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   <p class="main-text_H1-CHAPTER-HEAD" id="_idParaDest-7"><span class="main-text_H1-chapter-number">6 </span><br/>Cutting Ties</p> 
   
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   <p class="caption-A">Americans wanting a divorce in the early and mid-twentieth century sometimes traveled to Nevada, which had lenient divorce laws. In this 1945 cartoon, a woman celebrates as she leaves a courthouse in Reno, Nevada, with her divorce decree.</p> 
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   <p class="main-text_text-chapter-opener-para"><span class="main-text_drop-cap">A </span>gigantic, gaudy sign outside the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada, advertises a twenty-four-hour drive-up wedding window. The steeple-topped building has hosted more than eight hundred thousand quickie weddings since it opened in 1951. In 2004 twenty-two-year-old pop star Britney Spears and her childhood friend Jason Alexander pulled up in a lime-green limousine for a spur-of-the-moment wedding. Fifty-five hours later, they called it quits. It was not, apparently, a match made in heaven.</p> 
   <p class="main-text_H2-BHEAD">As Old as Marriage</p> 
   
   <p class="main-text_text-no-indent">Divorce, or the dissolution (breakup) of a marriage, is not a new idea. Written records document divorce in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. In ancient Rome, where both marriage and divorce were defined by mutual intent, either spouse could initiate the breakup. In other cultures and eras, only the man got to decide. Among the ancient Hebrews, for example, husbands could divorce their wives, but wives could not initiate divorce. In ancient Greece, a husband could drop his wife at any time, but if he didn’t have a good reason—such as infidelity on her part—he had to return the dowry to her family.</p> 
   <p class="main-text_TEXT">Divorce in the past wasn’t rare either. The Ottoman Empire, based in lands that became Turkey, controlled much of the Middle East, parts of North Africa, and parts of southern Europe for more than six hundred years. Ottoman court records reveal that divorce was common there. In North Africa from the sixth to the sixteenth centuries, divorce was a regular part of life among both Muslim and Jewish groups. According to British settlers who arrived in Virginia in the early seventeenth century, the Powhatan Indians permitted couples to divorce if they were not getting along, although the partners were expected to soon remarry and establish a new family unit. In nineteenth-century Japan, one in eight marriages ended in divorce.</p> 
   
   <p class="main-text_H2-BHEAD">“Let Not Man Put Asunder”</p> 
   <p class="main-text_text-no-indent">The one major religion that opposed divorce was Christianity. According to the Book of Mark, Jesus said of marriage, “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” 
A divorce, whether initiated by husband or wife, was considered contrary to the will of God. In the early years of Christianity, the church didn’t strictly enforce the prohibition against divorce. But as Christianity spread across Europe, rules about divorce became increasingly rigid. By the twelfth century, the Roman Catholic Church had declared divorce a no go. A couple could separate if one partner committed adultery or if the man was extremely abusive, but the spouses were not actually divorced. The spouses were allowed to live apart, but neither could remarry. The church could grant an annulment, a proclamation that the marriage had never been valid in the first place. This could happen only if the couple could prove they were closely related, if one of them was already married to someone else, or if the man was impotent and therefore unable to impregnate his wife.</p> 
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   <p class="caption-A">England’s King Henry VIII was desperate to divorce his wife, but the Roman Catholic Church forbade divorce. So, in 1533, Henry VIII founded a new church—the Church of England—that would allow divorce. </p> 
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   <p class="main-text_TEXT">In 1527 the strict anti-divorce laws of the Roman Catholic Church led to a battle between Pope Clement VII and King Henry VIII of England. The king, unhappy and worried that his wife had not produced a male heir, asked the pope to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Pope Clement refused. The king was desperate to marry the younger and prettier Anne Boleyn. He was so desperate, in fact, that he broke with the Roman Catholic Church in 1533 and founded a new church, the Church of England (with himself in charge). The new church conveniently allowed him to divorce his first wife. After Henry got his divorce (and a later divorce from a fourth wife in 1540), the Church of England changed its mind. Until 1857 the church, which remains England’s national church, refused to grant divorces.</p> 
   
    
   <p class="main-text_TEXT">Like King Henry VIII, many men in the European nobility wanted out of unproductive or unhappy marriages. They used their wealth to make this happen. The church allowed individuals to buy indulgences, or forgiveness from sin, including the sin of divorce. Essentially, buying indulgences was a form of bribery, and only the rich could afford them. In exchange for payment, church authorities would claim to have discovered that husband and wife were related by blood and would immediately offer an annulment. The selling of indulgences and other corrupt church practices led a German priest named Martin Luther to break from the Roman Catholic Church and start a new branch of Christianity—Protestantism—in the early sixteenth century. The Protestant Church allowed divorce in cases of infidelity, impotence, refusal of one of the partners to have sex, or desertion. But the rules were skewed in favor of men. Wives were considered their husband’s property, and property didn’t just up and leave its owner except in the most extreme cases.</p> 
   <p class="main-text_H2-BHEAD">Women Bear the Burden</p> 
   
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   <p class="caption-A">Married to an abusive husband, Caroline (Sheridan) Norton campaigned in the 1800s for women’s rights in Britain. Her work led to laws that made it easier for women to initiate divorce.</p> 
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   <p class="main-text_text-no-indent">In 1827 nineteen-year-old Caroline Sheridan (1808–1877), a witty, beautiful, educated young British woman, married lawyer George Norton. Violence in the marriage began almost immediately, and it escalated. Soon after the honeymoon, they argued. Norton threw an inkstand at his wife. Two months after the wedding, he kicked her in the ribs. The abuse continued through three pregnancies, and all the while, she wrote essays, plays, and poetry. Finally, in 1835, when she was pregnant with their fourth child, he beat her so brutally that she miscarried. Enough was enough. She retreated to her mother’s home, without her children and empty-handed.</p> 
  
   
   <p class="main-text_TEXT">Under British law, Caroline Norton belonged to her husband, as did her clothes, her jewelry, her children, and the income she earned from her writing. As a husband, he could legally demand sex from her at any time, even if she didn’t want it. He could beat her without consequence. He could leave her and if he did, he automatically got custody of the children and all her possessions, such as her clothing and jewelry. In cases of extreme cruelty, a wife could divorce her husband, but she’d still lose everything she owned and lose custody of her children. When British women did divorce, they were often socially shunned and blamed for the failed marriage.</p> 
   <p class="main-text_TEXT">Caroline Norton’s efforts to break free from George Norton included publishing detailed descriptions of his abuse. She wrote a public letter to Queen Victoria about the British legal system’s unjust treatment of women. At this time, other British women were also fighting for legal rights. Their work persuaded politicians to pass the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857, which reformed divorce law in the United Kingdom. The law offered women more options to initiate divorce, but it was still one-sided. Under the new law, men could easily dump a cheating spouse. But a woman could divorce an adulterous husband only if he had also committed another offense, such as being abusive or deserting her. (Britain did not eliminate this legal double standard until 1923.)</p> 
   <p class="main-text_TEXT">Despite helping make divorce more accessible to other British women, Caroline Norton never did divorce her husband. Although they separated, she remained legally married to him until his death in 1875.</p> 
   
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   <p class="sidebar_A-sidebar-head">“Remember the Ladies”</p> 
   <p class="sidebar_A-sidebar-text-no-indent">In the 1770s, at a series of meetings, future US president John Adams worked with other colonial American leaders to create laws and guiding documents for the new United States. His wife, Abigail, pleaded with him to include protections for women in the new nation’s laws. On March 31, 1776, she wrote to him from their home in Massachusetts, saying, “Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors [the leaders of Great Britain]. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If [particular] care and attention is not paid to [women] we are determined to foment a [rebellion], and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”</p> 
   <p class="sidebar_A-SIDEBAR-TEXT">Even if John Adams wanted to “remember the ladies,” that’s not what happened. The Declaration of Independence says that “all men” are created equal. In fact, as Abigail Adams predicted, it was left to women themselves and their male allies to fight for their rights. That battle is still being fought.</p> 
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   <p class="main-text_H2-BHEAD">Divorce, American Style</p> 
   <p class="main-text_text-no-indent">On the other side of the ocean, divorce laws in the American colonies were more liberal. The specifics varied from place to place. In general, adultery, desertion, and cruelty were all grounds for divorce, which either party could initiate. After the American Revolution and as the colonies became US states, divorce laws loosened even more. In 1852 Indiana passed a law that allowed judges to grant a divorce for adultery, impotence, abandonment, cruelty, drunkenness, failure of the man to provide for the family, conviction of a crime, and any other reason the judge found proper.</p> 
   <p class="main-text_TEXT">That’s not to say that American women had it easy in the nineteenth century. Marriage still, in many ways, favored the husband. In divorce proceedings, women had to show more evidence to prove the grounds for divorce than men did. Sometimes women had to move from their home state to a state like Indiana where it was easier to get a divorce. Even if they could document abuse or adultery, wives were often blamed for their husband’s behavior, and as in Britain, women who divorced were stigmatized as failed wives.</p> 
   <p class="main-text_TEXT">Divorce was least common in the southern states. Southern society was generally more conservative than the North. White male landowners ruled the lives of their wives, their children, and the people they enslaved. Divorce was frowned upon, and many states forbade it altogether. South Carolina, for example, did not allow divorce until 1949. Entrenched racism created complex sexual double standards. For example, white landowners routinely raped enslaved black women. The law looked the other way. In the less common situation in which a white woman was found to have a black lover, they both faced abandonment and public shaming. The black man would likely be lynched by a local white mob.</p> 
   <p class="main-text_TEXT">Early in the history of the American women’s movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton argued for a woman’s right to divorce. In 1870 she wrote, “I think divorce at the will of the parties is not only right, but that it is a sin against nature, the family, the state for man or woman to live together in the marriage relation in continual antagonism, indifference, disgust.” As women gained more rights and freedoms in the twentieth century, divorce laws loosened and society became more accepting of divorce.</p> 
   <p class="main-text_TEXT">Getting a divorce still wasn’t easy. For much of the twentieth century, the law required the parties to go to court and demonstrate grounds for divorce, such as adultery or abuse. Couples had to air their private grievances in front of a judge. That changed in 1969, when California became the first state to allow for no-fault divorce. Over time, other states followed. In a no-fault divorce, the spouses need only assert that their marriage has failed, file legal documents, and legally go their separate ways.</p> 
   
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   <p class="sidebar_A-sidebar-head">Celebrating the Split</p> 
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   <p class="sidebar_A-sidebar-text-no-indent">A growing trend in divorce is to turn the end of romance and marriage into a party. One professional divorce party planner in Los Angeles charges $5,000 to $20,000 per event, but many people do it on their own for much less. Las Vegas has long been a divorce destination. Since in the mid-twentieth century, it has been much easier to get a divorce in Nevada than in most other states. The divorce party business in that city is booming.</p> 
   <p class="sidebar_A-SIDEBAR-TEXT">Divorce parties have many of the trappings of weddings—fancy invitations, catered meals, elaborate cakes (<span class="sidebar_A-sidebar-directional">right</span>), and color-coordinated decor (often in black). Magazines, books, Pinterest, and YouTube are full of ideas for planning and hosting a divorce party. Some former brides have even co-opted the trash-the-dress ritual. They mark the end of a marriage by setting their wedding dresses on fire or cutting them to pieces.</p> 
    
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   <p class="main-text_H2-BHEAD">Till Divorce Do Us Part</p> 
   <p class="main-text_text-no-indent">In the United States in the twenty-first century, nearly 50 percent of first marriages end in divorce. And for those who remarry, the statistics don’t improve. Two out of three second marriages fail, as do three out of four third marriages. On average, most marriages fall apart within eighteen months. So much for fairy tales. Has love let us down?</p> 
   <p class="main-text_TEXT">Usha Gupta and Pushpa Singh, researchers at the University of Rajasthan in India, measured romantic love over time among Western couples who had married for love and among couples in India who were in arranged marriages. Among the Western couples, scores for love started out very high but dropped over time. The exact opposite pattern occurred with the Indian couples. Their love scores started low. After all, the couples hardly knew each other at first. But over time, the love in their relationships grew and deepened. About 95 percent of marriages in India are arranged, and the divorce rate there is one of the lowest in the world. The United States, on the other hand, has one of the world’s highest divorce rates. The takeaway, at least from this study, is that the initial level of passion between two people doesn’t hold the key to a long and happy marriage.</p> 
   <p class="main-text_TEXT">Divorce is legal in every country except the Philippines and Vatican City, a tiny city-state that serves as the headquarters for the Roman Catholic Church. Around the world, divorce laws vary from country to country. Divorce laws in the United States vary from state to state.</p> 
   <p class="main-text_TEXT">In a best-case scenario in the United States, divorcing couples split any marital assets—such as real estate, cash, and cars—between the two of them, in a division that seems fair to both parties. They also agree on how to share custody of any children and agree on any child support or alimony payments (payments made by one spouse to help support another). This sometimes happens with the aid of lawyers, sometimes without.</p> 
   <p class="main-text_TEXT">If the couple can’t agree, a divorce can drag on for many years and can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Many spouses argue bitterly over the details of a split and take their fight to court. They hire high-priced lawyers (divorce lawyers might charge as much as $650 per hour) to fight on their behalf. Lots of couples go into debt in the course of ending a marriage. On top of that, the newly divided family (if a couple has children) shoulders the costs of maintaining two households instead of one.</p> 
   <p class="main-text_TEXT">In Portugal, couples can divorce by simply filing a request online, but in other countries the process is much harder. To file for a divorce in Nigeria, for instance, you must hire a lawyer. You must gather evidence that your spouse has engaged in an action considered grounds for divorce, such as adultery or criminal behavior. Then you must state your case before a judge. It can take months for the judge to issue a divorce decree. The only other way to get rid of a spouse in Nigeria is to wait until he or she dies.</p> 
   <p class="main-text_H2-BHEAD">Broken Homes</p> 
   <p class="main-text_text-no-indent">According to an old nursery rhyme, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.” And after that? For 1.5 million children in the United States each year, divorce is what comes next. The news that your parents are splitting up is rarely welcome. As one young man wrote when asked about his parents’ divorce, “It was tough being 10 years old and not understanding why your dad has to leave and why your mother cries herself to sleep at night.”</p> 
   <p class="main-text_TEXT">Is divorce really bad for kids? According to researchers, that depends.</p> 
   <p class="main-text_TEXT">When couples keep their conflicts under wraps, the news of a breakup can be a terrible shock for children. On the other hand, in homes where parents are fighting all the time, separation can be a relief for children. According to researchers, children can rebound after a divorce, but a lot depends on their parents’ behavior.</p> 
   <p class="main-text_TEXT">Divorced parents need to find a way to get along. When they disagree frequently, the children suffer. For one young woman, the way her father bad-mouthed her mother was traumatizing. “The hardest part was listening to all th<span class="no-break">e [</span>negative comments] he said about my mom. He still does it to this day.”</p> 
   <p class="main-text_TEXT">In earlier generations, experts believed it was always best for children to live in an intact family. Modern researchers say that’s simply not true. Studies show that a healthy family environment can take many different forms. Sometimes the family is a single-parent household. Or two divorced parents might share custody, with the kids alternating between two households on a regular schedule. A blended family, where two people who have children from previous marriages join forces, can also be a strong one. What matters most, researchers say, is that children have loving, stable, supportive caregivers.</p> 
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