Legislation and Divorce
Just like all cultures, everything our Western culture does is a result of design. We shape, control, legislate, and follow tradition as our country winds its way into the history books. The late President Ronald Reagan, according to McManus (2011), enacted the United States’ very first no-fault divorce policy while he was the governor of California. Forever changing marriage in America, the no-fault policy allowed couples to divorce without providing evidence that one spouse committed a serious injustice to the other. With the stroke of a pen, Ronald Reagan effectively created a fast track for divorce. Taking California’s lead, nearly all states immediately legislated no-fault divorce policies. Rates of divorce rose from “639,000” before no-fault in 1969, to “1,036,000” by 1975 (McManus, 2011). Not only did this injustice to marriage enable divorce to continue on its path of destruction in America, it accelerated it like the world as never seen before. McManus, president of Marriage Savers, adds that after the signing of no-fault divorce, American divorce reached an all-time high of three times that of Great Britain. Basically, our national leadership has been slowly allowing our country to dig itself deeper into a crevice while continually making the wrong decisions in regard to divorce policies, adversely affecting everything from our youth to national deficits.
In fact, aside from the couples involved, divorce corrupts and sets our youth up for failure, while draining taxpayer money. Children whose parents divorce, states McManus (2011), are immediately at triple the risk of deviant behavior, poverty, and young pregnancy. So essentially, we have allowed our society to harm our children indirectly because these very same children will now have a harder time maintaining a strong marriage themselves when they are older. This once again, adds to the perpetual cycle of Western divorce. And if our children are not of concern, what about our nation’s wallet? Each divorce roughly costs $20,000 of state and federal money in welfare payments and subsidies to support both parties, including children, until they are financially stable (McManus, 2011). That’s right, our wallets are also suffering at the hands of divorce and will only continue to drain our hard-earned money until the problem is corrected. Regardless, every citizen stands to lose if, as a society, we don’t take a good long hard look in the mirror. We created the problem. We have to fix it.
In fact, aside from the couples involved, divorce corrupts and sets our youth up for failure, while draining taxpayer money. Children whose parents divorce, states McManus (2011), are immediately at triple the risk of deviant behavior, poverty, and young pregnancy. So essentially, we have allowed our society to harm our children indirectly because these very same children will now have a harder time maintaining a strong marriage themselves when they are older. This once again, adds to the perpetual cycle of Western divorce. And if our children are not of concern, what about our nation’s wallet? Each divorce roughly costs $20,000 of state and federal money in welfare payments and subsidies to support both parties, including children, until they are financially stable (McManus, 2011). That’s right, our wallets are also suffering at the hands of divorce and will only continue to drain our hard-earned money until the problem is corrected. Regardless, every citizen stands to lose if, as a society, we don’t take a good long hard look in the mirror. We created the problem. We have to fix it.