Itâ??s almost Valentineâ??s Day, so naturally our thoughts turn to divorce. Thatâ??s the odds-even outcome of marriage, if you believe the oft-cited statistic that half of all nuptials in the United States will end up on the rocks. In fact, the overall rate is more like 30 percent, and the frequency of divorce has been dropping since the 1970s, when 37 states amended or repealed their divorce laws, causing only a short-term spike in the practice.
â??Nevadaâ??s adjacency to California made the state especially convenient to the promiscuous citizens of the burgeoning movie colony of Hollywood.â?
Today, getting an uncontested, no-fault divorce is easily accomplished in all 50 states. Thatâ??s very different from the way things were during most of the 20th century, when divorce was officially frowned upon, suppressed by onerous state laws that actively discouraged the civil disunion of couples ready to be singles again. For example, until 1985, the only way to get a divorce in the state of New York was to prove your spouse had committed adultery, which wasnâ??t much help to women in abusive relationships.
In the 1930s, though, the city of Reno, Nevada, shined like a beacon of hope to the unhappily married. Reno was the nationâ??s divorce capital, with many of its finest hotels strategically located near the Washoe County Courthouse, where judges granted divorces with assembly-line efficiency. Outside the city limits, to the south in the Washoe Valley and to the north near Pyramid Lake, guest ranches also catered to the men and women (though it was mostly women) who would move to Nevada for six weeks to establish residency. It didnâ??t really matter why a husband or wife wanted a divorce (grounds for ending marriage were interpreted extremely liberally), only that the plaintiff had been a resident of the great state of Nevada for a full six weeks. This, and only this, would get them out of their till-death-do-us-pa
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