Family law (2023): Dissolution of marriages - Grounds for divorce + No-fault divorce (Part One)

Grounds for divorce are regulations specifying the circumstances under which a person will be granted a divorce. Adultery is the most common grounds for divorce. However, there are countries that view male adultery differently than female adultery as grounds for divorce.

Before decisions on divorce are considered, one might check into state laws and country laws for legal divorce or separation as each culture has stipulations for divorce.

Grounds for divorce.

Cruel and inhuman treatment constitute grounds for divorce. In a proper defense, acceptable differences enable the defendant to have the ability to arrange grounds for divorce.

Some examples for grounds for divorce are:

Sexual harassment,

Attendant circumstance,

Adulter,

Alcoholism,

Disability,

Desertion,

Imprisonment, and

Domestic violence (Including physical, sexual, or mental abuse of the other spouse and or the child or children of the couple.)

The spouse that is responsible for committing these allegations is required to confirm the correct date and place that the allegations were committed. The reason for the spouse to confirm the allegations is to show proof that the allegations have taken place in the same state. The state then has to have the authority to administer justice by hearing and determining the controversies. Different states accept different grounds for divorce. For example, some states only accept no-fault divorce where other states accept both fault and no-fault grounds for divorce.

No-fault divorce is the dissolution of a marriage that does not require a showing of wrongdoing by either party. Laws providing for no-fault divorce allow a family court to grant a divorce in response to a petition by either party of the marriage without requiring the petitioner to provide evidence that the defendant has committed a breach of the marital contract.

History.

In early modern Europe, Prussia took a pioneering role with Frederick the Great's 1757 edict allowing marriages to be resolved on the ground of serious and continuous hostility between spouses, without pointing to any one guilty party. This early example of no-fault divorce was expanded on and formalized with the 1794 General State Laws for the Prussian States, which allowed childless couples to file for divorce without giving a ground.

The first modern no-fault divorce law was enacted in Russia in December 1917 following the October Revolution of the same year. Regarding marriage as a bourgeois institution, the new government transferred divorce jurisdiction from the Russian Orthodox Church to the state courts, which could grant it on application of either spouse. Alimony guarantees under the new regime were weak until a new family code was passed in 1926.

With a law adopted in 1969, California became the first U.S. state to permit no-fault divorce. California's law was framed on a roughly contemporaneous effort of the non-governmental organization National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, which began drafting a model of no-fault divorce statute for states to consider in 1967.

The Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act (UMDA) is a model law in the United States and has been used since 1970.

Australia established no-fault divorce in 1975, with the only ground for divorce being irretrievable breakdown of marriage, evidenced by a twelve-month separation. Canada effectively permitted no-fault divorce in 1986 by reducing the separation period to one year.