Nebraska Bill Would Let Divorce Judge Require Marriage Counseling

According to statistics from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services Division of Public Health, the divorce rate in Wisconsin in 2009 was 2.9 percent. That was lower than the national rate of 3.4 percent, but means that 16,705 marriages ended in the state that year. While most agree that some marriages are too strained or abusive to save, some people connect the rise in divorce in the U.S. with social problems. Some politicians seek to make it more difficult for people to get divorced, on the theory that the public benefits from more couples staying together.

A legislator in Nebraska is one such politician. According to an article in the Omaha World-Herald, State Senator Tony Fulton is sponsoring a bill that would give judges the power to require divorcing couples with children to go to marriage counseling before granting them a divorce. The bill would also authorize judges to take any other actions the judge believes to be in the best interests of the couple and their children. The article does not go into detail about what those “other actions” might include.

Sen. Fulton said that he believes that discouraging divorce benefits society and the individuals in the marriage. High rates of divorce and broken families in Omaha have led to increased violence in that city, he said.

The bill would also give judges the power to limit the divorce proceedings to six months, and require counseling for childless couples if one of the spouses says he or she still wants to salvage the marriage.

The World-Herald article quotes a family law attorney in Lincoln who disagreed with the bill. Couples in troubled marriages already make an effort to save their marriages, she said, and people should be as free to end their marriages as they are to start them.

Source: Omaha World-Herald, “Divorce counseling bill introduced,” John Schreier, January 13, 2011