Stolen Vows

The Illusion of No-Fault Divorce and
The Rise of the American Divorce Industry

The American Law Institute has provided the latest example of why Americans should resist the effort of narrow interest groups that want to change the English language in ways designed to advance their particular social or cultural campaigns.

The ALI has just published a 2,000-page document, "Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution: Analysis and Recommendations."

This group of lawyers, judges and law professors isn't exactly disinterested when it comes to this subject. Many of them are part of what might be called the "divorce industry" and either directly or indirectly profit from its expansion. So right up front, anything they analyze or recommend ought to be treated as potentially toxic.

That is particularly the case when they talk of "family dissolution." That term is not to be found in the law books of most states. It certainly doesn't appear in the index of the Colorado statutes, where one will find much more familiar terms like "dissolution of marriage" and "husbands and wives generally" and "parent and child generally."

What the ALI wants the nation to do is rethink marriage and divorce and recognize specific cultural changes that have occurred, especially the increase in out-of-wedlock births; the increase in cohabitation outside of marriage by both heterosexual and homosexual couples; and formation of what it calls "close relationships" that in some way resemble family units.

By fashioning the term "family dissolution," the ALI apparently intends to convince everyone that it is "families" and not "marriages" that are dissolved.

What's needed here is a dose of common sense. When couples marry and have children and later divorce, that divorce doesn't dissolve family relationships. Children of divorce don't divorce their mothers and fathers. These relationships are, in most cases, maintained in some form - at least that is the intent of current law. By using the term "family dissolution," attention is intentionally drawn away from the issue of husbands and wives and children to "living units" - and thus it is no surprise that the ALI wants to bring all of these other models under the purview of the court system.

The report talks not just of unmarried couples who have children and at breakup end up in court over child-support issues, but it talks of couples - including homosexual couples - who may have some "financial claim" on a partner at the breakup of a cohabitating arrangement.

The ALI report is plainly intended to serve as a blueprint for judges and state lawmakers who have been asked to accommodate this or that interest. One chapter addresses financial claims that may arise at the termination of "certain stable, cohabitating relationships between two unmarried persons." Not surprisingly, there is resistance to this report, and the hope is that it will grow. Judy Parejko, author of the book "Stolen Vows," told USA Today that the report may be a make-work project for the divorce bar. Her book, by the way, makes the case that the interests of children are too often ignored by divorcing parents.

Author David Blankenhorn, author of "Fatherless America," told USA Today, "I think this is a terrible idea. It seems clear to me that children do best in a society that recognizes and supports marriage, that gives them a certain status and protection ... ."

No one has ever seriously suggested that everyone ought to be married or that everyone ought to stay married. There are and will be exceptions to any rule, and the law and society must learn to deal with those exceptions. Saying that is a long way from allowing the exceptions to swallow the rule.

Legislators are paid to respond to homegrown problems, problems that actually exist in a given state. There is no need to go looking for trouble and there is certainly no need to start redefining perfectly good terms like "marriage," "child," "family," "mother" and "father." The index of Colorado law contains, as it should, a section on marriage. There is no compelling cultural or legal reason to include one on "close relationships."