Government and Divorce

Fourteen years ago, my pregnant wife, my then only child and I moved into a new housing development. The houses were new and so were many of the families. In particular, there were two other families composed of children roughly the same age as ours and young parents like ourselves. In many ways these families led parallel lives. Children attended the same schools. They played the same games and joined the same clubs. Decks were erected at the same time and were about the same size. These families work diligently building their homes, painting and wallpapering rooms, many times in similar shades.

Now two of these three families (fortunately not my own) have collapsed. In one family, the father found someone else and left his wife of twenty years. In the other case, the mother left. Some of the children seem to have adjusted, while the behavior of others has degraded. Straight-A grades have fallen to mediocre grades. Kids have indulged in smoking and other antisocial behavior.

This experience is just one example, and a relatively mild one, of the devastation and levelling of communities by high divorce rates. The association of divorce with child poverty, poor school performance, and dysfunctional emotional adjustment is persuasive. While everyone agrees there are abusive situations where divorce is the only realistic option, the 50 per cent divorce rate is a silent destroyer ravaging affluent and poor communities alike. Is there something that government can do alleviate this problem or is it largely immune from government intervention?

The divorce rate had been relatively constant at about 10 per cent until the beginning of the 1960s. The self-indulgence of the 1960s and 1970s and the assurance by professionals that children are resilient helped to nuture a divorce rate that increased linearly reaching the 50 per cent rate by 1980. Since then the divorce rate has remained at this alarmingly high rate. Half of all marriages end in divorce, many after only a few years.

Some argue that "no-fault'' divorce legislation, laws that permit a discontented partner to unilaterally exit, caused the divorce problem. Indeed, it will probably entail more legal difficulties for Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos to rid himself of his manager Davey Johnson then for most people to rid themselves of an unwanted spouse.

However, no-fault divorce was probably a reaction to rising numbers of divorces rather than a cause. The real tragedy is that the women no-fault legislation were supposed to liberate are more likely to be impoverished. Charles Darwin one remarked that "All ought to refrain from marriage who cannot avoid abject poverty for their children.'' Today, the evidence suggests that all ought to avoid divorce to prevent the abject poverty of their children.

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