One fine evening, Jessica, my niece, called me up for an appointment. I asked her to drop in any time into my office that she would find convenient. As planned, she dropped in a little later that day into my office. She wanted to have my opinion on certain aspects of divorce as she was busy writing a special cover story for her magazine for the following week.



I asked her as to what it was all about and she said that she was working on certain myths about divorce. I asked her to go forward and shoot her questions.

Her questions and my responses to that have been listed below:

Question: Are the majority of divorces initiated by men while their wives are less willing to separate?

Response: In my opinion, going both by statistics and my personal experience within my profession, in two thirds of the cases women initiate divorces. However, the reason for women being driven to such a state is attributed to men.

Men are more likely to have problems like being drug addicts, alcoholics or even more probably having extra-marital affairs. Or more likely, husbands usually tend to become more physically abusive either on their wives or their children. In order to ensure their own safety or those of the children, women tend to initiate divorce proceedings in majority of the cases.

Question: After divorce, do women suffer financially more than men?

Response: On the lighter side of things, with the kind of maintenance that our men our paying, I think women are bound to be more financially strong. Keeping jokes apart, a real review at the situation shows that women do find it difficult to recuperate after a divorce.

We can attribute this to one of the prime reasons of a majority of women staying indoors and taking care of the household. It does take a mammoth effort from them to find themselves a suitable job after divorce and sustain themselves for the future. Further, they have the additional responsibility of taking care of their children and their needs. Taking all this into consideration, women do suffer a financial setback initially. But then they are always strong enough to bounce back onto the main track.

Question: Are divorce judgements always biased in favour of women?

Response: With the total number of cases awarded in favour of women, it might lead one to think that divorce judgements are always biased in favour of women. But then, that is how the legal system of the country works. The law or society considers women as a weaker class and hence it feels that while delivering justice they should be given top priority. Moreover, our laws and values in the society feel that only a mother will make an able mentor to her child rather than the father. Hence, especially, when the case involves child custody, the judgement is always delivered in favour of the women.

But this trend is also fast changing across the world. There are a number of cases being dealt in the court of law today, where men have been awarded child custody. On the lighter side of it, I am not sure if men have grown to be more responsible or that women have grown irresponsible.

However the fact is that at times taking circumstances into account, the court has started believing that a healthy financial background is much necessary for the healthy upbringing of the child.

Divorce Myths: The Final Call

Irrespective of whatever the case is whatever the belief might be or whatever personal interests might be, I always recommend to all my readers and clients to give top priority to the interests of the children in the family.

After all, in my humble opinion, I strongly feel that they should not be punished for no fault of theirs. There is always no harm to leg go of your ego. I strongly believe that divorcing couples have more responsibility as parents first and then only as individuals. Even before you consider going in for a divorce, I recommend that you sit across a table to sort out your differences on your own and try reaching an amicable solution for the common welfare of all concerned.