Alabama Family Law Blog

My colleagues at Fox Rothschild recently posted an interesting article to their Pennsylvania Family Law Blog which takes an interesting look at the reports that the divorce rate is falling. 

Of particular interest to Alabama families is the speculation that one of the primary reasons the divorce rate is declining is that many more people are choosing to live together without getting married.  I have noticed that trend in my practice. 

However, the scary thing about that trend in Alabama, is that we are among the few states who still recognize common law marriage.  That means that couples may be intending to cohabitate without marriage, but if they meet the (sometimes nebulous) tests for a common law marriage then those couples will still need to go through the divorce process to legally conclude their relationship.

Here is the Fox Rothschild post:

Divorce rates hit an all time high in 1981.  According to a recent article on the CNN website, rates are continuing to drop.  But there are differences in opinion as to what really is going on in American families.

Several theories exist:

* Divorce rates are down because less people get married. Rather, they live together. In fact, the number of couples living together has increased by a factor of 10 since 1960.
* Divorce rates are falling in couples who are college educated. The rationale being that in such families both parties may work, reducing financial stress, and allowing the couples to remain married.
* In some areas, the stigma of being divorced has increased. Couples in these areas may be working harder to stay married.

One thing to think about is that it doesn't matter to the children whether their parents are married or just live together when they split.  Either way, the children suffer the loss of their family.

Cohabitation certainly has impacted U.S. divorce statistics, but the statistics also suggest that marriages concluded in the 90s were more likely to survive through the tenth anniversary than marriages from the 80s, which in turn had better odds of lasting 10 years than marriages from the 70s. So it appears that marriages are at least incrementally more durable than in recent decades.

One 1990s marriage that has defied the odds survived its first decade is that of Shante and Cordozar Calvin Broadus, a.k.a. "Snoop Dogg," a Los Angeles rapper who's a regular on the pornographic Girls Gone Wild video series and the Howard Stern Show.

Mr. Broadus filed for divorce in 2004 against his wife of seven years and mother of their three children. But in 2007 he reconciled with his wife, called off the divorce, and resumed his role as head of the family.

"I was caught up with Hollywood, and the girls and the night life," he told the World Entertainment News Network. "I thought I was 'the man' and I was willing to give up what I had at home for that, until I realized that what I had at home was irreplaceable, so I gave that up to go back home.

"I just don't want another man raising my kids. That was the main goal. I had kids with my wife because I wanted to be with my wife. And those three babies [Corde, Cordell and Coril] are all wanted, and I wanted to be with them."

Mr. Broadus embodies many of the pathologies of the contemporary ghetto, but - bless his heart - he's trying.

B. James Stinson
http://therapeuticfamilylaw.blogspot.com