N.Y. debates no-fault divorces

NEW YORK -- When California became the first state to allow couples to divorce without accusing each other of wrongdoing, many women's advocates thought it sounded like a good idea.

Nearly 40 years later, however, some of them have changed their minds.

"It's not the catchall approach to divorce that people thought it might be, and it's really dangerous for women and their children," said Rachel Allen, spokeswoman for the California chapter of the National Organization for Women. "It really has made things more complicated."

As New York -- one of a handful of states that did not follow California's lead -- debates the enactment of no-fault divorce, some feminists have emerged as its most vocal opponents. New York's NOW chapter regularly opposes bills sponsored in the State Legislature in Albany that would allow couples to divorce without assigning blame, saying that because wives are generally less financially secure than husbands, it would weaken their ability to negotiate. Decades after most states adopted some version of no-fault divorce, there is sharp disagreement on its impact.

Many experts say women as well as men have benefited from shorter, cheaper and less-bitter divorces. And research by an economist at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania has shown that easier divorces have reduced domestic violence within marriages by a third.

Elizabeth Brandt, a law professor at the University of Idaho Law College, who has conducted a state-by-state analysis of fault grounds for the American Bar Association, said the argument that no-fault hurts women is "ludicrous."

"It's really an archaic view," she said. No-fault laws "lowered the amount of confrontation that's involved in divorce and lowered the cost of obtaining a divorce. . . . I think, by and large, it has helped women."

A Harvard sociologist's 1996 study of California women after no-fault divorces concluded that women's standard of living dropped by 70 percent, while men's rose 40 percent, though some have questioned those results. Allen, of California NOW, said her office is inundated with calls from women who say they were steamrollered in custody battles and in family court.

"There's this assumption that men and women come into divorce on equal footing, and that's just not the case," she said.

Many opponents of no-fault divorce say that domestic abuse victims may have to negotiate with their abusers for custody, visitation or financial settlements. But fault-based divorce may also mean that abused women must present solid proof of their battering to obtain divorces, and experts say lengthy divorces that prolong anger and acrimony can be especially dangerous.

"That can be a very violent time," said Betsey Stevenson, an economist at the Wharton School who has studied the impact of unilateral divorce, in which one partner can get a divorce even if the other doesn't want it. New York is one of a few states that does not offer some version of unilateral divorce.

Stevenson said that unilateral divorces not only reduce domestic violence, they also have lowered the number of women who commit suicide during contentious divorces as well as the number of women killed by their husbands. Shorter divorces reduce the amount of tension, she said, and the threat that a divorce can be easily had prevents some potentially violent situations from combusting.

"It keeps spouses on good behavior," she said.

(EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM) In Connecticut, which has allowed no-fault divorce in the majority of cases since 1973, there has been no outcry from women's groups, said Gaetano Ferro, a Connecticut matrimonial lawyer and the past president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

"It was a refreshing change," Ferro said. "Divorce became much more civilized. People could focus on what was important; they didn't have to fall on the sword to get a divorce."

New Jersey allows no-fault divorce, but only after an 18-month waiting period. A bill that would relax those rules has been passed by the legislature, but Gov. Jon Corzine has yet to sign it. Maretta Short, president of New Jersey's NOW chapter, said she is vehemently opposed.

"I hate to even think about a law like that," she said, adding that it would be akin to requiring women to walk a few steps behind men. "While no-fault sounds gender neutral, in practice it enables the more powerful party in a marriage to file for divorce without legal obligations."

Short and other women's advocates pointed to the divorce of former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, in which a judge ruled after a bitter trial that McGreevey would pay his wife a settlement of just over $100,000, no alimony and child support of $250 a week, as evidence that the system is slanted toward men.

Women who don't earn incomes and stay home to raise children are at a disadvantage when divorces can be easily obtained, she said.

(END OPTIONAL TRIM) Though it reduced domestic violence, easier divorce laws have affected women's finances, according to Stevenson's research.

Unilateral divorces have caused an uptick in the number of working women, she said, since women may not feel protected enough to give up their careers for their families.

Spouses are also less inclined to work while their partners go to school if they know one partner unilaterally can end the marriage, she said.

"There are costs and benefits," Stevenson said. "For better or worse, my research has actually shown both sides of the issue."

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AP-NY-08-20-08 0849EDT