Republicans Say: Make It Hard to Divorce Again
The Party of Trump wants to stop your divorce. Independence? For whom?
There’s an argument behind almost every divorce. A silent or implied argument, perhaps, if one spouse has already left or if they’re both tired of talking to each other.
When the argument is brought to court for a judge to decide, the divorce is called “contested.” Alternatively, if the spouses resolve their complaint privately, the court sees their divorce as “uncontested.”
In the United States, one spouse sometimes alleges that the other is “at fault” for destroying the marriage. In the past, the aggrieved spouse had to cite a legally valid ground for seeking divorce: domestic violence, extramarital affairs, drunkenness, abandonment, and so on. Then, they had to prove in court what had happened to them. This placed an extra burden on the victim.
Whether a divorce is contested is different from whether there was fault. Some spouses may argue with each other about something that’s no one’s fault, while in other cases, one spouse may ’fess up to having done something wrong and settle with their ex to swiftly finalize their divorce and avoid trial.
For a long time, no-fault divorce has been the most common option in the United States. The nation has…
