ABSTRACT
No-fault divorce has had ail impact on society that extends far beyond the changes foreseen by its initial proponents. The primary problem with no-fault divorce is that it ignores some costs of divorce. The initial no-fault divorce law enacted in California in 1969 was broadly accepted as an improvement over the existing fault-based statutes. With the introduction of no-fault divorce and a reduction in the financial settlements received by many wives, unjust outcomes became more frequent in some common law states. The injustice of no-fault divorce often was associated with the higher income of the spouse who had focused on income earning during marriage. Along with the efforts of the courts and legislatures, suggestions for reforming no-fault divorce were presented by academics. No-fault divorce is unfair to many spouses who assumed that their commitment to household production was protected by the de facto requirement of mutual consent under fault divorce.
