Sex Scandal by Ashley McGuire

Author:Ashley McGuire
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781621576105
Publisher: Brisance Books Group LLC
Published: 2017-01-15T16:00:00+00:00

NO ONE’S FAULT

But not everything that was billed as sexual equality under the law worked out so equally for the two sexes. Take, for example, no-fault divorce, one of the final fruits of the Sexual Revolution. Initially viewed as the female ticket to liberation from the confining institution of marriage—“a comfortable concentration camp,” according to Betty Friedan30 and “the model for slavery law in this country,” as Gloria Steinem labeled it,31 the costs of no-fault divorce were disproportionately borne by women.

In 1970 California became the first state to implement no-fault divorce, and most states quickly followed its lead. As the name suggests, under the new regime couples did not have to prove that one spouse was at fault for the end of the marriage. Unsurprisingly, what followed was a notable spike in divorce rates.32 Although the divorce rate has since fallen somewhat, even in the new millennium, more than four in ten couples marrying for the first time are expected to split.33

Divorce is terrible for women. Women are more likely than men to lose their health insurance after divorce, according to the University of Michigan,34 and twice as likely as men to fall into poverty.35 And no-fault divorce is even worse for women. In a no-fault divorce, only a third of women wind up keeping the family home, as opposed more than three-fourths in a fault divorce.36 And even women who stay married are affected by no-fault divorce laws: a study at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business found that people in states where unilateral no-fault divorce is permitted are less open to making financial sacrifices for their spouse’s future.37

This and other female misfortunes, like the rise in single motherhood, have prompted some of the Sexual Revolution’s icons to reconsider their position. “I think we made a mistake with no fault divorce,” Betty Friedan admitted, acknowledging that it had led to “unintended consequences” for women.38 In 2006, the then president of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women wrote an article for the New York Times documenting the many ways that no-fault divorce hurts women in particular and pleading with state officials not to legalize it.39 They did anyway.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.