If Divorce by Consent Were Ever Adopted, ‘There Would Be a Very Real Risk That in the End Widespread Divorce Would Come to Be an Accepted Feature of Our Society… [and] a Normal Incident of Life’

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If divorce by consent were ever adopted, ‘there would be a very real risk that in the end widespread divorce would come to be an accepted feature of our society… [and] a normal incident of life’ (Morton Commission, 1955). Discuss The concerns of the Morton Commission have become a reality. Divorce is a banal and prevalent feature of our society. Virtually all divorces are terminated through the special procedure because most of them are uncontested and it is a quicker process. Today, there is a culture of divorce on demand despite the strict substantive provisions of the the MCA 1973. The Morton Commission wanted to avoid this by only allowing petitions for divorce from innocent petitioners who had matrimonial offences “committed against them” during their marriage by guilty respondents. The fault-based approach advocated by the Commission has not been totally removed from the current law. The MCA has been described as a mixed-economy because it contains a mixture of fault-based and non-fault based facts for the petitioner to demonstrate the irretrievable breakdown of a marriage. It is questionable whether fault, a matter more naturally suited to the criminal law is appropriate for such an important area of family law. In the twenty first century, almost half of all marriages will end in divorce. However it is not the prevalence of divorce which is key. Irrespective of assertions from conservative commentators that marital breakdown is a sign that society is failing, times have changed. There is a greater focus on individual choice and happiness as Baroness Deech comments. This autonomous approach means that desperately broken marriages or “empty shells” to adopt the language of Mathias v Mathias can be exited by the unhappy parties. Surely, the opportunity for miserable marriages to be brought to an end by law upholds rather than undermines the sanctity

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