Colorado’s No-Fault Divorce
The concept that 2 people can get a divorce and it isn’t either’s fault almost seems like a foreign concept in our own rationalities. Many divorcing or divorced individuals can give lists of reasons their marriage failed and often times lists of faults of their ex. But a no-fault divorce only means that the requirement for the divorce is not limited to certain “faults” of one party. In the past some states would require that one party had admitted to committing adultery, abandonment or a felony in order to seek the divorce. If the requirement was not met, a judge could order that the couple remain married.
Since 1985 all 50 states have had some form of no-fault divorce. Studies have shown some trends that can be related to no-fault divorce laws in each state. In the 5 years immediately after a state would gain no-fault divorce, statistics show a growth in divorces but after that the divorce rate tends to lower, even lower than it was before the law. Another positive trend discovered in a study by Stanford Business School in 2004 is that female suicide has dropped by 20% and domestic violence among women has dropped by 33%. Some believe this evidence points to the fact that divorce is much easier to acquire therefore spouses are trying harder to hang onto their marriages.
About the author...
