Countries with Unusual Divorce Laws
With increasing number of marriages breaking up in the US, divorce has become commonplace in society. And yet there are some countries and states which have extra-ordinary rules and regulations on how and when a marriage can be sundered. Here are some unusual divorce laws from across the world which can leave you scratching your head over the complexity of human relationships and law.
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Vatican City
Vatican City is the seat of the Pope and has Roman Catholicism as its official religion. And since divorce is outlawed in the Roman Catholic Church, no one can get divorced in Vatican City. However, in June 2012, then Pope Benedict XVI at the "Celebration of Witnesses" at Bresso Park in Milan, Italy - one of events of the seventh World Meeting of Families -, clarified that though divorced people were not able to receive sacraments and absolution in Catholicism, they were not outside the ‘Church’1.
Philippines
Divorce is illegal in the Philippines as well where an overwhelming majority of population follows the Roman Catholic Church. The only options available to Filipino spouses upon a breakdown of their marriage are legal separation or annulment, each of which is a highly complex and expensive process. Even Filipinos who divorce in other countries but are legal residents of the Philippines are still considered married under Philippine law. Things can get sticky when divorced citizens remarry outside the country—either party may be considered to have committed bigamy. Under Philippine law, only certain Muslim Filipinos can obtain divorces, and Filipino citizens married to foreign nationals who divorce in the other spouse’s country of residency are considered legally divorced and able to remarry. A divorce bill was recently introduced2 that would legalize divorce, a move which inevitably sparked fervent debate among citizens of Philippines and among Roman Catholics across the world.
Islamic countries
Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran which follow the Sharia or Islamic legal codes, allow its men to divorce their wives by pronouncing talak three times. Talak is an Arabic word meaning "to release" or "to divorce". Under the Muslim law, talak means "to untie the matrimonial knot by articulating a word denoting divorce." And even though Islamic scholars and various tenets of the religion differ on the specificities of this form of divorce, such a method of divorcing a partner seems incredible and arbitrary to people in western societies.
Japan
While Japanese law grants divorce to warring couples, no provision for joint custody of children exists, unless the divorce was finalized in another country where the child has citizenship and custody was established there. There are provisions for child support but not visitation; it is uncommon for children to see the other parent frequently after a divorce. Another strange aspect of Japanese family law is that women have to wait six months before they can remarry after a divorce, although men have no such restrictions. A woman is also required to take her husband’s surname upon marriage, and it takes endless rounds of paperwork and legal meanderings to restore her maiden name after a divorce.
England
Under current English law, divorces are granted only fewer than one of five categories, including adultery and abandonment. About half of the cases fall under the heading of a broad category called unreasonable behavior, in which one party has to accuse the other of acting so unreasonably that living together has become intolerable. Some examples of “unreasonable behaviour” put forward as grounds of divorce are strange if not hilarious. One was the case of a woman who sued for divorce because her husband insisted she dress in a Klingon costume and speak to him in Klingon3. Then there was the man who declared that his wife had maliciously and repeatedly served him his least favorite dish, tuna casserole. Yet another woman filed for divorce because she claimed that her husband had not spoken to her for fifteen years, communicating only by Post-it note. Again one divorce petition read: “The respondent insisted that his pet tarantula, Timmy, slept in a glass case next to the matrimonial bed,” even though his wife requested “that Timmy sleep elsewhere.” While Scotland allows no-fault divorce, England, Wales and Northern Ireland still do not which makes way for such weird cases of divorce petitions.
Kentucky, USA
A country with liberal personal laws like USA usually does not spring to mind in the context of unusual divorce laws. And yet here too one or two provisions of state divorce laws can be truly wacky. In Kentucky for instance, it's illegal to remarry the same person four times, which is why residents of the state would do well to think twice before taking a repeat trip down the aisle but more so before calling up the divorce lawyer.
Texas, USA
Despite most American states having fair rules for alimony, Texas is unusually conservative in this aspect. To receive maintenance from a Texas divorce court, the spouse seeking it must fall into one of two categories. Under the first, the recipient spouse must have been a victim of family violence two years before the filing the divorce or during its pendency, and the offending spouse must have been either convicted of or received deferred adjudication for this violence. To fall within the second category, the recipient spouse must have been married for ten years and lack the skills or resources to become self-sufficient, be mentally or physically disabled, or care for a mentally or physically disabled child. Additionally, the recipient spouse must lack property and funds that would meet their minimum reasonable needs -- and this includes any property awarded in the divorce. Divorce lawyers confide that such strict laws on alimony are rather unrealistic and in most cases, almost no one qualifies for being eligible for alimony.
Rhode Island
Finally, in Rhode Island, simply objecting to a marriage during a wedding can be a legal ground to prevent it from taking place. Although the century-old statute doesn’t specify what a “lawful objection” is, the law continues to exist in the books and enough to convince prospective newlyweds to steer clear of any wedding guests nurturing a secret grudge.
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