Summary
In February of 2006, the Matrimonial Commission of the NYS Unified Court System released its final report to the Chief Judge of the NYS Court of Appeals Judith Kaye. In the report, the Commission recommends that the state move to a system of no-fault divorce. This call from the judiciary, together with advocacy from the New York State Bar Association, has resulted in the introduction of numerous no-fault divorce bills.

Conference Position
The New York State Catholic Conference opposes all measures that further break down the institution of marriage, including no-fault divorce in the State of New York.

Rationale
No-fault divorce would allow one spouse to obtain a divorce without the consent of the other spouse, for any reason or for no reason at all. A divorce would be granted even if one spouse wished to remain married. Thus, under a no-fault system, New York’s law would be refusing to allow one person to make a substantive enduring commitment to another person, a commitment that would be honored by our courts. No-fault divorce would send the message that marriage is temporary and trivial, and can be easily breached, more easily perhaps than a contract for a new cell phone.

Such a unilateral action is unjust and often results in inequities to one powerless spouse, as well as to children. According to the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, a women’s standard of living drops by an average of 27% and a man’s increases by 10% following a divorce. This gender gap solidifies the benefits of marriage as significant and well-established.

No-fault divorce laws in other states and countries, including Canada and England, have resulted in measurable increases in the divorce rate. Yet, according to the social sciences, marital dissolution brings with it significant negative impacts on children, adults, families, and society as a whole.
A growing consensus confirms that children raised outside of intact marriages are at higher risk for experiencing higher rates of poverty, welfare dependency, crime, school failure, substance abuse, juvenile delinquency and adult criminality, mental illness and emotional distress, domestic violence, unwed teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, poor quality family relationships, and child abuse.

Adults, too, benefit from marriage. Married people live longer, healthier lives with higher levels of emotional well-being and lower rates of mental illness and emotional distress, and they make more money than otherwise similar singles. Many social, economic and psychological benefits of strong marriages flow to government and society as well.

Importantly, the Domestic Relations Law already allows for divorce where husband and wife have lived apart pursuant to a separation judgment, decree or written agreement for a period of one or more years. See N.Y. CLS. Dom. Rel. Law § 170 (5)(6). Thus, statutory “faultless” divorce provisions already exist in the law, as does a one-year “cooling-off” period for couples, a period of reflection time which would be lost under the provisions of the legislation now under consideration. There is no need to adopt “irreconcilable differences” as a new divorce ground in New York, or to decrease the required separation time to three months, as some bills propose.

Significantly, divorcing couples have often reported being unsure of their decision to end their marriage. Many later believe that their divorce may have been a mistake, and wish they had tried harder to work out their differences with their ex-spouse. A no-fault divorce law in New York would only increase these second thoughts and regretted divorces.

As an alternative to legislation that further breaks down the institution of marriage, the Catholic Conference encourages initiatives to strengthen marriage and reduce unnecessary divorce. Such initiatives could include premarital and marital education programs, marriage counseling and mentoring programs and divorce education/mediation programs that are designed to reconcile the spouses, rather than merely easing the procedural process of divorce.

Marriage is a sacred union upon which dependent family members, children, and society as a whole rely. It is more than a contract. Marriage is so important to social stability and individual development that it should be valued, not further broken down. New York should be focusing on public policies which strengthen and preserve family life, not legislation to make the dismantling of marriage easier and quicker.