{"id":12522,"date":"2010-12-23T23:01:20","date_gmt":"2010-12-24T04:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=12522"},"modified":"2010-12-23T23:01:20","modified_gmt":"2010-12-24T04:01:20","slug":"do-we-believe-in-no-fault-divorce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2010\/12\/do-we-believe-in-no-fault-divorce\/","title":{"rendered":"Do We Believe in No-Fault Divorce?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Style section of the Sunday New York Times usually has two pages of thumbnail wedding announcements (complete with tiny, charming photos), and one larger box entitled \u201cVows,\u201d in which one lucky couple\u2019s union is featured.\u00a0 This past Sunday, the Vows column<\/a> created a firestorm. \u00a0 The featured couple \u2013 Carol Anne Riddell and John Partilla \u2013 proudly described how their romance began when they were both married to other people, and how they met in a pre-kindergarten classroom at the school attended by their children (each has two children from a first marriage).\u00a0 Although they assert that they kept it platonic for a long while, they eventually declared their love for each other, divorced their first spouses, and celebrated their marriage in the recent ceremony featured in the Times.\u00a0 They described their life together as full of love, although they concede that they have hurt their former spouses and children, and they profess regret for having done so.<\/p>\n

Certainly Riddell and Partilla aren\u2019t the first unfaithful spouses to end up together, and they won\u2019t be the last.\u00a0 What is surprising is the frenzy of overwhelmingly negative reader comments to the Times.\u00a0 \u201cWhy does the Times glorify home-wrecking?\u201d queried David from NY.\u00a0 A commenter identifying himself as Dr. Dubs from NYC was outraged: \u201cSo you\u2019re telling me, as long as I\u2019m happy, who cares what happens to my legally wedded spouse and kids?\u201d he stormed.\u00a0 \u201cThis story reeks of selfishness.\u201d\u00a0 Funny valentine from New Jersey commented that the Vows column \u201cwas absolutely the saddest story in the NYT, save the obits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why the uproar in this era of no-fault divorce, not to mention in a society with a divorce rate of around 50 percent? <\/p>\n

The whole idea of no-fault divorce is that marriages typically fail for a host of reasons, and there is plenty of blame to go around.\u00a0 Rarely is there a good guy and a bad guy: people may grow apart, or they may be mutually hurtful and rejecting of each other over a period of time.\u00a0 Forcing couples into a legal proceeding meant to establish who was guilty and who was innocent led to a lot of mudslinging, which was harmful to the divorcing spouses and especially toxic to their children.<\/p>\n

And yet . . . unrepented infidelity seems to touch a particular nerve with people.\u00a0 Perhaps it was the perceived glorification of the new relationship, or perhaps it was a sense of identification with the former spouses.\u00a0 Comment after comment expressed sympathy for the unknown spurned ex-spouses, and comment after comment noted the negative effects of divorce on children.\u00a0 Indeed, many studies have found negative effects of divorce on children, although the level and duration of harm may vary with factors such as levels of conflict between the divorcing parents.\u00a0 It seems here that the concern for the children was a reflection of the fact that most readers assumed that the children would naturally suffer if their parents acted in a way that those readers viewed as selfish and self-glorifying.<\/p>\n

One problem with no-fault divorce is thought to be that many divorcing couples will feel the need to justify themselves, and may move accusations of fault to other parts of the proceeding, leading to more ferocious custody or property disputes.\u00a0 There is no evidence that this is the case: divorce has always produced conflicts over money and children, but there does not seem to be a trend towards more contentious settlement now that the actual divorce is assured.\u00a0 Some social commentators have opined that we have become blas\u00e9 about divorce.\u00a0 Judging by the reactions to the Times column, though, many of us are not blas\u00e9 about either marriage or divorce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Style section of the Sunday New York Times usually has two pages of thumbnail wedding announcements (complete with tiny, charming photos), and one larger box entitled \u201cVows,\u201d in which one lucky couple\u2019s union is featured.\u00a0 This past Sunday, the Vows column created a firestorm. \u00a0 The featured couple \u2013 Carol Anne Riddell and John […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-law","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}