Before the 1960s, it was really hard to get divorced in America.

Typically, the only way to do it was to convince a judge that your spouse had committed some form of wrongdoing, like adultery, abandonment, or “cruelty” (that is, abuse). This could be difficult: “Even if you could prove you had been hit, that didn’t necessarily mean it rose to the level of cruelty that justified a divorce,” said Marcia Zug, a family law professor at the University of South Carolina.

Then came a revolution: In 1969, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan of California (who was himself divorced) signed the nation’s first no-fault divorce law, allowing people to end their marriages without proving they’d been wronged. The move was a recognition that “people were going to get out of marriages,” Zug said, and gave them a way to do that without resorting to subterfuge. Similar laws soon swept the country, and rates of domestic violence and spousal murder began to drop as people — especially women — gained more freedom to leave dangerous situations.

Today, however, a counter-revolution is brewing: Conservative commentators and lawmakers are calling for an end to no-fault divorce, arguing that it has harmed men and even destroyed the fabric of society. Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers, for example, introduced a bill in January to ban his state’s version of no-fault divorce. The Texas Republican Party added a call to end the practice to its 2022 platform (the plank is preserved in the 2024 version). Federal lawmakers like Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and House Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, have spoken out in favor of tightening divorce laws.

  • qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website
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    1 year ago

    I hope them publicly advocating for this backfires spectacularly.

    “First they game for gay marriage, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t gay. Then they came for the abortions, and I didn’t speak up because I didn’t need an abortion. Then they came for divorce, and…fuck, that might be a real a pain in the ass. Maybe I won’t vote for these asshats.”

    — some people, hopefully…

    • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      “First the came for abortions, and we made a lot of noise but got ignored. Then they came for Divorce and… fuck, maybe we should do more than just make noise.”

      • Enkrod@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Torches! Torches and Pitchforks! Get your Pitchforks at the Pitchfork Emporium!

        For every two Pitchforks sold you get a free torch! And not those silly tikki-torches either!

  • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Boy I wish our government wasn’t so good at bringing their nightmare fuel fever dreams to fruition, while constantly failing to do anything to better anyone in the way almost every voter agrees with.

  • rab@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I don’t even understand why people get married when all the data shows that marriages fail

  • BoringHusband@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The solution seems simple. Don’t marry and don’t have kids. Eventually America dies off and the rest of the world closes the book on the experiment that failed.

    • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      The solution seems simple: drive these ass backwards politicians out of office and don’t allow them to have any power over your lives because they are not interested in your health or well-being.

    • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      The solution seems simple. Don’t marry and don’t have kids.

      Am I allowed to be amused that a bunch of guys looking at the state of family courts deciding the same thing were mocked as a bunch of evil misogynistic incels, and have been for years? Apparently “don’t participate in the system you are worried is going to fuck you over” is not an acceptable choice.

      • frunch@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        At this point, I’m happy to end my bloodline. People are insufferable enough already, i don’t want my kids growing up with the product of even more ridiculous nutjobs

        • Enkrod@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          You could think about emigrating. We’d love to brain drain the US… more.

    • Brutticus@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      They are just going to make contraception behind locked doors/ only available to married partners, if at all available.

  • Chessmasterrex@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Good way to keep those marriage rates low. Can’t get divorced if one doesn’t bother getting married in the first place.

    • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      That’s what no-fault divorce is. All assets are split 50/50 with no emphasis or prejudice given to who caused the divorce with infidelity, violence, etc.

      Not only is it fair, its way, way easier than establishing blame and then some kind of punitive split of assets that will be fought over and appealed even more than the current system of “equal, equal.”

      The fair has already been solved. It’s what we have now.

      • randon31415@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        So, if you are married for a day (after, lets say a drunken wedding in Vegas), the person you are married to gets 50% of your assets and you get 50% of theirs? I think a fairer way is either keep all assets separate or have some sort of automatic pre-nup for all marriages.

        • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          No, generally that marriage would be annulled. Its far too short for any mingling of assets, so none would be split.

          Generally any individual assets prior to a marriage stay individual. If you own a house outright and marry, your spouse doesnt immediatly get half of it. If you buy a house after you marry, then yes the house is split as its an asset that both parties put value into. It’s like an automatic pre-nup for marriages that already exists.

          Despite the ridiculous scenario you imagined above, judges and lawyers aren’t actually idiots. You dont have to make up hypotheticals to figure out how asset sharing in marriage or divorce works. The law is pretty clear, and there are millions of examples of both you can easily research instead of deciding there is something to be outraged about.

          • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            That guy is just repeating what he heard on the radio or from some drunk guy at a bar. He’s not putting any thoughts into it.

            Besides what you mentioned, there are pre-nups, post-nups, trusts, and other complicated ways that rich families use to protect their assets from gold-diggers. Marriage is a legal contract and it can be modified with other legal contracts.

            In a lot of cases, “trust fund kids” don’t even own their house or car. It’s all held in a trust so no one, not even them, can have it. If they divorce there’s nothing to split but some cash and whatever furniture or toys they own.

            In practice, I believe the pre or post-nup gives some consideration (money) to the spouse who isn’t rich so they won’t sue. But it’s not 50/50 because the trust fund kid legally doesn’t own much.

            • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              Yeah, Im not even sure if he knows what hes arguing about.

              All of these “problems” these conservatives are whinging about are already understood and settled with our current system. The default works well for the vast majority, and when it doesnt, you can change it. Easy.

        • Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 year ago

          No. When you make a lot of money because you can focus on work because your partner os handling all the work at home, the partner should not be financially destroyed after divorce. Your “idea” would lead to completely dependent partners who can never get divorces of their spouses

  • asteriskeverything@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This is what you really NEED to know about abolishing no fault divorce:

    And that will cause huge problems, especially for anyone experiencing abuse. “Any barrier to divorce is a really big challenge for survivors,” said Marium Durrani, vice president of policy at the National Domestic Violence Hotline. “What it really ends up doing is prolonging their forced entanglement with an abusive partner.”

    • asteriskeverything@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If they abolish no fault divorce it WILL cost lives

      That is the bottom fucking line. There is no argument against divorce that exists that can prevent that. Wait no there is, oh golly they will make exceptions for abuse. That sure fucking sounds familiar. Hmm like maybe it was the concession ‘pro-life’ would make for abortion.

      And look how that turned out.

      Before roe v wade was overturned they were all about protecting the abused somewhat with caveats. Kinda like they are talking about divorce here innit?

      • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        If they abolish no fault divorce it WILL cost lives

        “Probably, but those are lives of women, not people.”

        -Conservatives who support this shit

        • AProfessional@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Democrats need to stop using these terms. Republicans are pro human-capital. They want numerous, dumb, poor workers to control and they want to own women.

          • Skvlp@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            “Pro human capital” is a good term, thank you for introducing me to it. I’d say numerous, dumb, poor workers who are desperate to serve for scraps because of austerity.

    • StaySquared@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Interestingly, I’d assume that between home surveillance systems and cell phones, proving domestic violence shouldn’t be too tough nowadays.

    • Kacarott@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Advise sons too. If marriage is going to be weaponised then it should be denormalised.

      • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Advising my nephew will have to suffice, I feel bad enough bringing those I already have to this place. I will make sure to just advise young people in general.

  • Monument@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago
    TW: Suicide/Death/Domestic Violence

    Wolfers and Stevenson traced suicide rates before and after divorce reform and found a statistically significant reduction of nearly 6 percent in the female suicide rate following a state’s change to unilateral divorce. There was no discernible change in male suicides. Looking longer term, they found close to a 20 percent decline in female suicides 20 years after the change to no-fault divorce.

    The percentage of husbands abused by their wives increased in the 11 states with unchanged laws also, yet remained the same in no-fault divorce states. For women, the change was greatest: Women victims of spousal violence declined by 1.7 percent from 12.8 percent in the reform states in the same period that spousal violence against women increased 2.5 percentage points in the non-reform states.

    No-fault Divorce Laws May Have Improved Women’s Well-being

  • uis@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Ronald Reagan of California

    King Ronald Reagan of California.

    signed the nation’s first no-fault divorce law, allowing people to end their marriages without proving they’d been wronged. The move was a recognition that “people were going to get out of marriages,” Zug said, and gave them a way to do that without resorting to subterfuge.

    Do you hear it? The sound of communism, my friend.

  • kamenoko@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    “It harms men.”

    So does rat poison. You walk back no fault divorce get ready for a return of mysterious deaths of shitty men.

          • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            This is how I felt about Roe being overturned several years ago. It would unleash hell on Republicans and make them incredibly unpopular, but it would not be worth the cost of women suffering.

            And unfortunately, I was right. It has proved utterly disastrous to Republicans, but a lot of women have suffered. People have had to go through pain and experiences that no one should ever have to – except perhaps the conservative SCOTUS justices, Trump, and Republican senators.