Marriage, Divorce, And Charges Of Domestic Violence And Abuse by Charles E. Corry, Ph.D.
Marriage, Divorce, And Charges Of Domestic Violence And Abuse by Charles E. Corry, Ph.D.© 2003 Equal Justice Foundation
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The population-normalized divorce rates for the twenty-two Colorado judicial districts are included in Table 37 for 1999, Table 39 for 2000, Table 41 for 2001, Table 43 for 2002, Table 45 for 2003, Table 47 for 2004, and Table 49 for 2005. Implicit in these figures is an assumption that the percentage of married couples is reasonably uniform in all judicial districts in Colorado.
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residents 2 |
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1. Total number of domestic relations filings are given by Colorado State Court for each year and are population-normalized based on county estimates by U.S Census Bureau. 2. Divorces includes all dissolutions, legal separations, and invalid marriage. |
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Of initial interest is the fact that the divorce rate in Colorado has consistently decreased from 63 per 10,000 residents in 1999 to 53 per 10,000 in 2005. However, in 2006 the divorce rate inexplicably jumped to 62 per 10,000 residents (Table 63).
Also of note is the much smaller standard deviation (S.D. 7-9) between judicial districts for divorces than for protection orders (S.D. 23-30). The small standard deviation indicates couples get divorced at a fairly uniform rate across the state and the court statistics are adequately sampling this variable. Filing for divorce or separation is an individual decision and thus serves, in a sense, as a check on court statistics.
As might be expected, some judicial districts with a large number of restraining orders, e.g. Third, Fourth, and Sixteenth (Table 56), have relatively high divorce rates, but the Twenty First Judicial District has a consistently high divorce rate (Table 63), yet near average numbers of restraining orders Table 47). Other districts, e.g., the Tenth and Nineteenth (Table 47), have high rates of restraining orders but average divorce rates.
Available data thus suggest that the issuance of restraining orders is not a primary factor driving divorces, nor are divorces solely driving the issuance of restraining orders.
While protection orders and domestic violence complaints cannot be shown to be driving divorces, or vice versa, abundant anecdotal evidence shows that the use of such orders is a major and commonplace weapon to gain advantage in a divorce. It is reliably estimated that at least one-third of divorces in Colorado involve allegations of domestic violence or abuse primarily to gain advantage, particularly when child custody is at issue. An estimated 9,000 of the domestic abuse and violence filings in 2006 thus involved divorce disputes, commonly child custody issues. Note that estimate is closely aligned with the estimate of false allegations determined previously.
One reason for a lack of direct correlation between domestic violence, restraining orders, and divorce is that the majority of the men and women involved in these incidents simply aren't married. John Maguire has pointed out that: "Although the words 'domestic' violence are commonly used, some commentators say that a better description would be 'shack-up' violence..."
The fact that men and women involved in domestic violence are not married is also reflected in Colorado Bureau of Investigation statistics for 2004 that show that only 13 of 32 DV homicide victims were married and only 36% of the victims of simple assault were spouses. The percentages in 2005 were nearly identical.
This finding is profound in that, in the main, we really are not talking about "wife battering" in Colorado.
Police reports to the CBI (Table 62) and NCVS estimates show quite plainly that criminal "domestic violence" is quite rare in domestic relationships and even the term "shack up violence" isn't accurate.
As noted above (Table 63), it has been evident since archival data became available from the Colorado courts that there was no direct relationship between domestic violence cases and divorce rates.
To the contrary, Table 63 shows a clear decrease in the divorce rate for the seven years between 1999 and 2005. During this same period the rate of restraining orders rose from 62 per 10,000 citizens in 1999 to 78 per 10,000 in 2003 (Table 55), though it decreased to 73 per 10,000 in 2004. This inverse relationship is plainly evident in Table 64.
An inverse relationship between restraining orders and divorce begs for explanation.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has been tracking marriage rates since 1950. For most of the fifty-plus years between 1950 and 2004, the marriage rate has averaged around 100 per 10,000 citizens per year, with a low in 1956 of 81 and a high of 125 in 1981. But since 1994 the marriage rate has been declining fairly consistently (Table 64) and, by 2004, stood at a historic low of 77 per 10,000 citizens.
It is unlikely to be simply a coincidence that statewide domestic violence laws were passed in 1994.
Naturally, the fewer marriages the fewer divorces and that relationship is plain in Table 64.
In strong contrast with the decline in marriages and divorces is the increase in restraining orders evident in Table 64. Clearly, the implication is that as charges of domestic violence and abuse increase, the number of marriages declines. That finding agrees with common sense. Marriages are built on trust and a restraining order or domestic violence accusation destroys any and all trust in one's partner.
With the rate of restraining orders virtually equal to the marriage rate, 73 versus 77 in 2004, does anyone think our society can long survive under these laws and practices?
There are, of course, many other factors contributing to the decline of marriage in today's society, e.g., the easy availability of sex without getting married. Women also blame men, as usual, for having a fear of commitment. But it is a rare man today who has not been caught up in the nightmare of a divorce, allegations of domestic violence, a restraining order, or faced charges of sexual harassment; or at least has a close friend, co-worker, parent, sibling, or other relative who has been through the horror of our present legal system.
If unsupported allegations of domestic violence and abuse can be freely made in divorce and custody disputes with the law strongly favoring the female, then a man has to be functionally insane to marry and a drooling idiot to sire a child.
By not marrying and using modern birth control methods, our best and brightest largely avoid the nightmares our family laws and courts have become. As a result, marriage laws have become a breeding experiment in stupidity.
Statistically, biologically, and socially, the safest possible place for a child is with their biological father. For a woman the safest place is married to and living in their home with the biological father of her children. Radical feminist ideologues (redfems), supported by law, preach and practice just the opposite with disastrous effects on our society.
| Home | Abstract | Contents | Site Map | Tables | Index | Bibliography |
| Comments? | Get Newsletter | Help the EJF |
| Chapter 10 — Demographics Of Domestic Violence In Colorado |
| Next — Demographic summary |
| Back — Uniform standards for domestic violence cases do not exist |
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