Posted on 03/19/2004 4:58:57 PM PST by CatherineSiena
In the year 860, a king named Lothair II sought a divorce from his wife, Theutberga. Her marital transgressions, according to the king, included incest and sorcery. Theutberga denied the charges and demanded a trial by ordeal. A stand-in jumped into a kettle of boiling water and emerged unscathed, proving Theutberga's innocence.
Nothing so dramatic awaits Marie Macfarlane, a 41-year-old mother of four from Westlake. But a trial is what she wants.
Her husband, William "Bud" Macfarlane, has filed for divorce, accusing his wife of "extreme cruelty" and "gross neglect of duty" - a brutal legalese that she says cannot describe her marriage. So Marie, a devout Catholic, is taking a stand not often seen today: She's fighting to stop the divorce altogether.
"I'm innocent. There's no way my husband is going to prove that," she said of the charges raised against her in Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court. "From my perspective, I'm being punished and my children have been punished because my husband is having a lapse in character."
William Macfarlane and his lawyer, Thomas LaFond, would not comment for this story.
Avoiding an unwanted divorce is much harder than it was in Theutberga's day, when the pope would refuse one even for a king.
These days, divorce is commonplace, and of less moral stigma than it used to be.
Where once some states didn't even recognize it, today a Nevada boarding house known as the home of the "quickie" divorce is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Where once some states didn't even recognize divorce, today a Nevada boarding house known as the home of the "quickie" divorce is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Marie Macfarlane is among the growing number of people who don't think this is a healthy trend. Some researchers and sociologists, both conservative and liberal, have come to view marriage as an essential social institution, benefiting children in particular. With politicians, they've coalesced into a so-called "marriage movement" seeking to promote long-lasting marriages, and to employ the government to help.
Couples in Arizona, Arkansas and Louisiana now can agree to "covenant marriages," contracts creating self-imposed obstacles to divorce stricter than those in existing law. Citing the high number of single parents and children in poverty, President Bush and Congress have encouraged marriage - and, by implication, discouraged divorce - in their welfare-reform agendas.
"There is a cultural war going on over values in this society," said Macfarlane's lawyer, Kevin Senich. "It's influencing the way some people are looking at divorce court and their rights."
Threads of those traditional attitudes can still be found in many state divorce laws, including Ohio's.
Divorce in Ohio is still viewed as a contest, with one spouse proving the guilt of the other to win a decree from a judge. But in response to the "no-fault" divorce reforms of the 1970s, lawmakers made it easier for couples to divorce if both spouses say they are incompatible, or if they have been separated for a year. (Couples also can receive a marriage dissolution if they come to court with a joint agreement in hand.)
Otherwise, a divorcing husband or wife must prove one of 11 grounds against his or her spouse, such as abandonment, adultery, bigamy, "habitual drunkenness" or fraud. The grounds most commonly invoked are the most subjective ones: extreme cruelty and gross neglect of duty.
While the law seems to juggle both traditional and liberal views of marriage and divorce, the courts seem to tilt to the latter, broadly defining what's cruel or neglectful to minimize litigation and avoid leaving people in unhappy marriages.
Trials in domestic court are uncommon, and they tend to be about child custody or property, not whether a divorce should be granted in the first place.
"If somebody wants a divorce, they usually get it," said Lorain County Domestic Relations Court Judge David Basinski, who has denied just four divorce petitions in 15 years.
Because the law presumes there are grounds for a divorce after a one-year separation, some judges see little reason to dismiss divorce cases only to see the couples come back after a year apart. Last year, more than 3,900 divorce petitions and 1,900 dissolution agreements were filed in Cuyahoga County.
"Even if we don't grant the divorce, we can't make people live together," said Timothy Flanagan, administrative judge for the Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court.
So in those rare cases like Macfarlane's, where one spouse doesn't want a divorce, the trials can become somewhat farcical, as the lawyers massage one person's unhappiness to fit the law's definition of extreme cruelty or gross neglect. And judges are given great discretion to decide when that threshold is met.
Records of court cases from around the state show that the most everyday annoyances can add up to extreme cruelty. The husband who avoided housework and made noise while his wife studied? Extremely cruel.
The name-calling husband who wouldn't cough up the money to fix the house? Extremely cruel.
So was the obnoxious pot-smoker, the wife who refused to cook or clean, the guy who called his wife "squaw," and the woman who wanted to bury her husband next to her two ex-husbands.
"Courts have become very creative in finding fault," said Senich, who also is challenging the grounds of a divorce in appeals court. "It's eroded people's desire to stick through the bad patches in a marriage."
This doesn't sit well with Macfarlane, for whom divorce still carries a stigma. She says she wants to reconcile with her husband of 13 years, but fears the court procedures are aimed at splitting them up, rather than offering alternatives that could help her and her husband avoid it.
"I believe we do have the ability to be happily married," Macfarlane says. "Isn't it worth giving reconciliation a shot? Maybe not every marriage will get fixed, but some of them will."
Flanagan says the current law is better with the modern reforms. In the '60s and early '70s, when fault had to be shown in all divorces, a spouse could threaten to challenge the grounds as leverage for a more lucrative settlement of property or alimony.
"We were finding that grounds were being used as a bargaining tool and people had to buy their way into getting a divorce," Flanagan said. "It wasn't right."
But Flanagan doesn't believe Ohio should adopt a purely no-fault system, like California and 15 other states.
"To some people, the grounds are very important, and I think we should have that opportunity," he said.
Dear Bud MacFarlane:
I’ve been receiving your Catholicity e-mail for several years. When my husband and I first met, and I told him I was considering signing up for RCIA, if I could find the courage to tell my father (Southern Baptist), he lent me Pierced By A Sword. It didn’t influence my decision to join the Church, but it did help me find my courage. Telling my father went much better than I had expected – he told me that if that’s what I felt God was calling me to do, then I should do it. So my relationship with Catholicity actually predates my relationship with the Church. When I went to make my first Confession (30 years of mortal sin since my Baptism) I played the Confession tape in my car several times before I had the courage to go in. I’ve placed a lot of trust in the Mary Foundation all along.
I was obviously devastated to read of your intent to divorce your wife. Perhaps as a fairly new Catholic (received at Easter Vigil, 2000), I place more emphasis on the Church’s teachings than a cradle Catholic might, but in the light of the many essays you’ve written and sent out as Catholicity Messages, I don’t think so. I cannot comprehend how you can deliberately violate the vows you took as a husband before God. You cannot possibly expect to receive an annulment from the Church – even if your local Canon office issues one, your wife is entitled to appeal to Rome, and again in light of your very public past writings on marriage, will undoubtedly prevail. You and Bai are married for as long as you both shall live. I can’t believe you have overlooked this in your eagerness to divorce. I don’t understand why you feel the need for a legal divorce – you can’t remarry, and it’s difficult to believe you feel the need to protect yourself from your wife either financially or physically.
When you married, you knew that for a marriage to be sacramental, there had to be an openness to life. God has blessed you with four living children, and at least one in Heaven (who I promise you prays constantly for the reconciliation of his/her parents). I expect your children on earth do the same. Your responsibility in this life is now primarily to those children, as I’m sure you know. Do you honestly believe you are fulfilling that responsibility by abandoning their mother and becoming another absentee father?
I’m also concerned with the inherent dishonesty in concealing the breakup of your marriage from your Catholicity subscribers – no one wants or needs to know the intimate details of the problems in your marriage, but to bypass the truth the way you have done (and I re-read all the messages you have sent since last spring) speaks volumes as to the state of your conscience.
I can only assume that it is your intention to turn your back, not only upon your family, but on the Truth of which you have so often written. As a convert, I recognize the preciousness of the Faith, and I am deeply sorry that you do not. Your current actions force me to question the sincerity of any of your writings, and of your beliefs as a Catholic. I hope that your current problems can be traced to a medical disorder, for which I pray healing, as I do for your marriage.
In as much charity as I can muster,
Warm regards,
Nina [personal information redacted]
A woman could learn a lot from your wife. Thanks :-)
Just came across this (then cryptic, now obvious) text from a newsletter written by Bud the month he abandoned his family:
If you have issues with obeying imperfect men, remember that Mary and Jesus did not have a problem obeying Joseph. They also recognized that he, not they, was the head of his family.
I've recently been challenged, even to the point of slander and intimidation, to abandon my ascent to the universal, timeless, and infallible Catholic teaching that the husband is the head and ruler of his family. I will obey the Truth, of course. I do not want to burn in hell for rejecting Catholic teaching. I'm grateful that my parents taught me to obey without hesitation. That's the greatest gift a parent can give to a son or daughter.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/963610/posts
I wonder where Bud is today. Does he regret what he did?
Actually, this couple is one and the same as the Mary Foundation couple. Unfortunately, Bud McFarlane, author of Conceived Without Sin, Pierced By a Sword and House of Gold, is seeking a divorce from his wife, Bai. It's a very sad situation.
Yes, unfortunately we found out a long time ago he left his family and belongs to a pseudoCatholic cult.
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