SELFISH INTENTIONS - K-REx - Kansas State University

CHAPTER 1 - Divorce Law in the United States
Divorce in the English colonies was not impossible, but it was certainly rare. It can be
argued that it was not until the late nineteenth century that divorce laws in the western U.S.
abandoned these conservative origins for more liberal legal codes. Divorce law in the United
States derived from the tradition of English common law. English common law was a legal
system established by judicial precedent rather than through legislative action. The body of
precedents set by previous legal cases provided the basis for legal decisions. Following the
American Revolution, each state had the option to codify their laws and many states amended
these laws as time passed. Divorce law, however, remained overwhelmingly conservative until
the western territories that became states formalized their own laws for marriage and divorce,
most of which were more liberal than the laws of East coast states. Women living in the western
states benefited from the liberal nature of these laws. They used divorce as a remedy to escape
from irreparable marriages. The liberalization of U.S. divorce law positively affected women all
across the country.
The English legal tradition from which the U.S. derived its legal system was quite
complicated when addressing divorce. In early Christian societies, marriage occurred when a
man and a woman willed themselves wed. But as the Roman Catholic faith was institutionalized
across western Europe, the church controlled all aspects of the marriage, treating the union as a
sacrament. Great Britain was no exception. Prior to the Reformation in Great Britain, the law
emphasized the indissolubility of marriage. After the Reformation the ecclesiastical, or
religious, courts claimed the power to dissolve a marriage but only on the grounds of adultery.
Following the Restoration, the civil courts became involved, and it took several steps for a
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