If divorce is more difficult, people will again find ways of making the intact family work


Subject: Re: New Sentiment- Make Divorce Tough
From: khskill@aol.com (KHSkill)
Date: 1995/07/13
Message-Id: <3u30dd$s8v@newsbf02.news.aol.com>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.free-l

There is no way to turn divorce into anything other than an extremely
difficult outcome for all concerned -- that's the nature of the beast. So
in that sense, divorce will always be a "lose-lose" situation. However,
there are ways of improving the situation, one being to make divorce more
difficult.
In this context, one of the features that seems largely to be
overlooked is that, when people HAVE to do something, then miraculously
they find a way of doing it. If they don't HAVE to do whatever it is,
then it will be found impossible.
If divorce is much more difficult, then people will find ways of
making the intact family work, just as they used to do in the past. In my
view, this will undoubtedly be better for the children. I also think
that, considering what happens to most people who divorce, in the
majority of cases it will be better for the parents too.
The proportion of second marriages that end in divorce is higher than
the proportion of first marriages that end this way. So for most people,
it's a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire. They would have
been better off to stay in their first marriages and find ways of working
out the problems or living with them.
So, in my view, part of the answer to family disintegration IS to
make divorce much more difficult, and certainly to end no-fault divorce
laws. Another part of the answer is to make marriage more difficult, with
some kind of "Truth in Marriage" provisions (like the Truth in Lending
provisions) being part of the preliminaries to marriage. A third element
is to introduce some balance into the power relationships in the family,
and end the situation where wives have incentives for divorce, in the form
of child custody, "child support," and tax benefits. Finally, I think
marriage contracts could be made enforceable, and not subject to ex post
facto changes through changes in state marriage laws.
Kenneth S.


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