Of course, we all know what a divorce is on a basic level. With so many marriages in the present era going wrong and ending messily, there are more divorces now than there have ever been. Although the statistics are depressing when you hear them the truth of the matter is that some time ago, when divorce was rarer, more stigmatized and more difficult to carry out, a lot of people spent much of their lives trapped in marriages that were not only poorly-matched, but often involved violence, mental bullying and an extensive list of other drawbacks. While it may be desirable that the divorce rates slow down, it is equally the case that things would be helped in no small amount by the introduction of some realism in cases where couples get married early in a relationship.
A divorce itself is the formalized and permanent separation of a marriage under the law. Often people will refer to a couple as being divorced before any such process has taken place, and what they are technically referring to is a separation. For a couple to be divorced, a process needs to be instigated and completed to the satisfaction of all parties involved – the couple, and the state in which they are permanently resident. This process can be fairly rapid, but in reality the duration will depend very much upon the cordiality of relations between the spouses. If the separation is what we generally refer to as “amicable” and the divorce is a simple matter of two people making a clean break, the process will generally be quick. If however the break-up is messy, fraught with legal issues and between two people who may even refuse to speak to one another, divorce proceedings may well drag somewhat.
There are numerous circumstances in which a divorce may come to pass. If a couple feel that they have reached the end of their time together, that either or both of them is unsatisfied in the marriage, then it is common for them to separate unofficially. After they have lived separately for 12 months they can divorce almost immediately with no need for any fault to be proven on either spouse’s behalf. Conversely, if the point of separation in a marriage occurs because one spouse has been unfaithful, a legal case is likely to result, and damages to be paid out.
In divorce proceedings there are two stages – the decree nisi and the decree absolute. The first stage is when a ruling is made by the court for the divorce, stating that it will not come into full effect until a certain condition is met. This condition can be any one of a number of things, although as often as not it is simply the consent of both parties in the divorce. When the conditions laid down in the decree nisi are formally and officially met, the decree absolute is issued and the couple are divorced.
