Should a change in family law be grounds for divorce?

[Boojatta]

One can imagine a couple continuing the existing social and economic arrangement, but ending the legal contract.

[niyad]

1. to what change are you referring?

[Boojatta]

2. I'm referring to any change that affects the legal agreement.

If, in the opinion of the parties to the agreement, the change is substantial, then should they be able to use the fact of such a change in the law as grounds for divorce?

[Inland]

3. I"m not sure what you mean. If you look at the statutes,

you'll see that there is no "marriage agreement". There's an assumption that the married couple is working it out for themselves. There's usually a provision for prenuptial agreements, but that's it. The law keeps out of the rest of it.

Where the law step in is where the parties can't agree, i.e., divorce.

That's why there's one paragraph on how to become married, on paragraph on who can get married, and fifty pages on what happens on divorce.

[Boojatta]

4. The many pages about divorce are part of the agreement.

there's one paragraph on how to become married, one paragraph on who can get married, and fifty pages on what happens on divorce.

Could someone initiate a divorce on the grounds of pending legislative amendments to family law that have not yet been enacted? Would such a divorce be governed by the law that was in force at the time that the divorce was initiated?

[Inland]

5. But they aren't.

The articles on divorce are "what's fair" in lieu of an settlement agreement on divorce and "what's best" for the children of a divorce.

See, I think you are simply mistaking what marriage IS. It isn't a contract with terms. It's a legal status, like being an offspring or a minor or mentally incompetent or dead. Get married and you basically hand yourself over to the state to mediate in case it fails. I'm pretty sure that amendments to the law apply to whatever divorce isn't final for the same reason, although that's a different question altogether: first, one would have to see what the legislature intended. Usually there's an explicit provision.

If one wants a contract with terms without input from the state, then draw it up yourself.