Divorce is dissolution of a valid marriage before the death of either spouse.  It can be contrasted with annulment, which is a declaration that a marriage is void. 

A divorce must be certified by a court of law, as a legal action is needed to dissolve the prior legal act of marriage.  The terms of the divorce are also determined by the court, though they may take into account prenuptial agreements or postnuptial agreements, or simply ratify terms that the spouses have agreed on privately.  Often, however, the spouses disagree about the terms of the divorce, which can lead to stressful (and expensive) litigation.  A less adversarial approach to divorce settlements has emerged in recent years, known as mediation, an attempt to negotiate mutually acceptable resolution to conflicts. 

No Fault Divorce

Under Michigan's no-fault divorce system, a marriage partner does not need to show that the other marriage partner did or was at fault to obtain a divorce.  The only ground for divorce in Michigan is the no-fault ground, i.e., "there has been a breakdown of the marriage relationship to the extent that the objects of matrimony have been destroyed and there remains no reasonable likelihood that the marriage can be preserved"  MCL 552.6(1).  Although proof of fault is not necessary to obtain a divorce, fault can be relevant in deciding custody, parenting time, property and debt division, and spousal support. 

In many developed countries, divorce rates increased markedly during the twentieth century.  Among the nations in which divorce has become commonplace are the United States, South Korea, and members of the European Union (with the exception of Malta, where all civil marriages are for life, because civil divorce is banned). 

In the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, and some other developed Commonwealth countries, this divorce boom developed in the last half of the twentieth century.  In addition, acceptance of the single-parent family has resulted in many women deciding to have children outside marriage, as there is little remaining social stigma attached to unwed mothers in some societies.  Japan retains a markedly lower divorce rate, though it has increased in recent years.  The subject of divorce as a social phenomenon is an important research topic in sociology.  In fact, the statistics of a survey conducted by Citibank on divorce in the United States suggested that more than fifty percent of divorced couples cited money problems as the cause of their divorce. 

Statistics

In the United States, in 2005 there were 7.5 new marriages per 1,000 people, and 3.6 divorces per 1,000, a ratio that has existed for many individual years since the 1960s.  As many statisticians have pointed out, it is very hard to count the divorce rate, since it is hard to determine if a couple who divorce and get back together in that same year should be considered a divorce, so there is in fact no predictive relationship between the two annual totals.  This method does not take account of the length of marriage; just the fact that a certain percentage of people were divorced and a certain number of people are married, rendering the statistic problematic.  Nonetheless, the claim that "half of all marriages end in divorce" became widely accepted in the US in the 1970s, on the basis of this statistic, and has remained conventional wisdom.  Pollster Lewis Harris in his 1987 book "Inside America" wrote, "the idea that half of American marriages are doomed is one of the most specious pieces of statistical nonsense ever perpetuated in modern times." 

To establish an actual divorce rate requires tracking and analyzing significant samples of actual marriages through decades, which is not an easy task.  Recent US scholarship based on such long-term tracking, reported for example in the New York Times on April 19, 2005, has found that about 60% of all marriages that result in divorce do so in the first decade, and more than 80% do so within the first 20 years; that the percentage of all marriages that eventually end in divorce peaked in the United States at about 41% around 1980, and has been slowly declining ever since, standing by 2002 at around 31%. Some have attributed this decline to the popularity of cohabitation without marriage.  While in the 1960s and 1970s there was little difference among socioeconomic groups in divorce rates, diverging trends appeared starting around 1980 (e.g., the rate of divorce among college graduates had by 2002 dropped to near 20%, roughly half that of non-college graduates). 

In the decades following introduction of no-fault divorce laws, there was an extraordinary increase in divorce rates, and more recent research has clarified that US divorce rates had been on a gentle increase since the 1890s (with a short-term decline during the Great Depression and a spike just after World War II).  The long-term rate of increase steepened with the advent of no-fault divorce laws in the late 1960s; the gradual decline starting in the early 1980s has continued for a quarter-century thus far, often attributed to increased social acceptability of co-habitation without the benefit of marriage. 

States in the US handle billions of dollars in alimony and child support arrangements, which commonly result from divorces.  According to a 2003 US census report, 43.7% of custodial mothers and 56.2% of custodial fathers, are divorced or separated.  A 2005 Census Bureau Report found that in 2002, $40 billion had been paid in support arrangements by 7.8 million payers, 84% of whom were men.  States also collected federal incentives to collect support payments, with a potential incentive pool of up to $454 million in fiscal 2004. 

The divorce rate is generally low among Muslims, in comparison to other religious groups.  This may be due to the somewhat strict limitations generally placed on divorce in Islam, as well as a very strong culturally based stigma associated with it.  However, at least in some Muslim populations, that rate may be rising.  For example: in 2004 in Singapore (which has an 18% Muslim population) many feared that the divorce rate among Muslims had risen too high: 9 out of every 1,000 marriages, a ratio 3 times higher than Malaysia, and 5 times higher than Indonesia. 

Causes

An annual study in the UK by management consultants Grant Thornton estimates the main causes of divorce based on surveys of matrimonial lawyers.  The main causes in 2004 (2003) were: 

* Extramarital affairs - 27% (29%)

* Family strains - 18% (11%)

* Emotional/physical abuse - 17% (10%)

* Mid-life crisis - 13% (not in 2003 survey)

* Addictions, e.g. alcoholism and gambling - 6% (5%)

* Workaholism - 6% (5%)

According to this survey, men engaged in extra-marital affairs in 75% (55%) of cases; women in 25% (45%).  In cases of family strain, women's families were the primary source of strain in 78%, compared to 22% of men's families. 

Emotional and physical abuse were more evenly split, with women affected in 60% and men in 40% of cases. In 70% of workaholism-related divorces it was men who were the cause, and 30% women. 

The 2004 survey found that 93% of divorce cases were petitioned by women, very few of which were contested. 

53% of divorces were of marriages that had lasted 10 to 15 years, with 40% ending after 5 to 10 years. The first 5 years are relatively divorce-free, and if a marriage survives more than 20 years it is unlikely to end in divorce. 

Regarding divorce settlements, as defined by this survey women obtained a better or considerably better settlement than men in 60% of cases. In 30% of cases the assets were split 50-50, and in only 10% of cases did men achieve better settlements (down from 24% the previous year). The 2004 report concluded that campaigns like that of Fathers 4 Justice must succeed in increasing the percentage of shared residence orders, in order for more equitable financial divisions to become the norm. 

Who Initiates Divorce?

The National Center for Health Statistics reports that from 1975 to 1988 in the US, in families with children present, wives file for divorce in approximately two-thirds of cases.  In 1975, 71.4% of the cases were filed by women, and in 1988, 65% were filed by women. 

According to a study published in the American Law and Economics Review, women currently file slightly more than two-thirds of divorce cases in the US.  There is some variation among states, and the numbers have also varied over time, with about 60% of filings by women in most of the 19th century, and over 70% by women in some states just after no-fault divorce was introduced, according to the paper.  Evidence is given that among college-educated couples, the divorce filing rate by women approaches 90%. 

In their study titled "Child Custody Policies and Divorce Rates in the US," Kuhn and Guidubaldi find it reasonable to conclude that women anticipate advantages to being single, rather than remaining married. 

When women anticipate a clear gender bias in the courts regarding custody, they expect to be the primary residential parent for the children and the resulting financial child support, maintaining the marital residence, receiving half of all marital property, and gaining total freedom to establish new social relationships.  In their detailed analysis of divorce rates, Khun and Guidubaldi conclude that acceptance of joint physical custody may reduce divorce.  States whose family law policies, statutes, or judicial practice encourage joint custody have shown a greater decline in their divorce rates than those that favor sole custody. 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.  It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Divorce".