[general_re]

"Would you support changing the law to end no-fault divorces?"

Yes.

Unfortunately, I don't really think that will have much of an impact on the divorce rate. It wasn't that long ago that the state of New York had no provision at all for no-fault divorce, and even now it's still fairly limited when compared to many other states, but the divorce rate in New York wasn't any lower than the rest of the country. Essentially, eliminating no-fault divorce only forces people - who are bound and determined to split up no matter what - to invent a reason that fits within the acceptable grounds laid out by the law. E.g., back in the day, "mental cruelty", as vague as that is, was one of the most often cited reasons for divorce, and the vast majority of the time, family court judges are loathe to really question someone's reasons for wanting a divorce - she says he's mentally abusing her, and judges don't really get too far into investigating the truth of that, particularly if the divorce is uncontested. They just rubber-stamp it and move on to the next case.

Realistically, the law has made divorce very easy since the late 1800's in most places, no-fault or not - it's really not much harder to get a divorce nowadays than it was in 1890. The difference between now and then is almost purely cultural, not legal - back then, divorce was seen as something of a badge of shame, unlike today, which had the effect of making divorces rarer than today.

This is not to say that ending no-fault divorce is somehow a bad idea, just that I don't think it's a panacea by any means. The real change will have to be cultural, not legal - when divorce is frowned upon by society, divorces will decline, regardless of what the law does or doesn't say.

[WOSG]

I disagree wrt the impact of no fault divorces because imho we are talking about what happens in the courts, not just what the law is. In the same way for example, our 'deport only after years and years of appeals' BIA courts have implemented 'open borders', there is the written law and the law that really exists in the courtrooms.

What you are saying is that the courts have implemented 'de facto' no fault divorces in their behavior towards divorce. I agree. Indeed, I can bring up horror stories of lies told and believed about 'abusive' husbands that divorced wives and men-unfriendly family courts use to deny men their rights to custody. The whole family court system has been 'feminized' in an anti-male and anti-family way (your mileage may vary). No fault divorce is just one obvious example of a host of changes. Go back to 1890 and you might be able to divorces but (a) the *men* would get child custody and (b) child support was not common. Incentives matter, and there was no legal basis for a woman to utterly abandon her mate yet demand years of financial support. This is a huge change, and one that has favored family break-up.

Your mileage varies state by state, but I would guess that New York on balance gives as much imbalance in favor of family break-up in the divorce system as other states.
So fixing no-fault divorce is step in the right direction, but only one step.

Finally: No law can make a corrupted culture non-corrupt.