The seemingly innocuous World Wide Web has percolated deep into the recesses of our socio-cultural strata. This effect is even more pronounced in the case of internet-savvy societies like the UK, where individuals are no longer confined to the limitations of body and mind. Internet has enabled them to extend themselves beyond these barriers into a realm where the material possibilities and virtual reality tend to coalesce leading to the emergence of a strange and fascinating, new world where traditional preferences juxtapose with nascent tendencies, to create a novel mosaic, which will act as a blueprint for the future societies. Internet is definitely one of the important weathering agents, affecting the landscape of human relations. If on one side, it is corroding the age-old beliefs, on the other side, it has led to the emergence of unusual social features. Love it or hate it, the net is here to stay.

Marriage is a human social institution and divorce stands for the legal termination of this institution. It is impossible to understand the role of internet in modern divorces, without taking cognizance of the fact that contemporary social institutions are no longer confined to clubs, coffee-houses and churches, but have found new haunts like blogs, websites and e-communities. Once we accept this phenomenon, it becomes self-evident that the net has the potential to influence a divorce at all possible stages of conception i.e. as a precursor or catalyst, as a facilitator and as a rehabilitator.

Potential legal grounds for divorce in England and Wales are:

?Adultery

?Unreasonable Behaviour

?Two-year Separation with Consent

?Five-year Separation

?Desertion

In hi-tech cultures, internet has the ability to create situations which may gravitate towards one of the above-mentioned classifications. If we go by the rumours circulating the cyber-community, the people in the IT industry are more susceptible to divorce as compared to others. A possible diagnosis may be long work hours with no time for family priorities. Going beyond the niche segment evaluation, it would be safe to say that the communities with greater access to internet tend to have higher rates of divorce. This could be owing to a more than average exposure to temptations, alternatives and possibilities. Chat-rooms and social-networking sites make it easier for unhappy spouses to meet other people and have affairs. The scope of internet infidelity is exponentially multiplied, considering the mask-effect offered by the net, leading to the fall of traditional, moral and personal inhibitions.

How we approach personal relationships determines to a great extent, where we end up with them. Seemingly irrelevant factor, aggravating the divorce rates in the UK is the pornography available on the net. Though being a genre of mass-communication, contemporary pornographic sites tend to perpetuate the archaic patriarchal preferences and prejudices, which do not go with the current ground realties. This may undermine the fundamental need for mutual respect in a marital relationship and may lead to dysfunctional marriages. Cyber-evidence and incriminating e-mails are increasingly being used as exhibits to contest divorce cases.

A plethora of websites on the internet are offering products and services like divorce-related articles and solutions, directories of lawyers, internet law libraries, support sites, online communities, divorce love sites,, etc. though visibly these sites seem to negate the procedural glitches and emotional turmoil accompanying any divorce, besides offering economy and ease. However these one-stop shops tend to deprive society of the beneficial drag that must accompany the demise of any cardinal institution, thereby offering the involved entities, ample time and space to review the decisions that may change there lives forever. Hence the question to be asked is not, ?Whether the websites like quickie-divorce.com are good or bad??A more pertinent line of inquiry will be, ?Are these websites socially responsible??

Internet does and will continue to influence our thoughts and choices, in the times to come. However, it cannot and should not serve as an excuse for ignoring individual and social responsibility.