The Increase in Divorce Rate and Changes in Law

Rising divorce rates and changing laws Divorce is the legal result of marriage between husband and wife. Many people believe that legislative changes have resulted in increased divorce rates, since the law makes divorce faster, easier and cheaper, and raises divorce rates. However, other sociologists believe that changes in the law will not lead to divorce. The real cause of divorce is the change in expectation for marriage, the change in the attitude of women, and the pressure of divorce on family, community, religion.

The divorce rate is rising steadily. Following the first major change in the 1968 divorce law, there was a sharp increase (from 54.8 divorces per 100 thousand people in 1968 to 124.2 in 1969). Since then, this growth continued to accelerate with the revision of the divorce law, reaching the second peak in the late 1980s. At the beginning of the 21st century, the lowest divorce risk was the first year of marriage, but the risk slowly declined after the risk increased and peaked in the following four years. A considerable number of couples divorce in due course and most divorced couples get married under the age of 15

The divorce rate and suicide rate were quite stable in the 1950s, but began to rise in the 1960s. In 1968, Congress passed the "divorce law" which enacted the federal divorce law. In the following year, the divorce rate increased by 128%, as shown in Figure 8, the suicide rate also moved in the same direction. The divorce law was amended in 1986, and the waiting time was shortened from 3 years to 1 year. This brought the highest divorce rate in Canadian history in 1987. The increase in divorce is parallel to the increase in suicide rate. After the divorce rate sharply increased in 1987, the divorce rate and suicide rate also declined in the same way.

Between 1969 and 1985, each state relaxed the divorce law. This change was almost completed in 1979, when only two states sought evidence of negligence before seeking divorce. As shown in Figure 1, the divorce rate nearly doubled during this period. This is not surprising as divorce in a faultless law reduces divorce costs and spouses' incentive for spouse's investment marriage weakens. However, the assertion that the no-fault divorce law brought about a long-term rise in divorce rate has been disputed. Elizabeth Peters, Coase negotiations, divorce level is