Breaking up shouldn’t be easy to do
by Belinda Brown, Rebel Priest:
Almost 20 years ago Lord Irvine ditched the Conservative Party’s proposals for no fault divorce law as they had proved ‘unworkable’ and likely to lead to an increase in divorces. Now we are told no fault divorce law will definitely be introduced. So what has changed?
Probably the most significant fact is Sir James Munby’s drive to introduce digitisation of the divorce process. Sir James hails this as a “Visionary programme of ambition unprecedented anywhere in the world” – a one stop online divorce shop which is hoped to save the courts and the tribunal system £250 million through a reduction in paperwork and processing time.
Digitising the divorce process requires reforming the law as Liz Trinder explains: “This is a timely opportunity for law reform given the work that is being undertaken to digitise the divorce process. The benefits of that project for the parties and for MoJ/HMCTS will not be realised without substantive law reform.”
The result will be that divorce will become even more accessible, quicker and inevitably cheaper. With absolutely no social institutions to uphold marriage vows, the sanctity of marriage will plummet even further.
This process has been documented in the US. As divorce becomes easier, married couples feel more anxious about dependency in marriage and less inclined to invest in their marriages. For example, women may feel anxious about supporting their husband’s career at the expense of their own; men might be hesitant about having another child or paying for their wife to take a degree. A lack of investment increases the probability of divorce.
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