No-fault divorce is a divorce in which the dissolution of a marriage requires neither a showing wrong-doing of either party nor any evidentiary proceedings at all. Modern United States "no-fault" divorce came about in the 1970s because of widespread disgust among lawyers and judges at the legal fictions that had become commonplace since the mid-20th century.

Prior to the no-fault divorce revolution, a divorce could be obtained only through a showing of fault of one of the parties in a marriage. This was something more than not loving one another; it meant that one spouse had to plead that the other had committed adultery, abandonment, felony, or other similarly culpable acts. Visit the Travis county divorce about this.

However, the other spouse could plead a variety of defenses, like recrimination. A judge could find that the respondent had not committed the alleged act or the judge could accept the defense of recrimination and find both spouses at fault for the dysfunctional nature of their marriage. Either way, the judge would refuse to dissolve the marriage.

These rules were particularly problematic where both spouses were at fault or where neither spouse had committed a legally culpable act but could no longer tolerate the other. Lawyers began to engineer creative methods to bypass the rules. Learn more about no-fault divorces with the Travis county divorce.

New York was notorious for "collusive adultery", in which both sides deliberately agreed that the wife would come home at a certain time and discover her husband committing adultery with a "mistress" obtained for the occasion.

The wife would then falsely swear to a carefully tailored version of these facts in court. The husband would admit a similar version of those facts. The judge would convict the husband of adultery, and the couple could be divorced.

Prior to no-fault rules, in many other states, especially California, the most popular allegation for divorce was cruelty. For example, in 1950, wives plead "cruelty" as the basis for 70 percent of San Francisco divorce cases. Wives would regularly testify to the same pitiful, often false, facts: their husbands swore at them, hit them, and generally treated them terribly. For more information about divorces and the no-fault divorce, then visit the Travis county divorce.