Baroness highlights rising divorce rates & associated cost to advocate change to family system
Divorcing couples should be made to endure a waiting period to counter rising rates of separation, Baroness Deech has said.
In the first of six Gresham College lectures on family law, Divorce Law: A Disaster?, Baroness Deech outlined the cost of divorce in financial and emotional terms, and called for a change in public attitudes.
“My own remedy would be an introduction of a waiting period to stop divorce being so quickly granted, even where the ground is one of the speedy ones,” she said.
“I would add to the present grounds of divorce a provision that no decree shall be granted until at least 12 months have elapsed from the service of the petition (the start of the formalities). This would ensure that no petitioner would be free to remarry for at least one year after the beginning of the process, regardless of the reasons for the divorce.”
In 2007, there were 231,000 marriages in England and Wales, the lowest total in 112 years, of which 143,000 were first marriages. Four out of ten are likely to end in divorce. England and Wales has the highest divorce rate in Western Europe, at 6.68 per 1,000 married people. The rate in Germany is 4.57, and in France, 2.01.
Divorce often has a lasting impact on children, yet this is not taken seriously by politicians, Baroness Deech, who is professor of law at Gresham and chairman of the Bar Standards Board, said.
“It is astonishing that no government seriously considers divorce as an issue while expressing anxiety about single parents, their children and society’s health.”
However, she warned that small tax breaks or incentives would be unlikely to have much effect since other financial incentives would “pull in another direction”.
“Divorce is not a private matter, it is of real public concern and cost, with a ripple effect on the family, the community and the whole country,” she said.
“So public attitudes have to be changed, just as they have been in relation to environmental issues and smoking, with greater or lesser success.
Every government initiative now has to have an impact assessment attached to it, weighing its impact in issues such as race, gender equality and the environment; support for marriage and the best interests of the child should be added.”
Baroness Deech’s next speech will take place in the Museum of London on 13 October.
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