A brief history of divorce Rod Phillips
The earliest known divorce
laws were written
on clay tablets in ancient Mesopotamia
around 2000 BCE.
Formally or informally, human societies
across place and time
have made rules
to bind and dissolve couples.
Inca couples, for example,
started with a trial partnership,
during which a man could send
his partner home.
But once a marriage was formalized,
there was no getting out of it.
Among the Inuit peoples,
divorce was discouraged,
but either spouse could demand one.
or they could exchange partners
with a different couple—
as long as all four people agreed.
The stakes of who can obtain a divorce,
and why, have always been high.
Divorce is a battlefield for some
of society’s most urgent issues,
including the roles of church and state,
individual rights, and women’s rights.
Religious authorities have often
regulated marriage and divorce.
Muslims in Africa, the Middle East, and
Asia began using the Quran’s rules
in the 7th century AD—
generally, a husband can divorce his wife
without cause or agreement,
while a wife must secure her husband’s
agreement to divorce him.
In Europe, Christian churches controlled
divorce from the 11th century on,
with the Catholic Church
banning it entirely
and Protestant churches allowing
it in restricted circumstances,
particularly adultery.
In the late 18th century,
a series of changes took place
that would eventually shape
divorce laws around the world.
Following centuries of religious conflict,
Europeans pushed for state governance
separate from religious control.
Secular courts gradually took over
education, welfare, health, marriage—
and divorce.
The French Revolution ushered in the first
of the new divorce laws,
allowing men and women to divorce
for a number of grounds,
including adultery, violence,
and desertion, or simply mutual consent.
Though progress was uneven, overall this
sort of legislation spread in Europe,
North America and some European
colonies in the 19th century.
Still, women’s access to divorce often
remained restricted compared to men.
Adultery was considered more
serious for women—
a man could divorce his wife
for adultery alone,
while a woman would need
evidence of adultery,
plus an additional offense
to divorce her husband.
Sometimes this double standard
was written into law;
other times, the courts enforced
the laws unequally.
Domestic violence by a man against
his wife was not widely considered
grounds for divorce
until the 20th century.
And though new laws expanded
the reasons a couple could divorce,
they also retained the fundamental
ideology of their religious predecessors:
that a couple could only split if one
person wronged the other in specific ways.
This state of affairs really overstayed
its welcome.
Well into the 20th century,
couples in the U.S.
resorted to hiring actors to jump into bed
with one spouse,
fully clothed, and take photos
as evidence of cheating.
Finally, in the 1960s and 70s,
many countries and states adopted
no-fault divorce laws,
where someone could divorce their spouse
without proving harm,
and importantly,
without the other’s consent.
The transition from cultural
and religious rules
to state sanctioned ones
has always been messy and incomplete—
people have often ignored
their governments’ laws
in favor of other conventions.
Even today, the Catholic Church doesn’t
recognize divorces granted by law.
In some places, like parts of India,
Western-style divorce laws
have been seen as a colonial influence
and communities practice divorce
according to other religious rules.
In others, though the law may allow
for equal access to divorce,
bias in the legal system, cultural stigma,
or community pressures
can make it far more difficult for certain
people, almost always women.
And even in the places where women
aren’t disadvantaged by law or otherwise,
social and economic conditions often make
divorce more difficult for women.
In the United States, for example,
women experience economic loss
far more than men after divorce.
At its best, modern no-fault divorce
allows people to leave marriages
that make them unhappy.
But dissolving a marriage
is almost never as simple
as sending two people their separate ways.
What divorcing partners owe each other,
and how they manage aspects
of a once shared life
remain emotionally and philosophically
complex issues.