The story about one no-fault divorce in California

When we come back, we’re going to talk about the problem of no-fault divorce. The vast majority of California divorces are filed by women, but most divorced are not happy with their divorce. Many think that they don’t get a fair shake in court and that it’s too easy for people to end marriages.

Starting in 1970, California law started allowing the formation of No-Fault divorce. Prior to 1970, California divorce was called “At Fault” divorce and you couldn’t get a divorce without proving to the court that your spouse did something bad. Also called “Fault-based” divorce.

How did we come to this divorce?

I had an armchair view of no-fault divorce proceedings, which was, at times, an uncomfortable one. For over two years, from October 1997 to October 2000, I had lived with a woman who was trying to leave me for another man. She and I had been married in June after living together for three years. In January she moved out of our Stockton house into her own apartment and filed for divorce. We didn’t contest the divorce; we sought a mediated settlement instead.

Uncontested divorce online made its way into the law in California, in 1970. Before that time, a divorce could only be granted on one of several grounds. The most common was “irreconcilable differences.” (At least for those who actually applied for divorce.) Today, you can get a divorce because it’s “irreconcilable differences … or anything else,” under Family Code section 2310.

Between 1970 and 1989, no-fault divorce laws were introduced in all fifty states, but the effect was most pronounced in California, which adopted a uniform standard of ‘irreconcilable differences’ or ‘irretrievable breakdown of the marriage’ for dissolving long-term marriages.

California had no-fault divorce laws prior to 1970. A spouse could get a divorce for ‘no specific reason’ if the other spouse objected. But in 1970, California enacted a new, more liberal law, allowing both spouses to agree before going to court that neither one would object to the divorce. Later it became standard for one spouse (usually the woman) to demand a clean break by going on welfare and demanding alimony, while the other spouse (usually the man) resisted giving in.

Once the no-fault process was adopted, divorce rates rose significantly in California and throughout the U.S. Why is it that no-fault divorce, though certainly not the only factor, proved to be so successful in Great Britain and so unsuccessful in France? The answer has to do with beliefs about marriage . In countries where traditional marriage is deeply enshrined in religious beliefs or social beliefs, the new law met with much resistance.

No-fault divorce in California is an event that greatly affects many people’s lives. In the previous way of divorcing your spouse, the fault had to be found for the other person by one of you. No-fault divorces started in California for this reason, setting the legal standard for other states.

California is the only state which has chosen not to have a no-fault divorce. Instead, the relevant is required to allege that one of several ‘fault’ reasons applies to the dissolution of their marriage. In this essay, I’ll discuss California’s no-fault divorce laws.

No-fault divorce laws allow a spouse to unilaterally dissolve a marriage at any time for any reason. Despite common misconceptions of no-fault divorce as the cause of dissolution rates rising in California, the availability of no-fault divorce did not begin until 1970 and the dissolution rate had already begun increasing as early as 1965.

Preparing for the start of the divorce proceedings

A ‘no-fault divorce’ in California is when one spouse seeks to dissolve the marriage without getting the consent of the other. “Irreconcilable differences” are often cited as the reason. In practice, this means that spouses can break their marriage contract for any or no reason at all – no matter how slight or how long ago it was that they broke it.

In 1969 California was the first state in the United States to legalize no-fault divorce. Prior to this, the grounds for divorce had to be one spouse’s adultery, extreme cruelty or desertion. A majority of states followed California’s lead. Today, all states but New York and North Dakota practice no-fault divorce.

In 1969, California became the first state to pass a no-fault divorce. Before that time, a spouse had to prove the other’s fault if s/he wanted a divorce. No-fault divorce changed all that. Today, all 50 states have similar laws.

Today, unless an individual has been convicted of domestic violence, there is no legal impediment to filing for divorce. In 1970, California became the first state to pass a no-fault divorce law allowing couples to end their marriage without specifying why. Since then, every American State has adopted some form of no-fault divorce law including Alaska and South Dakota.

California was the first state to adopt a no-fault divorce. Starting in 1969, any plausible reason for divorcing your spouse would do. No more need for a messy and expensive battle; all you needed was a signed piece of paper from your spouse saying they voluntarily wanted a divorce or did not want to be married anymore. You didn’t have to give a reason—you didn’t have to even specify which spouse wanted the divorce.

No-fault divorce, starting with the 1975 Family Law Act, followed by the 1977 Domestic Relations Act, which gave no-fault divorce the force of law in California. The phenomena of no-fault divorce caused Californians–especially wealthier Californians–to get divorced more often and to get divorced more quickly.

Benefits of a no-fault divorce from my experience

In 1994-5 the California legislature voted to end the ‘fault divorce’ system. Today, if you ask Californians whether they are married, or ever have been, they say yes. But if you ask whether their marriage is ‘good,’ most Californians would tell you no. That’s because the “durable relationships of mutual affection” that used to bind couples together have dissolved in the wake of a new legal regime called ‘no-fault divorce.’

In October, 1978, the California State Assembly changed the law so as to allow no-fault divorce. This was a change that only needed fifty percent of each house of the legislature and it passed by nearly unanimous vote.

Currently, like all states, California allows a spouse to ask for and receive a divorce on the grounds of an irretrievable breakdown of a marriage. This means spouses can get divorced when they dislike each other, aren’t getting along well, or just don’t feel like staying married anymore.

In 1970, California was the first state to pass a no-fault divorce. It’s now the most populous and wealthiest of the 50 states.

In California, the legislature passed a no-fault divorce law in 1969 that gave a husband and wife the right to get divorced without assigning blame. As a result of the new legislation, divorce rates doubled in California within five years after its passage.

In California, there is no-fault divorce.  People who don’t like their spouses can get married and then get divorced for no reason at all.

California has been a leader in letting people divorce whenever they want. The legislature passed a “no-fault” divorce law in 1970 so that, instead of having to prove wrongdoing such as adultery or cruelty, spouses could get divorced by mutual consent based on nothing more than ‘irreconcilable differences.’