Puritans who settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony adopted the Reformation view that marriage was a civil contract based upon the mutual consent of the parties placing divorce under the civil courts rather than the ecclesiastical courts. By the mid-17 th century, in what would later become the Massachusetts Bay Colony, courts were empowered to hear and determine all causes of divorce . By the 18 th century, of 143 petitioners who file for divorce, 82 petitions were granted either a divorce, annulment or separation.

Following the U.S. independence in 1776, states applied the English common law doctrine of couverture which meant that once married, a woman was treated legally as non-existent and her rights were suspended or consolidated into the rights of her husband. It gave men absolute authority over all aspects of the marital-familial relationship.

Post-revolutionary period

States legislated and regularly granted divorces. New York adopted a general divorce law in 1787 but the only grounds were adultery, which was also a crime. Because marriage laws of that era gave men control over finances and property, husbands more frequently filed for divorce than wives who were often left with nothing. Regardless of who was at fault, divorce was a “social death sentence for women.”

Northern states adopted some civil mechanism for divorce but southern states remained largely conservative with no true divorces. By example, Maryland was predominantly Roman Catholic while New England took the Reformation approach to marriage.

Late 19 th and Early 20 th Century

Most Western states capitalized on the barriers imposed on divorce and lessened their residency requirements to shorten the length of time one had to reside in the state to be able to file for divorce. This created a “ migratory ” divorce allowing someone to move to a state for the purpose of getting a divorce. Sioux Falls, South Dakota became a common divorce destination in the late 19 th century. In the 1930’s, Reno, Nevado became the “divorce capital of the world.”

In a Supreme Court decision in 1942, the Court relaxed the minimum contacts standard in divorce cases and held that a divorce granted in a state in which only one party resided was entitled to the full faith and credit of the other states. Before this decision, a party could be considered married in one state and single in another. Divorce rates dropped during the depression but began soaring in around 1946, the year World War II ended.

The “No-Fault” Revolution

In 1947, the National Association of Women Lawyers advanced a draft model bill for the creation of no-fault divorce that would no longer require a “wronged” person to sue for divorce. In 1948, President Harry Trman convened a Family Life Conference which concluded that the divorce laws were a “mess.” In 1969, the State of California passed the first no-fault divorce law based on “irreconcilable differences.” New York was the last state to do so in 2010. No fault divorce was considered a women’s rights issue because as the Suffragette, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and other liberal thinkers believed “the key tenets of freedom for women were “self-ownership” within marriage and a right to divorce if the marriage became degrading.”

In the 1960’s and 1970’s, some Americans began questioning traditional views of marriage. Divorce rates peaked in in 1979 at 22.8 divorces per 1000 married women. By 2023, there were 14.4 divorces per 1000 married women.

The Project 2025 manifesto published by the Heritage Foundation, advocates for a return to traditional nuclear families and a federal rollback of “no-fault” divorce. As of today, no federal ban has been enacted. Eliminating “no fault” divorce is not written into Project 2025 but it is one of the goals of the advisers to the “Project.” Vice President J.D. Vance called no fault divorce “one of the greatest tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace.” History shows, however, that the concept of “no fault” divorce existed long before the so-called sexual revolution of the 1970’s and was linked to women’s freedom.

For more on the topic of the history of divorce, please look at :

A Timeline of Divorce in America by Jordan Friedman

Wikipedia: Divorce in the United States

Toward a More Perfect Dissolution: The History of American Divorce Law and Its Ghosts in Contemporary Practice by Jane J. Felton and Barbara A. Schweiger

Project 2025 by the Heritage Foundation