No Fault Divorce

1159 Words5 Pages
A marriage license should cost $500,000 and a divorce decree should cost $35.00. Entirely opposite of reality. No fault divorce laws were drafted by the state legislatures in an effort to ease the pain of what can be a horrifying experience for all involved. The New York State no fault laws were sold to the public as a cure for the fighting and cost of a traditional divorce court trial. But it has done anything but diffuse or simplify the process. The laws fail in wild fashion across the country. In sum, both the pre and post New York State divorce laws fail husbands and wives. Most importantly the children of these broken marriage contracts are not sufficiently covered, nor protected in any interpretation of the laws. All seemingly fail us…show more content…
Yes, 1966 and before that as far back as 1787 (Woo). It was not until August 15, 2010, that then Governor David Patterson signed into law the current no fault divorce statutes (Woo). New York was the last state in the country to adopt a no fault statute. Prior to the passage of New York State no fault divorce laws, New York state divorces could only be had by a fault based system that was costly, traumatic and often made people lie in an effort to gain their freedom from a bad marriage. Someone had to be at fault or else the marriage could not end. Married people were forced to file for adultery as a cause for divorce until 1966, as that was the only legal grounds to obtain a divorce decree (Rosenblatt 68, 69). It was a system that was horribly ineffective prior to 2010, for both genders, regardless of socioeconomic status or other factors. Someone had to be the fall guy and therefore the process was unhelpful to its parties. Imagine, you are legally glued together to a person unless one party “takes the blame”. To that end, the passing of no fault divorce statues did assist people involved in divorce proceedings. After that single benefit, there is much debate as to whether no fault divorce laws in New York State have benefitted…show more content…
We could also add that the current laws as written fail to protect the interests of teenage minors, with particularity, minors who are barely under the age of adulthood. A full reading of the law makes little mention of a 17-year-old minor. A major failing of the law at present. The truly uncontested divorce, where both parties agree, there is no property to be distributed and there are few or no issues as to money and children, then a no fault divorce works wonderfully and the statutes achieve their intended goal. If there is one item being contested no matter the subject matter, no fault divorce laws fail miserably both men and woman and the process reverts back to pre-2010 laws. You are then stuck in litigation that is neither compassionate nor understanding of the issues. Most of the court appearances are purely meetings with lawyers who haggle about cars, credit cards, IRS debt, replacing dishwashers and all manner of meaningless details. Meanwhile, you and your family are reduced to line items on a net worth statement. There is no acknowledgement of the problems. The system and its laws could care less. The supposed no fault system becomes simply a steam rolling process that seems unable to halt its momentum. Simultaneously, the party with the most money has to fund all the lawyer bills regardless of fault. Therein lays an irony;
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