Some conservatives want to make it a lot harder to dissolve a marriage.

Before the 1960s, it was really hard to get divorced in America.

Typically, the only way to do it was to convince a judge that your spouse had committed some form of wrongdoing, like adultery, abandonment, or “cruelty” (that is, abuse). This could be difficult: “Even if you could prove you had been hit, that didn’t necessarily mean it rose to the level of cruelty that justified a divorce,” said Marcia Zug, a family law professor at the University of South Carolina.

Then came a revolution: In 1969, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan of California (who was himself divorced) signed the nation’s first no-fault divorce law, allowing people to end their marriages without proving they’d been wronged. The move was a recognition that “people were going to get out of marriages,” Zug said, and gave them a way to do that without resorting to subterfuge. Similar laws soon swept the country, and rates of domestic violence and spousal murder began to drop as people — especially women — gained more freedom to leave dangerous situations.

Today, however, a counter-revolution is brewing: Conservative commentators and lawmakers are calling for an end to no-fault divorce, arguing that it has harmed men and even destroyed the fabric of society. Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers, for example, introduced a bill in January to ban his state’s version of no-fault divorce. The Texas Republican Party added a call to end the practice to its 2022 platform (the plank is preserved in the 2024 version). Federal lawmakers like Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and House Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, have spoken out in favor of tightening divorce laws.

  • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
    3·
    6 months ago

    Yeah we had a big quiverfull church not far from where I used to live. They were in a cycle of being in the news every few years for how they promote their flock to get on government assistance to afford more kids. People making six figure incomes were getting a variety of benefits because they had over a dozen kids, in two cases two dozen kids. This would piss people, garner calls for legal changes to stop this abuse, bring up how they are exactly the type of people who want to scare people with “welfare queen” stories, etc.

    For a couple generations, the pumping out children mandate made it grow. However, around the third generation they started seeing a steep decline in parishionership. Basically the founding members’ kids weren’t nearly as willing to stay in this cult, and by their grand children’s generation, their birthrate wasn’t enough to replace their flock. By the time their great grand kids’ generation came around (current time) they were quickly dwindling in numbers. Now every time their welfare stuff hits the news they now have interviews with people who cut their families off, and left the cult, being interviewed about how insane they are.

    From what I have been able to find, this seems to be the general timeline of these “super family” sects. They burn themselves out, and as time time progresses, the burnout comes more, and more, quickly. So the long term prospects of the baby factory faiths isn’t good.