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Divorce Reform Essay

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There has been a long history regarding reform proposals and recommendations surrounding the law of divorce. The first legislation which was introduced in divorce law was the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, which allowed people to obtain a divorce. However, today the provisions within that act are outdated, yet, it represented society in 1857. In 1937, legislation altered to catch up with societal changes and additional grounds of divorce were introduced. This again occurred in 1973, where legislation changed altering the grounds and facts in which a divorce could be obtained. This is the current legislation relied upon today.
Yet, various attempts of reform since 1973 have been unsuccessful. The most notable is the Family Law Act 1996, which received royal assent however, part 11 which covered the area of divorce was repealed in 2011. The central aims of this were to strengthen marriage and allow marriages to be ended in a dignified, thoughtful manner with minimum distress and humiliation to the parties. It could be argued that if these provisions were implemented that the law surrounding divorce would appear very different today in that it could …show more content…

The current system revolves around the five facts which due to their nature have been criticised as “a mixed bag of separation and fault-based facts at best illogical and at worst destructive”. However, the current system has its reasons for operating the way it does. It encourages reconciliation but at the same time discourages a clean break which is one of the central aims within divorce law. With an increasing number of divorces the law must adopt to different social, economic and cultural circumstances and is bound to change as the requirements of our ever more complex society

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