What caused the doubling of divorce between 1965 and 1975?

[SWolf]

Did they only see the breadwinner 20% of the time during the marriage and did the breadwinner provide only 20% of hands-on parenting? Then 20% after the divorce is quite reasonable.

Did the stay at home parent contribute 50% finances to the mortgage, food, utilities, etc? Then 50% doesn’t sound that reasonable for assets using this logic. Child support also doesn’t sound that reasonable if this is the criteria we use. This is a clear double standard. Which one will it be?

Also, I know several divorced couples whose kids are clearly closer to the breadwinner, even if they don’t get as much hands-on time. they understand the work they do when they are gone, the sacrifices, and the effort they put in, even after they are exhausted from financially supporting the family. Depriving these kids of them even more to seeing them only a couple weekends a month is cruel.

The point that you are completely missing is the family unit raises the children according the joint moral/Intellectual/Social values. When divorce happens, these go away. They are no longer working as a team. Most of the time, a spouse WANTS to stay at home with the kids, and the breadwinner makes sacrifices to allow it to happen. My old man worked long hours and passed up job offers that would be a 20%+ raise so he didn’t have to work even longer hours, or uproot the family and move somewhere else. 50/50 is best for the kids unless strong proof can be shown otherwise.

There seems to be the idea that people who work have this sexy life of high-executive stakes and excitement that they willfully neglect their families for. Fact is, about 20% of people marginally like their jobs, and most are beaten down workers who want to get their paycheck and come back to play with their kids.

 

[Indigo_Cardinal]

Example?

I don’t know about ‘impossible’, but it might be more of a case of ‘is it worth it to the wronged party’.

I have two male friends, both divorced from their first wives (both wives cheated). The first friend and his wife didn’t have kids, the second one and his wife did.

In the case of the first guy, pretty much everybody around him knew what happened (we’ll just say there was an epically bad moment at a party where she got busted big time and couldn’t have denied it if she tried). He was embarrassed to death, and quickly filed for a no-fault divorce, even though he could have nailed her on adultery (eight witnesses who walked in on her kinda has her dead up against the wall)–but he just simply said, “This is humiliating enough that my friends and family know. I don’t want to go through this with a room full of strangers, I don’t want our mutual friends dragged into the middle of this (because the ones who walked in on her would have to testify), I just want this over and done with quickly and quietly and get on with my life.”

Second guy had kids, and probably could have proved adultery on his now ex-wife…if he was willing to put his two young kids (seven and four at the time) on the stand to tell everybody what they saw mommy doing. He wasn’t willing to do that to them (he figured it would be stressful enough for the kids to be dragged into the middle of it anyway, but he also didn’t want to risk her lawyer trying to make it out that the kids were lying/misunderstood, etc.). I don’t know that I would have done the same in his place with custody at stake, but not my call to make. So he filed for a no-fault as well, to spare his kids.

So sometimes…it is the wronged party that wants the no-fault. Just to get it over with.

 

[EasterJoy]

…People don’t get divorced for no reason at all. I can’t think of a single case I know of where that happened…

People get abandoned by a spouse who files for a no-fault divorce because they’re tired of being married to the person they married. They get abandoned because their spouse gets a crush on someone else and goes off into this fantasy world that they’re going to get divorced, marry the new flame, and everyone is going to be happy, happy, happy for them! It happens way too frequently.

I’ll tell you, I had a man tell me that he got a divorce that he didn’t need to get because he wouldn’t accept that it was up to him to do his part to get along. He got remarried, and guess what? Same problem again! He said he wished he was not such an idiot, and had never gotten a divorce in the first place. So yes, people do get divorced because one person gives up on a marriage that would have worked if they couldn’t get out by just going to a judge and saying, “Get me out.”

 

[Xantippe]

Did the stay at home parent contribute 50% finances to the mortgage, food, utilities, etc? Then 50% doesn’t sound that reasonable for assets using this logic. Child support also doesn’t sound that reasonable if this is the criteria we use. This is a clear double standard. Which one will it be?

**Not really. The money and assets should be divided equitably (money is a thing–it doesn’t have hurt feelings), but the best interests of children should be consulted when figuring out where they should spend their time because they’re people, not possessions.

If dad or mom is a doctor and gone for days, a pilot or flight attendant and gone for weeks, or a soldier and gone for a year at a time, those people (whatever their gender) can’t reasonably hope to get 50/50 custody. They just aren’t home enough and they just don’t have enough flexibility to deal appropriately with children’s needs (illness, school holidays, etc.) unless they make radical changes in their work life. It simply is the case that certain professions (for instance teaching) while lower paid than higher-flying professions are much more family friendly and make a parent a much better choice for having a larger chunk of custody.
**

Also, I know several divorced couples whose kids are clearly closer to the breadwinner, even if they don’t get as much hands-on time. they understand the work they do when they are gone, the sacrifices, and the effort they put in, even after they are exhausted from financially supporting the family. Depriving these kids of them even more to seeing them only a couple weekends a month is cruel.

**Are these exemplary breadwinners even capable of taking a larger share of custody?

It’s quite likely that they can’t.

As we’ve previously discussed, men that fight for custody (or shared custody) get it most of the time. If they want more custody, they can probably get it.
**

The point that you are completely missing is the family unit raises the children according the joint moral/Intellectual/Social values. When divorce happens, these go away. They are no longer working as a team. Most of the time, a spouse WANTS to stay at home with the kids, and the breadwinner makes sacrifices to allow it to happen. My old man worked long hours and passed up job offers that would be a 20%+ raise so he didn’t have to work even longer hours, or uproot the family and move somewhere else. 50/50 is best for the kids unless strong proof can be shown otherwise.

**Whatever is most suitable for particular children is best for those particular children.

I would not make a general rule (although I profoundly dislike the idea of daycare for infants and I don’t really like it for 1-year-olds either).

But I would add that any situation that puts a child largely in the care of a step parent is to be avoided. (If you have a slow day on the internet, try googling “I hate my stepkids.” There are already way too many stepmothers that are putting in long solo hours of parenting kids that they aren’t crazy about.
**

There seems to be the idea that people who work have this sexy life of high-executive stakes and excitement that they willfully neglect their families for. Fact is, about 20% of people marginally like their jobs, and most are beaten down workers who want to get their paycheck and come back to play with their kids.

No, just that going from an 80/20 childcare split during marriage directly to a 50/50 split is to be avoided, especially if the breadwinner parent was just the provider of fun and isn’t clear on stuff like what the kids eat, how to treat them when they’re sick, how much they weigh (important for medication dosage), what the teachers’ names are, where their doctor’s office is, where the dentist is, etc. It’s a rare breadwinner (even a married one) that has a firm grasp of that boring but essential custodial knowledge.

 

[Xantippe]

I don’t know about ‘impossible’, but it might be more of a case of ‘is it worth it to the wronged party’.

I have two male friends, both divorced from their first wives (both wives cheated). The first friend and his wife didn’t have kids, the second one and his wife did.

In the case of the first guy, pretty much everybody around him knew what happened (we’ll just say there was an epically bad moment at a party where she got busted big time and couldn’t have denied it if she tried). He was embarrassed to death, and quickly filed for a no-fault divorce, even though he could have nailed her on adultery (eight witnesses who walked in on her kinda has her dead up against the wall)–but he just simply said, “This is humiliating enough that my friends and family know. I don’t want to go through this with a room full of strangers, I don’t want our mutual friends dragged into the middle of this (because the ones who walked in on her would have to testify), I just want this over and done with quickly and quietly and get on with my life.”

Second guy had kids, and probably could have proved adultery on his now ex-wife…if he was willing to put his two young kids (seven and four at the time) on the stand to tell everybody what they saw mommy doing. He wasn’t willing to do that to them (he figured it would be stressful enough for the kids to be dragged into the middle of it anyway, but he also didn’t want to risk her lawyer trying to make it out that the kids were lying/misunderstood, etc.). I don’t know that I would have done the same in his place with custody at stake, but not my call to make. So he filed for a no-fault as well, to spare his kids.

So sometimes…it is the wronged party that wants the no-fault. Just to get it over with.

Exactly.

 

[EasterJoy]

So sometimes…it is the wronged party that wants the no-fault. Just to get it over with.

To get back to the original question, it is true both that sometimes morally permissible civil divorces didn’t used to happen and that divorces that are not morally permissible happen now. We need not quibble about whether unilateral no-fault divorce is a good thing in the big picture or not to come to the agreement that unilateral no-fault divorce will of course raise divorce rates, and probably dramatically. That much ought to have been predictable.

 

[SuperLuigi]

I am curious as to whether this increase was a US phenomenon or was for CAtholics in general?

You could say Western, but there’s pretty orthodox Catholics outside of the First World.

 

[pensmama87]

I was thinking about this thread and specifically the custody discussion today because of what happened to my sister’s boyfriend last week (he’s a nice guy, although I don’t think my sister should be dating him.) His soon-to-be-ex-wife was awarded primary custody of their five-year-old, though from what I heard about the hearing the judge was very unhappy to make that decision. The caveat - and I thought this was interesting - was that dad has to be present at all medical appointments and mom is not permitted to make medical decisions for their son (he has a medical condition that the father also has, and apparently there has been an issue with the mother not following through on treatment or providing adequate care.)

Now, I’ll admit that I wasn’t there and what I do know is what my sister said, and she has an obvious bias toward dad, though I wouldn’t expect her to actually lie about what happened. But I was kind of shocked that that would happen. The judge apparently mentioned a few activities the son is enrolled in and that it would be “too disruptive” for him to switch to a new T-ball team. It strikes me as odd that would be considered more important than the child getting adequate health care.

Dad is appealing the decision and is taking care to document as much as he can because unfortunately he’s pretty certain mom is going to continue neglecting his son’s care. Not that he wants that to happen, but at least if he can document it, it gives him some space to say, “Um, hello, this is not at all in the best interest of the child.”

I don’t like that my sister is involved in this situation because it’s a mess, but she does love the kid like crazy.

This is in a West Coast state.

 

[EasterJoy]

I am curious as to whether this increase was a US phenomenon or was for CAtholics in general?

From what I can gather, there was a spike in divorce rates after the war in countries involved in WWII (which was pretty much everybody), followed by a relative drop in the 1950s, followed by a big spike from the mid-1960s onward, attributable to relaxation of divorce laws in the US, western Europe, and elsewhere. Catholics were not spared. (Poland, being more rural and slower to adopt easier divorce laws, was a country that “lagged” behind the others.)

 

[Klemens_Hadwig]

(Poland, being more rural and slower to adopt easier divorce laws, was a country that “lagged” behind the others.)

Poland was certainly not ‘more rural’ than other nations after 1945. Following the rise of the PZPR (Polish United Workers’ Party), industrialisation accelerated at full speed. In fact, my mother always grieves the destruction of the old rural society by the socialist authorities. Post-war Poland was anything but materially backwards.

Believe it or not, no-fault divorce was not permitted even in the PRL (People’s Republic of Poland). Proof of fault had to be presented to the Justice, even though the types of proof deemed acceptable were dubious at times. A few comedy films from the PRL revolve around the search (or creation) of proof to secure a divorce. One of these films was „Co mi zrobisz jak mnie złapiesz?” (What Will You Do When You Catch Me?). In this film, a factory director tries to fabricate evidence of his wife’s infidelity in order to marry the daughter of a high-level Party official he impregnated. This film was released in 1978 (principle photography no earlier than 1977), which means that the law remained in effect at least until the 1980s, if not later.

Perhaps the PZPR realised that the marital capriciousness of no-fault divorces would undermine its social and ideological programme. Who knows.
I simply wanted to illustrate the differing legal developments from the East, since this conversation concerns itself largely with the post-war period in the west.