Marriage and Divorce in Georgia - "Let's end disposable marriage"

Let's end disposable marriage By Leah Ward Sears

July 2, 2009 - Special to CNN

Here is a portion of an interesting commentary by the Honorbale Leah Ward Sears

The entire article can be found at http://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/07/02/sears.family.divorce/

Editor's note: Leah Ward Sears stepped down this week as Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. In 1992, she became the first woman -- and youngest person -- appointed to Georgia's highest court.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- After Tommy's sudden death, we found among my brother's personal effects a questionnaire he had completed in 2005 for a church class.

Leah Sears stepped down as Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court to work on strengthening families.

The very first question was a fill-in-the-blank that went like this: "At the end of my life, I'd love to be able to look back and know I'd done something about ....."

"Fathers," Tommy wrote.

When asked to identify something that angered him that could be changed, Tommy wrote, "Re-establishment of equity and balance and sanity within the American family."

My brother was born to be a father, and he grew into a good and loving one. Tommy was tall and handsome, smart, witty and fun. A graduate of the Naval Academy and a Stanford-educated lawyer, he married and fathered a little girl and boy who were the center of his life.

Tommy felt that one of the worst problems in our country today was family breakdown and fatherlessness. He railed against intentional unwed childbearing and the ease with which divorce was possible. He didn't like that we have become a society that values the rights of adults to do their own thing over our responsibility to protect our children.

As a judge I have long held a front row seat to the wreckage left behind by our culture of disposable marriage and casual divorce that my brother so despised.

No-fault divorce was a response to a very real problem. The social and legal landscape that preceded it largely prevented casual divorce, but it often trapped people in abusive marriages. It also turned divorces into even uglier affairs than they are today, forcing people to expose in court damaging information about their children's other parent. That system was intolerable, and we should never go back to that.

But no-fault divorce's broad acceptance as an unquestioned social good helped usher in an era that fundamentally altered the seriousness with which marriage is viewed. It effectively ended marriage as a legal contract since either party can terminate it, with or without cause. This leaves many people struggling to remake their lives after painful divorces that they do not want. It also left many parents cut off from, or sidelined in, the lives of the children they love.

Athens GA Divorce Lawyer - Athens GA Uncontested Divorce - Contested Divorce -

Handling Alimony - Military Divorce - Contempt Actions in Divorce Cases - Separation Agreements - Spousal Support - Property Division - Child Custody / Custody modification - Child Support Modification - Child Visitation - Adoptions - Prenuptial Agreements

Georgia Family Law Lawyer - GA child custody attorney

Our family law firm handles cases in Athens, Georgia. Our Georgia divorce lawyers represent clients in Athens and the Athens-Clarke County area.