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Marriage may be difficult, but divorce is difficult too. Married people often feel trapped, for divorce is frightening, painful, expensive, and subject to social disapproval, and it is one of the few important institutions in our culture for which there is no formal ritual. Birth, marriage, death, all have formal cultural rituals associated with them-divorce does not. Furthermore, there is evidence that even when divorce is feasible, it is not always the ideal solution for marital difficulties. Among white people, those who have been divorced have the highest suicide rate, and there are often emotional problems in children whose parents have experienced divorce or desertion. Most divorced people can’t stand loneliness-they try promiscuity and booze, and become more despairing; then they try remarriage, and here the divorce rate is still high, though some do better in the second marriage than they did in the first. When a person moves on into second, third, fourth, and fifth marriages, the chance that he will succeed becomes increasingly small. We end up saying that marriage is hard to live with and hard to live without.
On February 1, 1966, the state of California began a massive attempt to gather information on the background of divorces, in order to provide data for professionals trying to develop ways to lower the incredible divorce rate. Each of the major counties in California had over a thousand divorces in 1965, and San Mateo County reached seventy divorces for every one hundred marriages.
In California all lawsuits for divorce, annulment, and separate maintenance now are to be accompanied by a comprehensive questionnaire completed by both the husband and the wife. The state hopes to find out what factors are particularly important in divorce. Religious differences, ages of the spouses, race, and finances, and so on, will be examined.
The resulting statistics may also have other uses. In January, 1966, in San Francisco, a young widow and her son sued the city for $500,000 in damages because her husband of one month had been killed in a traffic accident on the city’s streetcar system. However, the city called in an expert from the University of California. He examined the case, considering such factors as the different religions of husband and wife, the fact that the girl was pregnant before/marriage, and the fact that both she and her husband were teenagers and that both had been raised in Marin County, where the divorce rate is exceedingly high, and concluded that the marriage would probably have been doomed even if the man had lived. The jury, deciding that the expert knew at least something about the matter, awarded the widow $145,000 instead of $500,000.
There soon may be a constitutional proposal in California for the creation of a State Department of Family Relations. This amendment, generally known as the Sitton-Winterfeld Initiative, is backed by a number of people throughout the state who feel that the present divorce procedures are terribly unfair and create more dissension among divorced people than is necessary. In particular, opponents of the existing divorce laws object strenuously to the adversary system, in which one of the separating mates, usually the husband, must be found guilty of some degree of cruelty-”extreme,” “mental,” or whatever-before a divorce can be granted. (Desertion and adultery are also grounds for divorce in California, but are rarely used.) The resulting courtroom confrontations produce perjured testimony and lasting bitterness that forever precludes reconciliation and leaves the children caught between two parents, who remain bitter and antagonistic even though divorced and living apart.
The backers (largely male) of this bill are also concerned about the monetary considerations involved. In particular, they feel that citizens are at the mercy of avaricious lawyers who provide quick divorces for couples with limited financial resources, but manage to introduce long, complicated procedures, with correspondingly large fees, when their clients are wealthy. They feel that the child-support payments in general are fair, but that provisions for the settlement of the estate and for alimony are way out of line.
The proposed State Department of Family Relations would have a governing board of six elected directors and regional boards in family-relation centers which could establish educational programs in family-relations matters. The department would have exclusive jurisdiction, subject to an appellate-court review, over divorce, annulment, and separate-maintenance proceedings. Parties could be represented by agents who were not attorneys. Divorces would be granted without regard to “guilt,” and they would be effective immediately; the current one-year interlocutory decree would be abolished. Alimony and support payments would be based on the ability to pay and on need.
The sponsors of the measure say the plan would work as follows:
The plan operates on a local basis in the county with a board of three county directors. These will be psychologists, sociologists, marriage counselors so they will have related educational backgrounds with experience in human relations.
A staff of referees-investigators, accountants, social workers and other specialists will handle individual cases. The emphasis at this level is on premarital and post-marital education and direct aid in altering problems.
Individuals in need of help may come to family arbitration center for informal discussion of their problems. If reconciliation methods fail and it is found advisable to terminate the marriage, divorce, annulment or separate maintenance will be granted by the three members of the Family Arbitration Board in an equitable and just manner. The rulings would have the same force and effect as a court of law.
The sponsors of the bill feel that obtaining divorces will not be “easier” under their proposed setup, and no increase in the divorce rate is anticipated. They claim instead that a complete and thorough investigation will be required, and divorces will be granted only when it is determined that the marriage should not continue. Counseling prior to the initiation of divorce proceedings should, by all accounts, act as a deterrent to the irresponsible or impetuous divorce begun in an escalating breakdown of communication. The sponsors feel that the program will be geared to prevent family breakups, and that there will be savings in welfare costs, juvenile-crime costs, legal fees, and other related costs. Operating revenue will be obtained from fees charged by the department.
It is likely that the proposed bill will stimulate great opposition. It is also apparent that many of the bill’s proponents are males who have been burned by the financial inequities of the present legal system. Nevertheless, it is a healthy and important sign that people are looking critically at the divorce situation. Under a brilliant and facile attorney, Robert Furlong, the judicial committee of the state assembly in California recently held hearings on divorce procedures and accumulated a great deal of evidence about current methods, trends, and inequities.
There is little doubt that the present system in most states strongly favors the woman as far as financial matters are concerned. Consequently, a man may enter marriage already on the defensive, since no one gets married without at least thinking about the possibility of divorce. The legal situation thus encourages the battle of the sexes. The popular idea that making divorce financially punitive for the man will reduce its frequency is an ill-conceived notion, to say the least, and belongs in the same destructive social category as capital punishment. ‘”
Psychiatrists, psychologists, and marriage counselors have recognized for some time that often the process of marital separation is relatively smooth, with due consideration shown by the spouses for the children and for each other, until attorneys enter the picture and the man and woman are forced to squabble over money. One of our acquaintances who were arranging to get a divorce attempted to be extremely fair to his wife and children, and was thoroughly rebuked by his attorney for being too generous. He had only recovered from this lecture when his wife’s attorney called to ask how he could be such a cold-hearted skinflint. In this case, the behavior of both attorneys was so untoward that the spouses finally came together to discuss their problems in person, and worked out their own settlement. Then they looked hard and long for a single attorney to represent them both.
In war, we encourage the bravery which leads men to get themselves killed, for example, by superb performance in the face of enemy fire, and then we go to fantastic lengths to save the lives of those who are wounded. This behavior is not paradoxical; we are saying, ‘We want you to be brave, and you may thereby die; but if you are brave and live, we will see that you receive all the rewards we can offer.”
Marriage too, is encouraged by the culture, but there have been little compensation for the wounded; they are just told that they shouldn’t have been hurt in the first place and it’s their own fault if they were. Even the “cooling-off” period provided by the interlocutory decree is of little use; by the time it is obtained, the preceding legal maneuverings have so stirred up the roaring fires that it is often too late for cooling off.
The Australian system seems far more realistic. In Australia, divorce is not permitted until a marriage has been in existence at least three years (annulments may be granted sooner under certain unusual circumstances). Thus people are not able to rush in and out of marriage. Before a divorce is granted, conciliation is attempted and every resource which might help save the marriage is utilized. But if a divorce is obtained, it becomes effective immediately. Our system reminds one of capital punishment; we cling to it despite years of testimony that punishment does not serve as a deterrent.
When a divorce is necessary, the separation should be amicable.
This is particularly important if there are children, since they become cross monitors; that is, all unawares, they transmit messages from one parent to the other-s-often hateful messages.
The traditional practice among psychiatrists and marriage therapists has been neither to recommend divorce nor to stand in the way of a couple wishing a divorce. This canniness is desirable. There are so many complicated factors in any marital breakup that it is difficult to see the situation as a coherent whole. Often it is only after a person has been divorced that he can look at the marriage and decide realistically whether he is better or worse off than he was before it was dissolved. If a third person enters the picture, he is apt to be blamed for causing the divorce, even if, in fact, the couple had wished it but lacked the guts to go through with it until they were on the brink and called in the third party to act as a go-between.
In our opinion, there is one fact that stands out in most family breakdowns. The best reason for divorce is that the man and wife cannot function together without serious damage to one or both, physically or emotionally.
October 22nd, 2008 at 12:23 am
I think that in a divorce after 32 years of marriage the one that suffers the most is the woman. when she is 50 and thinks that she will live with the “other lover” that was the one that created the divorce, I can only say that the woman will be very unhappy if she thinks that this so called lover (younger) will be the one that will bring happiness. Statistics show that if a older lover approched the divorced woman 50 wiil leave her when he finds a younger woman and if a younger lover is the one he will live her after he sucks al her money and finds a younger girl. The husband if he is a profesional and good looking will alwayss find a woman. The one that suffers the most is the woman specially if there are children (18 and up)