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.
This should require anyone working on these laws that is divorced to be retroactively married to their ex-spouse automatically.
No, because they had a valid reason to get divorced, unlike everyone else.
Just like their abortion.
I know more than one woman who fled one of these convenant marriage states. One still can't get the divorce officialized because her toxic abusive husband keeps insisting on an endless parade of marriage counseling, via answers to the divorce court.
I don't know if forcing her back into the marriage because that same abusive husband started working for a legislative lobbying outfit would be productive.
I have had enough of conservatives climbing into the tree house and pulling up the ladder behind them.
Some, they say, can't get married. Now they want to say who can split up. Let's see them live the walk they talk first.
You know for sure they will find a reason why they can't live the walk.
And they are probably afraid that their wives will leave them because they are pieces of shit.