article_snippet.sent: Divorce laws in England and Wales should remove the need for allegations of adultery and blame, Britain’s most senior female judge has said.
article_snippet.sent: Divorcing couples currently have to cite one of five reasons: adultery; unreasonable behaviour; desertion for two or more years; two years’ separation with consent; or five years’ separation without consent.
article_snippet.sent: Around 120,000 couples divorce in England and Wales Wales each year and those who want to divorce quickly are encouraged to cite unfaithfulness or unreasonable behaviour, which, critics argue, encourages recriminations.
article_snippet.sent: We should make it take longer to get a divorce and encourage people to sort out what happens to the home, children, money before, rather than after, people get a divorce.
article_snippet.sent: Couples would have a one-year ‘cooling off period’ after declaring that Couples marriage had permanently broken down in order for Couples to sort out arrangements.
article_snippet.sent: Lady Hale, 70, was behind the move for ‘no fault’ divorce in England and Wales 20 years ago.
article_snippet.sent: Conservative MPs saw off the proposals and said that removing fault would take away responsibility and undermine the concept of marriage.
article_snippet.sent: Sir Paul Coleridge, former family High Court judge and chairman of the Marriage Foundation, told The Times:
article_snippet.sent: The fault is largely invented to get a quick divorce — a hangover from pre-1970 days which is manipulated by lawyers and parties.
highlights_snippet.sent: The current system means one person must be 'at fault' in a divorce .
  