ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a general overview of trends and patterns in divorce in the developed world, focusing especially on the interaction between legal and behavioural aspects of union dissolution. The account is written from a sociological rather than a legal perspective. Its purpose is to provide background and context for other chapters in this book rather than directly to address the legal regulation of couple breakup. It fi rst provides a brief outline of trends in divorce rates in industrialised countries over the past half century, highlighting both the overall upward shift which occurred and the varied timing, pace and extent of that shift between countries. It then turns to a number of aspects of the interaction between law and behaviour that are associated with these trends. The fi rst aspect is the import of the law itself as a possible infl uence on union stability, particularly the question whether the wave of liberalisation of divorce law that occurred in most western countries between the 1960s and 1980s might have contributed to the rise in marital breakdown that emerged at the same time. A related issue is the role of various forms of de facto and legal separation as alternatives to divorce for those exiting marriage, a question which is relevant to both the methodology of measurement of marital breakdown and substantive concerns about the range of possible legal responses to union dissolution.
