Posted on 11/26/2007 10:26:35 AM PST by Responsibility2nd
The last statistic I'm familiar with is that 66% of the divorces in this country are filed by women and 80% of those use the no-fault option. Within the last couple of years we have approached half of marriages ending in divorce. This is because of no-fault. It is destroying the basic unit that holds the country together.
That a few marriages deserve to be ended by there least restrictive option makes no difference to the integrity of the option at all. Law seeks to do the greatest good to the greatest number and the least harm to the least number. It can never do no harm at all.
No-fault does the greatest harm to the greatest number.
You are saying this is not true. There must be new data available, so show it to me.
No-fault divorce is like placing a loaded gun at every street corner for public use. Use it wisely now!
A divorce then had to have a cause and it had to be proved in front of a court of record, unlike "family courts", legislative tribunals. This placed women on exactly the same level of field as men.
And, if the woman proved her case, the common law that governed the proceeding then actually was harder on a man. But the allegations had to be proved.
Go ahead. Go down and check the records.
I actually love women, but I know the difference between a hawk and a handsaw, and I know which end wags and which end bites.
Current laws certainly benefit women more than the old laws, where women didn’t actually own anything and there was no enforcement of child support at all, yes.
Now women actually own property in the marriage and have rights... they’re ~gasp~ full citizens.
No one likes divorce but I don’t see adding blame as fixing anything, and I don’t support going back to the old days, no. You’re not going to get this cat back in the bag that easy. Divorce is more common now because societal views on it have changed, not because anyone views it as a walk in the park. You’re wanting to ban the egg, but the root cause is the chickens. Unless and until more people take their vows more seriously, not just skimming over the ‘for worse’ part, they’ll continue to divorce when they don’t like being married anymore. Americans are stubborn, we don’t like being told what to do, men or women, up to and including staying with someone who bores, annoys or irritates us. Americans are spoiled, and we don’t think we need to stay and work through and bear a little boredom and annoyance. Fix THAT. Make people take their vows more seriously, and you’ll have a fix... a better fix than requiring couples to show up for the mandated mud slinging in court. Because they’ll do it, they just won’t be better for it.
Propose what you’d like to do and how it will help.
We’re just going to have to agree to disagree.
The police power of the state is the most ancient principle of government known to man. It can to us along with the common law from England.
Do me a favor. Go down to your local law library, or online, and look up police power in "Words and Phrases". Read the cases about it. I know you can find the Slaughterhouse Cases, a USSC case, online. It is a landmark police power case. Read it. Then get back to me.
Show how divorce directly and concretely "threaten(s) the health, welfare and safety of the people of the state".
You forgot to say "Show how no-fault divorce. . .". You left out the word "no-fault". An oversight, I'm sure.
The fact that now half of all marriages end in divorce because of no-fault and it alone, when the basic binding unit of our society and nation is the family, even families that don't get along well. There are others, but that's sufficient. A house with a rotten foundation, falls.
You say, get the law changed. And I ask, how specifically and feasibly?
I guess my answer in response to that question is how long should innocent people (spouse and children) be made to suffer under an unconstitutional law?
When a person is sued for something that cannot be adequately described, the plaintiff and the court cannot give a threshold for how much it takes to determine what constitutes a breach and you're deprived of your right to trial by jury of your peers, shouldn't the unconstitutional law be overturned? The supreme court won't hear a challenge to divorce laws because of the abstention doctrine.
The police power of the state is the most ancient principle of government known to man. It can to us along with the common law from England.
Transparent strawman.
I never said that the state has no police power, only that no-fault divorce does not rise to the level of "threaten(ing) the health, welfare and safety of the people of the state" and consequently the state may not use its police power to prohibit it.
Show how divorce directly and concretely "threaten(s) the health, welfare and safety of the people of the state".
You forgot to say "Show how no-fault divorce. . .". You left out the word "no-fault". An oversight, I'm sure.
It was, actually. I amend the question, which you dodged (an oversight, I'm sure).
You say, get the law changed. And I ask, how specifically and feasibly?
The same way you get any law changed.
Conservatives are supposed to believe in the rule of law, right? That's one of the bedrocks of our philosophy?
Or are you seriously advocating using the use of the state's police power to settle a political argument you don't think you can win?
Assuming both parents are sane and of sound mind (and not under the influence of drugs,) I agree.
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Oh, I most definitely agree with your assessment. My scenario assumes that we are talking about two people who do not present an actual danger to the children through addiction or psycho behavior. It would be horribly wrong to keep a child in a marriage where one of the spouses could cause physical harm to the child.
Even though I do not present any stats to back it up, I am confident in assuming that the majority of divorces in the US are not based on such dangers but on one or the other of the parties just not “feelin’ the love” any more— a direct consequence of the “me first” attitude among so many.
The scenario you mention (non psychotic, not feeling the love) is exactly why my parents divorced.
However it shook out, here I am. However, considering my parents hadn’t spoken a kind word to each other in the last 2 years of their marriage, I don’t know, as a kid, if I’d have rather continued that arrangement or not.
I got much closer to both parents after the divorce since I was a teenager and had more good talks with both of them as they weren’t preoccupied in dealing with the antics of the other.
A child is happier when his parents are happier.
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Most definitely. I am not advocating for a child-centric marriage. I personally know two sets of children who are being emotionally stunted by child-centric parents. There is a difference between basing all of the family’s activities on what the poor little bored darlings want to do and making children’s welfare a major goal. As a matter of fact the former negatively impacts the latter.
A marriage should first be about the couple; they need to work on their relationship, which, in some cases takes more effort. And such work requires adult time/couple time such as the kind of activities you describe. But I submit that many choose to define what makes them happy in terms that are selfish. Happiness can be attained without destroying a child’s world.
Please don’t assume that I am saying that parents should stay together under any circumstances. If mommy is drugging all day or daddy is a wife beater, all bets are off. But I am willing to bet that in the majority of cases it’s just a case of “I want something else”.
BTW, in my ideal world, people behave toward their children and their spouses this way our of a sense of duty. We need a change of heart in our culture; this cannot be legislated.
Can you help me understand the two scenarios below?
1. I fire an employee I had hired a week ago.
2. My wife of 8+ years files for no-fault divorce, I have been faithful, providing and non-abusive.
Who would have more rights and legal protection in front of a court, the employee or the faithful husband?
see my post 36. I’ve been there, done that .
I’d rather be waterboarded for days than go through the “family” courts under MN “no-fault” laws.
It’s truly ridiculous.
“A lawyer is never entirely comfortable with a friendly divorce, anymore than a good mortician wants to finish his job and then have the patient sit up on the table.”
Perhaps if you want to quote theology in your vows you would ponder Christ message telling us to now promise anything under heaven and earth but rather let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. The reason He stated not to make promises is because as humans, we are imperfect and control very little in this universe. I am glad it seems you have a healthy relationship. For those of us who don’t it doesn’t mean we don’t embrace the character and example of God to love unconditionally. But that also doesn’t mean you have to stay married and co-inhabit the same space when you are abused for years.
I am no sissy, but you obviously did not marry a Latino fire brand with mental issues of violence and disrespect to you. If you did, your Romeo and Juliet philosophy of your spouse might be radically different. That said, I wish you all the best and don’t mean to sound bitter. More like grieved I guess that no matter what I have tried to do, I can’t save her. And it is a choice with my spouse, she has issues but is very different say when we got seperated for a year when I was going to leave permanently the first time. Should have stayed gone.
Mostly agree and the root cause was the free sex generation of the sixties. Single parents and there offspring are missing one key ingrediant (a Mom or Dad) to a child’s mental state. Free sex and the welfare state that greatly rewarded single Mom’s of the 90’s didn’t help either. I had two women friends who kept getting knocked up so they could keep living off the government. Now, admittedly it is not Trump Plaza living but I did like the remedy to offer education to find a good career and then shut off the aid after so long. Now we do have a spoiled Gen X and Y generation where video games babysat the kids. How can you return to values of mutual respect and a moral standard? I don’t think you can in today’s world of immediate connection to global libraries of sex and violence, more of the same on cable T.V. etc. etc. etc.
while this article makes better points than the previous thread you refer to - there still seems to be that spin of bitterness and blame towards the women.
It’s funny how these recent articles posted never mention the plight of many women who made sacrifices for their husbands and children, only to be cheated on and left in poverty without ever receiving the promised child support payments.
If the current situation seems in favor of women - go back a few years when it was very easy for men to abandon their families, maintain his standard of living with his new woman, while his ex and children fought for survival.
This is what happened to my grandmother and mother-in-law.
If people want reform of the current laws they have to address injustices that occur to both men and women.
Granted the old ways you wrote about favored men. Some may not agree with that, but I’ll give you that point.
However....
There were far fewer divorces back in the old days of your grandmother and mother in law.
It was very rare indeed for divorce to happen, and when it did, it was shameful.
Now?
Now we have marriages failing at neatly 50%. We are a broken society. As our home and families go, so goes our Nation. We need to increase the pain of divorce. Tax the dumb suckers who divorce. Why not? They are destroying the moral fabric of this country.
If we make divorce an even more expensive and difficult process. Better yet... if we make staying married profitable, then our children will grow up as you and I did; in stable, secure, economically viable homes with fewer dropouts - fewer children of broken homes overcrowding our prisons and over-taxing our bloated welfare systems.
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