- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
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Before the 1960s, it was really hard to get divorced in America.
Typically, the only way to do it was to convince a judge that your spouse had committed some form of wrongdoing, like adultery, abandonment, or “cruelty” (that is, abuse). This could be difficult: “Even if you could prove you had been hit, that didn’t necessarily mean it rose to the level of cruelty that justified a divorce,” said Marcia Zug, a family law professor at the University of South Carolina.
Then came a revolution: In 1969, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan of California (who was himself divorced) signed the nation’s first no-fault divorce law, allowing people to end their marriages without proving they’d been wronged. The move was a recognition that “people were going to get out of marriages,” Zug said, and gave them a way to do that without resorting to subterfuge. Similar laws soon swept the country, and rates of domestic violence and spousal murder began to drop as people — especially women — gained more freedom to leave dangerous situations.
Today, however, a counter-revolution is brewing: Conservative commentators and lawmakers are calling for an end to no-fault divorce, arguing that it has harmed men and even destroyed the fabric of society. Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers, for example, introduced a bill in January to ban his state’s version of no-fault divorce. The Texas Republican Party added a call to end the practice to its 2022 platform (the plank is preserved in the 2024 version). Federal lawmakers like Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and House Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, have spoken out in favor of tightening divorce laws.
Personally I think it says everything that the Abrahamic version of the Theft of Fire leads to the idea that we should hate and denounce the thief rather than see him as responsible for us being raised above essentially being animals. The serpent in the Garden of Eden is analogous to Prometheus, Mātariśvan, Amirani, Pkharmat, Grandmother Spider, etc.
I also find it interesting that the Theft of Fire is a nearly universal myth (as close as anything gets) - a divine or semi-divine being (often but not always a trickster-type) taking a symbol (often a fire, in the Torah a fruit) representing knowledge against the will of those in power and giving it to man, thus leading to the ability of man to be free to create civilization.
Yeah, while I get the general idea of “beware of the hubris brought about by technology”, but the message from the bible way oversteers into general ignorance and so on. There is a real anti-Promethean streak within this country anyway, and I attribute a lot of that to xtians.