Silent Revolution: The Transformation of Divorce Law in the United States

Description

Conflict and controversy usually accompany major social changes in America. Such issues as civil rights, abortion, and the proposed Equal Rights Amendment provoke strong and divisive reactions, attract extensive media coverage, and generate heated legislative debate. Some theorists even claim that only mobilization and publicity can stimulate significant legislative change. How is it possible, then, that a wholesale revamping of American divorce law occurred with scarcely a whisper of controversy and without any national debate? This is the central question posed—and authoritatively answered—in Herbert Jacob's Silent Revolution. Since 1966, divorce laws in the United States have undergone a radical transformation. No-fault divorce is now universally available. Alimony functions simply as a brief transitional payment to help a dependent spouse become independent. Most states divide assets at divorce according to a community property scheme, and, whenever possible, many courts prefer to award custody of children to the mother and the father jointly. These changes in policy represent a profound departure from traditional American values, and yet the legislation by which they were enacted was treated as a technical correction of minor problems. No-fault divorce, for example, was a response to the increasing number of fraudulent divorce petitions. Since couples were often forced to manufacture the evidence of guilt that many states required, and since judges frequently looked the other way, legal reformers sought no more than to bring divorce statutes into line with current practice. On the basis of such observations, Jacob formulates a new theory of routine—as opposed to conflictual—policy-making processes. Many potentially controversial policies—divorce law reforms among them—pass unnoticed in America because legislators treat them as matters of routine. Jacob's is indeed the most plausible account of the enormous number and steady flow of policy decisions made by state legislatures. It also explains why no attention was paid to the effect divorce reform would have on divorced women and their children, a subject that has become increasingly controversial and that, consequently, is not likely to be handled by the routine policy-making process in the future.

Get the book

Amazon.com

Search the book

eBay.com

Search the book

Other editions

• 

  Silent Revolution: A Torah Network in the Soviet Union

  • 1992
  • 158 pages
  • Paperback
  • Mesorah Publications, Limited

Similar books

• 

  Property Law: Rules, Policies, and Practices

  By Joseph William Singer, Bethany R. Berger, Nestor M. Davidson

  See also Country Community Timberlake Village v. HMW Special Utility District of Harris, 438 S.W.3d 661 (Tex. Ct. App. 2014) (holding that a neighboring ...

• 

  Entertainment Law and Business

  By William D. Henslee, Elizabeth Henslee

  After Justin Timberlake exposed Janet Jackson's pierced nipple on national television for 9/16ths of a second, the FCC received over 540,000 complaints.

• 

  The Common Law in Colonial America: Volume III: The Chesapeake and New England, 1660-1750

  By William E. Nelson

  Volume III: The Chesapeake and New England, 1660-1750 William E. Nelson ... Decision of Law, Surry County Ct. 1673/74, in Eliza Timberlake Davis ed., ...

• 

  The Indiana State Constitution

  By William P. McLauchlan

  E. Edwards v. California, 314 U.S. 160 (1941), 66 Edwards v. Housing Authority of City of ... Timberlake, 148 Ind. 38,46 N.E.339 (1897), 69,70 Graves v.

• 

  Child Support Guidelines: Interpretation and Application

  By Laura W. Morgan

  Fitzgerald, 4.08[B][2], 5.05[D] Fitzgerald v. ... Mastrapa-Font, 7.03[A][3] Fontaine, In re, 5.05[D] Fontenette v. ... Frost, 5.05[A] Formato v.

• 

  Maritime Fraud and Piracy

  By Paul Todd

  The sole remedy is avoidance, however; damages cannot be claimed under s. ... 17, it places a great deal of power in the hands of insurance companies to ...

• 

  Principles of the Carriage of Goods by Sea

  By Paul Todd

  Normally, a mate«s receipt would later be given up for a bill of lading, ... they necessarily prejudice the rights of those who deal in the goods ...

• 

  Maryland Employment Law

  By Stanley Mazaroff, Todd Horn

  27 257 U.S. 184, 42 S. Ct. 72, 66 L. Ed. 189 (1921). ... 38 Argensinger, “Right to Strike”: Labor Organization and the New Deal in Baltimore, 78 MD . HIST .

• 

  Contract Law in New Zealand

  By Stephen Todd, Jeremy Finn

  704 Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017, s. 80. 705 Leith v. Gould [1986] 1 NZLR 760. It is not clear how a New Zealand court would deal with a case such ...

• 

  Tort Law in New Zealand

  By Stephen Todd

  ... to meet the reasonable expectations of claimants about how the corporation should deal with them, by, inter alia, ... 7 Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, s.