JOHN YANG: Right now, couples in all 50 states who want to end their marriage can get what's called a no-fault divorce.

Neither side has to prove that the other did something wrong, like committing adultery, abandoning their spouse or treating them cruelly.

But some Republican lawmakers in a handful of red states want to get rid of it.

They say it makes divorce too easy.

And they say it's unfair to men.

Since it's estimated that 69 percent of divorces in the United States are initiated by women.

Joanna Grossman teaches family law at Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law.

So Joanna, what's the history of no fault divorce?

Where did it come from?

And why did it come into being?

JOANNA GROSSMAN, Professor, SMU Dedman School of Law: So California was the first state to adopt no-fault in 1969, after about 200 years of every state using fault based divorce, and it came about because California studied it and found something that probably most people in the field already knew, which is that the system didn't work that fault based divorces, we're often involved perjury and fabrication that people were fleeing their jurisdictions to get divorced.

And then it did very little to sort out between good marriages and bad marriages.

JOHN YANG: And what's been the result?

What's changed because of it?

JOANNA GROSSMAN: So when no-fault was first adopted in California, it then sort of started a revolution and within 15 years, every single state had either switched completely to a no-fault system, or added at least one no-fault ground.

We saw some early effects, one of which was that the system of divorce became less trouble.

There were fewer cases of obvious perjury and fabrication, et cetera.

There were people who got out of marriages where they had been stuck.

And then we also saw some real impacts on women.

The female suicide rate went down dramatically.

The female homicide rate by intimate partner went down dramatically and the rate of domestic violence went down.

Those were somewhat unexpected results, but very, very clear impacts of the change.

JOHN YANG: Now among the critics of no-fault divorce is J.D.

Vance, who's Mr. Trump's new running mate.

Now, here's what he's had to say about this in 2021.

And this video is from Vice News.

J.V.

VANCE, U.S. Vice Presidential Candidate: This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is this idea that like, well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy in so getting rid of them, and making it easier for people to shift spouses, like they change their underwear, that's going to make people happier in the long term.

JOHN YANG: Shift spouses like they change underwear, what do you say to that?

JOANNA GROSSMAN: I mean, it's a pretty odd comparison, since of course, most people have at most two or three spouses in a lifetime and hopefully changing their underwear a little more often than that.

But I think it really misses what no-fault divorce is, it did make it easier to get divorced.

But for the most part, people were getting divorced anyway, it's just they were jumping through hoops to do it.

And what we have found is that no fault is a better fit for our society's ideas about marriage, people actually want to get divorced because they think so highly of marriage.

And if the marriage is disappointing, they want to be able to get out and often go on to a new marriage.

So things just sort of missing the point about the relationship between divorce law, and people's happiness or even the stability of marriage.

JOHN YANG: What do you make of the argument that no-fault divorce deprives men of due process, because most divorces are initiated by women?

JOANNA GROSSMAN: So divorces have always been initiated more often by women going back all the way to the very first divorce laws in after the revolution.

And that's quite large, because marriage is an institution that works less well for women than it does for men.

The idea of a due process claim is pretty weak, because what they're really saying is that a man has a right to stay married to someone over her objection.

There is no recognized support in the law for that kind of a concept.

So I think what they're frustrated with is this feeling that maybe women have too much autonomy and too much power and that changing the divorce laws might be a way to pull that back.

But I think there's really very little relation between the two.

JOHN YANG: Why do you think this focus from social conservatives on this now?

JOANNA GROSSMAN: I think part of it is it gives some good talking points at a very abstract level, right to suggest that the Republicans are in favor of traditional conservative values, they care about families, they care about children.

And so they can use those sorts of claims about this, even though there's, as I have said, there's really not that much relationship.

I also think it's part of the sort of culture wars that are, you know, trying to bring back a more patriarchal society.

I think most of the people who have advocated for repealing no fault in the current era, are really interested in having men have more control again.

JOHN YANG: What would be the effects of getting rid of this and repealing no fault?

Who would be most affected who would be affected?

JOANNA GROSSMAN: I mean, the most obvious effect would be on family courts, right, which are already backlogs and dealing with high numbers of litigants who don't have lawyers.

No-fault makes divorce quicker, and it makes it cheaper, in addition to what other effects it has.

And so I think that in terms of individuals, the impact would be on people who some people would be stuck in marriages as they were before the adoption of no-fault.

But mostly people wouldn't be stuck, they would just have to pay more, or jump through more hoops to get the divorce that they wanted.

So I don't think it would have any impact on the average divorcing couple beyond cost and expense and it would really backlogged the family courts even more.

The one thing we know historically, is there is no relationship between how tough it is to get a divorce and whether a marriage is happy.

So there's no reason to think that making divorce more difficult, would somehow make marriages happier.

JOHN YANG: Joanna Grossman from SMU, thank you very much.

JOANNA GROSSMAN: You're welcome.