Divorce Laws and Divorce Rates

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Divorce laws in the United States are significantly more lenient today than they were many years ago, especially during that of the WWII era. A marriage defined by Merriam-Webster is a legally sanctioned contract between a man and a woman to be together for life. This definition is not so far from that of the religious definition of marriage. From a religious stand point, however depending on your specific religion, marriage is meant to be a union of a forever relationship even through eternity. Though both the dictionary and religious definitions of a marriage seem similar enough and straight forward enough to understand for those who are willing to take that forever leap into an eternal bond there are those who depend on the easier legal definition of marriage, which is simply defined as a civil contract between two people who meet the legal requirements for getting married established by the state in which they live. However unlike the harsh reality of how divorce was seen in centuries past it is now an easily seen loop hole in the lawful definition of marriage because as like any other contract made, it can always have the possibility of being broken. The statistics speak for themselves on how high the divorce rate has become, what it doesn’t show are how many people are affected by the outcome of this easily dissolvable union.

According to the American Divorce Reform data for the United States shows a shocking, yet familiar statistic of 50% of marriages ending shortly after they begin. Since the early 1960’s, marriage and divorce have been going through intense changes which have significantly changed the meaning of marriage as it was once seen, making the chances of it ending in divorce greater because of the issues atta...

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Works Cited

Crouch, John, and Colleen Fannin. "What is Divorce Reform?." Americans Divorce Reform (2002):

"Learn About Law." LawInfo. 1995. 28 Feb. 2011. .

Marcasa, Stephanie "Divorce Laws and Divorce Rate in the U.S.." IDEAS 29 May. 2009:

Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. 11 ed. Springfield,MA: Merriam-Webster, 2005.

Robinson, B.A. . "Divorce and Remarriage." Religious Tolerance. 27 Apr. 2000. 2 Mar. 2011. .

Stevenson, Betsey, and Justin Wolfers. "Marriage and Divorce: Changes and Their Driving Forces." Journal of Economic Perspectives 21 (2007): 27-52.

Wilson, Bruce "What's Good? What's Bad? and What's Puzzling?." Huffington Post 9 Nov. 2010. 1 Mar. 2011 .

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