Divorce
Although wedding vows are taken with all good intentions, relationships can deteriorate, leading to decisions to divorce. Social acceptability and the law on this have changed dramatically over the centuries. From being rare, difficult and a Church matter (as evidenced by King Henry VIII‘s wranglings with the Pope over his wish to divorce), there are now well over 100,000 divorces taking place every year in the UK.
The 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act established a fault-based procedure for divorce, handled by civil courts rather than the Church or Parliament ~ a full divorce could only be had by wealthy, well-connected spouses via a Private Act (of which there were only 314 over the previous 150 years). Reforms loosening the stipulations inevitably and gradually followed, e.g. in 1937 the range of eligible faults expanded. Provision for children’s best interests and financial apportionment were also brought in.
The 1969 Divorce Reform Act and the 1976 Divorce (Scotland) Act introduced ‘irretrievable breakdown’ and qualifying lengths of separation ~ two years by mutual consent, or five years otherwise. The 1978 Matrimonial Causes (Northern Ireland) Order was a hybrid of both types of justification, i.e. fault-based or breakdown. The 2020 Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act, which took effect in 2022, went further and made divorce completely fault-free.
(Image: amboo who? at Flickr.com / CC BY-SA 2.0)