Chile legalizes divorce

[Book Lover]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/05/07/international1857EDT0797.DTL


...

President Ricardo Lagos on Friday signed the bill making divorce legal, although it won't take effect for six months to give judges time to study the changes and to enable courts to be set up to hear cases.

...

Chile was one of the last countries in the Western Hemisphere without a divorce law, forcing couples with failing marriages to resort to subterfuge to end marriages.

One common measure was for one of the partners to declare before a court that their marriage was illegal because their spouse reported a false address at the time of the marriage.

...

The new law allows couples to get a divorce only after having been separated for at least one year, if both spouses agree. If only one party agrees, the waiting time is three years. The new law, replacing century-old legislation, also requires couples seeking a divorce to undergo counseling for at least 60 days.

[arcos]

1. Welcome to the 21st century, Chile!

:hi:

Now, it is really sad that the far right has so much influence in policy... may Pinochet roth in hell.

[Ediacara]

2. Try the 19th :-)

[Scairp]

3. Not so surprising

Ireland only legalized divorce about 6-8 years ago.

[SharonAnn]

4. What's funny is that the only legal marriage is a civil marriage.

The church ceremony is usually held later if the couple is religious. But they cannot marry in a church and have it be the legal wedding.

Yet, they forbade divorce. Funny. We were talking about it with my relatives when we were there last fall and this was being debated in their congress.

But, the debate kind of got set aside with the publicity about a pedophilia ring that was led by a sports emporium entrepenuer and that allegedly had members of Congress in the ring. Then, the publicity forced a homosexual (but married) judge to come out because he was being blackmailed by some in the pedophile ring. Reminded me of the good old USA. Sex, Religion, and Hypocrisy.

[NewJerseyDem]

5. Malta and the Phillipines still prohibit divorce n/t