Five Myths about No-Fault Divorce
June 3, 2008 | Posted by ANCPR
| by Stephen Baskerville |
| Source 6/03/08 |
|
Almost four decades after the “no-fault” divorce revolution began in California, misconceptions abound. Even the many books about divorce, including myriad self-help manuals, are full of inaccurate and misleading information. No public debate preceded the introduction of no-fault divorce laws in the 1970s, and no debate has taken place since.
Yet divorce-on-demand is exacting a devastating toll on our children, our social order, our economy, and even our constitutional rights. A recentstudy estimates the financial cost of divorce to taxpayers at $112 billion annually. Recent demands to legitimize same-sex marriage almost certainly follow from the divorce revolution, since gay activists readily acknowledge that they only desire to marry under the loosened terms that have resulted from the new divorce laws. Divorce also contributes to a dangerous increase in the power of the state over private life.
Here are some of the most common clichés and misconceptions about modern divorce, along with the facts.
Myth 1: No-fault divorce permitted divorce by mutual consent, thus making divorce less acrimonious.
Fact: No-fault divorce is unilateral divorce. It permits divorce by one spouse acting alone for any reason or no reason. No “grounds” are required, and the involuntarily divorced spouse need commit no legal infraction, either criminal or civil. It is therefore forced divorce, meaning you can be divorced over your objections. (Some 80 percent of divorces today are unilateral.)
Even more serious, you can be forcibly separated from your children, your home, and your property, also through literally “no fault” of your own. Failure to cooperate with the divorce opens the innocent spouse to criminal penalties. No-fault divorce made divorce far more destructive by allowing the state to undertake court proceedings against innocent people, confiscate everything they have, and incarcerate them without trial.
Myth 2: We cannot force people to remain married and should not try.
Fact: It is not a matter of forcing anyone to remain married. The issue is taking responsibility for one’s actions in abrogating an agreement. With no-fault divorce, the spouse who divorces without grounds or otherwise breaks the marriage agreement (for example, by adultery or desertion) thereby incurs no onus of responsibility. Indeed, that spouse gains advantages.
Courts therefore do not dispense justice against a legal wrong. Instead, every divorce is granted automatically, and the courts simply divvy up the goods — including the children — according to any criteria they choose, including separating the innocent spouse from his or her children without having to give any reason. Because the divorce creates work and earnings for judges, lawyers, and other court personnel, there is a strong incentive for these officials to reward the guilty spouse in order to encourage more divorces and more business for the courts. As Charles Dickens pointed out, “The one great principle of the . . . law is to make business for itself.”
Myth 3: No-fault divorce has led men to abandon their wives and children.
Fact: This does happen (wives more often than children), but it is greatly exaggerated. The vast majority of no-fault divorces — especially those involving children — are filed by wives. In fact, as Judy Parejko, author ofStolen Vows, has shown, the no-fault revolution was engineered largely by feminist lawyers, with the cooperation of the bar associations, as part of the sexual revolution. Overwhelmingly, it has served to separate large numbers of children from their fathers. Sometimes the genders are reversed, so that fathers take children from mothers. But either way, the main effect of no-fault is to make children weapons and pawns to gain power through the courts, not the “abandonment” of them by either parent.
Myth 4: When couples cannot agree or cooperate about matters like how the children should be raised, a judge must decide according to “the best interest of the child.”
Fact: It is not the business of government officials to supervise the raising of other people’s children. The entire point of a marriage and family is for mothers and fathers to cooperate and compromise for the sake of children and provide an example to those children of precisely these principles, without which no family can operate. Allowing one parent to surrender both parents’ decision-making rights over the children to government officials because of “disagreement” — without any infraction by the other (who may “disagree” only about losing his or her children) — negates the very principle of private family life and invites collusion between the divorcing parent and state officials.
Judges and civil servants are not disinterested. When we give government officials the power to make decisions about the best interest of other people’s children, it may well become the best interest of the officials. Allowing them to control the private lives of citizens’ who have committed no legal infraction simply by invoking “disagreement” gives them an incentive to reward the parent that is being the most disagreeable. That is precisely the reason for the runaway divorce epidemic.
Myth 5: Divorce must be made easy because of domestic violence.
Fact: Actual physical violence is legitimate grounds for divorce and always has been. So it does not justify dispensing with all standards of justice, which is what no-fault entails. On the contrary, openly false accusations of domestic violence and child abuse have become an industry in themselves, mostly to secure child custody. By dispensing with standards of justice for divorce, we have allowed them to be abandoned for criminal justice too. Thus “domestic violence” and “child abuse” are not adjudicated as criminal assault, and the accused seldom receives a trial or chance to clear his name. Instead he simply loses his children until he can prove his innocence, an impossible standard.
Most domestic violence and child abuse take place during and after family dissolution; very little occurs in intact families. So domestic violence is a red herring. Federal funds for domestic violence and child abuse now serve effectively as a subsidy on divorce in every state in America, encouraging spouses to bring false accusations and law-enforcement officials to reward them. This shatters another myth: that family law is the province of states.
No-fault divorce has exacerbated the divorce epidemic on almost every count. We urgently need an extensive public debate on divorce and the connected issues of child custody, domestic violence, child abuse, and child support — precisely the debate that the divorce industry has suppressed for four decades.
Stephen Baskerville is associate professor of government at Patrick Henry College and author of Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family (Cumberland House, 2007). |
Categories: Courts and Legislatures, Custody, Domestic Violence, Marriage Movement, NCP Fathers | 
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10 Comments »
I agree. The Government has become way too involved in family law and where does it end? Next they’ll be telling married people how much time and money to spend on their children. Men are not always at fault in divorce so why should they be criminalized? I think it should be the opposite of the way it is now. They should get equal custody unless proven otherwise unreasonable. The problem is if we try to make it fair the Lawyers and Judges don’t make money so it’ll never pass no matter what we do. We have to unfortunately meet them in the middle so I suggest making it equal down the middle and then the burden is up to the accusing party to prove. Not just throwing around false accusations. I do believe as a woman there is a lot of false domestic violence accusations and I think it’s time there are serious consequences to false accusations and that may put an end to that issue altogether. There is no true accountability that’s why these issues never get resolved and both the children and the fathers get screwed in most cases.
Unarguabley undeniable, if the Courts are making money, then the legislators that make the laws, know this and to that extent enforce and create more laws to make more money, hense… the so Called “No Fault divorce” also preceeding the ‘Dead Beat Dad Rule’, (Sounds like the 1800′s Witch Hunt of the New Generation X”. I recall back in the day a Divorce got you labeled as a “Divorcee”, strange how now our Society has embraced Divorce so passionetely, and overlooked the reprecussions of Divorce has turned into a vast $money market$. Its all About the Money and our society buys right into it, with no way out. Our Court system is a Mere Joke to a legislator and lawyer or Judge. its actually kind of Pathetic. We have denounced our Beloved Constitution to nothing more than a re written bible of Lies and Distortions of untruths, Frankly I fear our Bitter end as a result of this Anti-Consitution that this Country has become, our Morales and our Ethics have devoulved to nothing more than Greed.
Dr. B strikes again… It is amazing to me to see what happens when rational thought is applied to the amazing confusion created by various stumbling legislatures…
It’s also interesting that only two people have commented on the basis for the institutionalized abuses to children, spouses, and that old usual thing called marriage.
What should be astounding to anyone with have a clue is item #2: the abrogation of the responsibilities of the Contract of marriage have been permuted so that Family Court judges routinely punish the husbands severely for decisions unilaterally made by their wives: imagine who you’d have to beat in order to be sentenced to spending $2500/month, 60 hours a month and 60,000 miles a year against your own will — not at all unusual for a dad who’s wife ran away with his kids. Yet no civil or parental rights are considered in any of these proceedings, just the incompetent rules generated by a collection of legislative yahoos — or, to be more fair, a committee without the professional and objective systems analysis experience to create an appropriate framework for the evaluation and protection of children and families.
In case everyone’s asleep, the VAWA has institutionalized the domestic violence against fathers/husbands industry: the chances of avoiding any collection of allegations are slim and zip…
And, the notion that their are judges around who have “evaluators” that smell objective in and amongst these challenges: please… do you need air, or do I?
Finally, while it well-deserved for the source of this legislation — California — to have the worst development of this “no-fault” nightmare, it really stinks if you live here. Not only can you find judges that fit all of these characteristics, but some of us have found 8 judges (multiple counties, multiple moves) willing to cascade on the gullibility of one small-town yoyo. Go figure…
No-fault, indeed…
http://www.americanvalues.org/coff/pressrelease.pdf
The staggering cost to taxpayers addressed in this press release should be a primary focus of every American. Even if you don’t care about the millions of fathers and children who are having their lives destroyed by this government sponsored kidnapping and extortion racket, maybe you’ll care about what it’s costing you in tax dollars.
I think this study only scratches the surface of the real cost when you consider all the long term consequences both financially and in terms of loss of life and liberty.
The study quotes a yearly cost of 112,000,000,000 dollars and a cost of 1,000,000,000,000 dollars over the last decade. What it doesn’t say is that there is an outstanding child support debt of an additional 112,000,000,000 dollars that may eventually cost the taxpayer 5,600,000,000,000 to collect.
http://www.childsupportoptions.org/
Simply put, this war on fathers, children and the family makes the war in Iraq look relatively minor when you look at the big picture. We are losing thousands of citizens every year to murder and suicide as a direct result of this Family Court injustice and a veritable fortune in national treasure of every conceivable kind.
I fail to see how American men can glorify the killing of innocent people in Iraq who only oppose the American invasion, but reject the killing of those that kidnap and abuse thier children.
The only way this mistake in justice will be rectified is by changing the law. Both by legislative amendment (revising the law) as well as through the Courts.
I’m currently involved in a contested divorce. My attorney is upset because I am doing more than writing letters to legislatures. A well-connected coalition is considering challenge the law as Unconstitutional on several grounds. My attorney and I will probably part company when the suit is filed. He is upset that I am interfering with the system. I asked if the bar will contest an amended law that reforms NFD. His response –no response.
The only way to approach evil is by defeating it. NFD is evil and a secular move to usurp our civil rights and natural law.
rjf – Rochester, MI
Welcome to the sexual revolution gang. This is the cost of our decisions from the past. We are now finding out that life is not just a constant party and that our children are paying the price of our decisions. Now we see what our parents had to pay to raise us, to work toward family and to sacrifice for all of us when they were growing up. We never saw those bills when we were kids in the 1950′s. Our generation just thought life was a constant party. Now we are older and we see how painful our lives have become due to our inability to see into the future. These cases are about a bunch of nice kids. How do you think they feel about all this confusion? Our generation grew up in innocent middle class America. With Leave it to Beaver values. This is what happens when you open Pandora’s Box. Our children have become victims of this whole scenario. Put yourself in their place. What are we really showing these kids? How irresponsible adults can really be? How do you expect to get responsible children out of irresponsible parents. Our we more teenage then our own kids? Think about it people. Are we just a bunch of party animals that can’t grow up? Do we just look like old teenagers to our kids? Are we just addicted to our 60′s lifestyle. Is that really our addiction? And we can’t get off the stage? Maybe this is what the real problem is. When I want to know the truth about what my kids think I ask my kids. What do you think of me as a parent? How could I improve my parenting. My divorce is not your fault. But no. We are so ultracompetitive that we cannot stop dumping on each other. We are more like two kids fighting over a ball. Only we are older. My take on divorce is that both mother and father come from two different backgrounds. Those backgrounds sometimes clash. Unfortunately children are involved. They can’t just go away. They are a reality. Put yourself in their place. These are real children not people who have long outlived their childhood. How sad divorce really is. But stop blaming yourself and the other parent. Your not two kids fighting over a ball. Your just two people, from two different backgrounds, who would probably get into a fight if you were two friends who lived in the same neighborhood and you did not get along then. It’s time we let the kids have their childhood, huh. Think about what caused your divorce. This is the reality of your situation. Money, family interference, other women, other men, drinking, drugs, no money, abuse what was it that caused your divorce. It wasn’t the kids, I can assure you of that. Maybe it’s kind of hard to stop being a kid ourselves, maybe it’s hard to give up our kid ways. Think about it. How would you like to be drug from pillar to post to satisfy your parents. If you really care about your kids, why don’t you just ask them what they want, and stop blaming yourselves for the whole darn thing. We don’t always get along with everyone we meet, sometimes it’s relatives, or friends or whomever. Sometimes we have to part due to our differences. Differences occur amongst all people. Ask the U.N.. Give the kids a break.
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thanks
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