wives locked in abusive marriages. Experts say a rancorous, drawn-out divorce can lead to suicide, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder for victims. Brooke Axtell, who leads a Texas nonprofit group that helps victims of domestic abuse, told the magazine Mother Jones, “Imagine finally leaving a person who’s emotionally and physically assaulted you, betrayed you, violated you and then being forced to combat them in court, sometimes for years, to prove this just so you can be free of them and claim what belongs to you.”
There’s also not a whole lot of evidence supporting the idea that children would fare better in a home where the parents are still together, but the air is thick with recrimination and hostility. Katha Pollitt, a columnist for The Nation, put it this way: “What can be better for healthy development than growing up in a household full of bitterness, rage and disrespect?”
Doing away with no-fault divorce seems to be part of a larger effort to erase the changes in social and cultural mores that developed in the second half of the 20th century. But how would turning back the clock on no-fault divorce make society – or marriages, for that matter – any stronger?
We shouldn’t think of doing away with no-fault divorce
What do Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan, Rudy Guilani, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Nelson Rockefeller, Robert Dole, John McCain, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Dave McCormick and Kari Lake all have in common?
All prominent Republicans, sure. But all of them, at one point or another, broke up with their spouses and got a divorce. Trump and Gingrich, in fact, have made their way through divorce court twice, while Guiliani has done so three times.
This is not to argue that Republicans are any more prone to divorce than Democrats or independents. The first presidential nominee of either major party to be a divorcee was Democrat Adlai Stevenson in 1952. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee in 2004, had also been divorced. The party’s nominee in 2000, Al Gore, split from his wife in 2010, though the couple has apparently never formally divorced. In America, divorce cuts across lines of partisanship and ideology.
But it does seem odd that, given the number of marquee Republicans who have ended their marriages, some figures in the party are now pushing the idea that America should do away with no-fault divorce, which allows either partner to file for a dissolution of a marriage without having to prove there were precipitating factors like abuse or infidelity. Simple incompatibility or irreconcilable differences, whether you’ve been married one year or 40 years, is sufficient.
U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, famous for his religiosity, has suggested that what he has called the “the no-fault scheme” is a component of a “completely amoral society,” while Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, a possible Donald Trump running mate, has also criticized the ease at which Americans can get divorced. In his latest book, “The Perilous Fight,” Ben Carson, the former secretary of housing and urban development and another possible Trump running mate, writes that “for the sake of families, we should enact legislation to remove or radically reduce incidences of no-fault divorce.”
Of course, there aren’t many people out there who relish the prospect of a divorce. It’s tough for a couple and hard on children, if any have come from the union. But if these leaders on the political and cultural right believe that making a divorce harder to get will somehow lead couples to have second thoughts about splitting, boost the prospects of children or make a couple grit out their rough patches, they might want to think again.
First, making divorce harder to get would be particularly brutal for husbands or wives locked in abusive marriages. Experts say a rancorous, drawn-out divorce can lead to suicide, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder for victims. Brooke Axtell, who leads a Texas nonprofit group that helps victims of domestic abuse, told the magazine Mother Jones, “Imagine finally leaving a person who’s emotionally and physically assaulted you, betrayed you, violated you and then being forced to combat them in court, sometimes for years, to prove this just so you can be free of them and claim what belongs to you.”
There’s also not a whole lot of evidence supporting the idea that children would fare better in a home where the parents are still together, but the air is thick with recrimination and hostility. Katha Pollitt, a columnist for The Nation, put it this way: “What can be better for healthy development than growing up in a household full of bitterness, rage and disrespect?”
Doing away with no-fault divorce seems to be part of a larger effort to erase the changes in social and cultural mores that developed in the second half of the 20th century. But how would turning back the clock on no-fault divorce make society – or marriages, for that matter – any stronger?