Grounds For Divorce – Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1988
The authors commence by telling us that this ‘…. is by no means a conventional academic law book involving a detailed examination of statute and a loving review of the finer points of judicial virtuosity’. It is a book about the way the law regulates the exit from marriage and significantly it focuses on the way in which consumers react to the law and procedure they have experienced.
The book is based on two studies, one of the ‘routine’ divorces under the ‘special procedure’ where there are no contests in relation to the decree or children, the other being a study exclusively of cases where a legal issue arose, either in relation to the decree, or custody or access.
These studies involved observation, access to court files, discussion with practitioners and judicial officers and, most significantly, interviews with consumers. The interviews were extensive, taking place in the parties’ homes, with open-ended questions encouraging emphasis on the issues that the parties considered significant rather than those prompted by the researchers.
It is the product of these interviews, transcribed, analysed and selected to be representative, which are quoted throughout the book and which makes it so compelling to read. The anger, bewilderment, bitterness, wisdom, incisiveness and humour of parties to divorce both enliven and enlighten a clearly written analysis of divorce law and practise in England and Wales.
The material reveals that some of the taken for granted assumptions about divorce are far from true. For example the assumption that once a party visits a lawyer about marriage breakdown the potential for reconciliation is almost nil.
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