Research

Between 1960 and 1980, 35 states adopted unilateral-no-fault divorce laws. This time period was known as the "no-fault revolution." Critics of this "no fault revolution" claim that no-fault divorce has weakened moral values and contributed to family breakdowns. Did unilateral-no-fault divorce laws raise divorce rates? Previous research has yielded diverse results ranging from substantial and lasting effects to no effects at all. This paper improves upon previous studies by distinguishing between unilateral-no-fault and no-fault divorce treatment dates, and by employing the stacked regression difference-in-differences estimator. This estimator takes into account multiple time periods and variations in treatment-timing with entropy balance. The results indicate that the impact of unilateral-no-fault divorce on either divorce or marriage rates is neither enduring nor statistically significant.

For centuries during the medieval era in England, Scandinavia and many parts of Western Europe, couples on their wedding night would have witnesses to their consummation, otherwise known as a bedding ceremony. I argue that the tradition of bedding ceremonies was an important institutional response to the landscape of property rights shared commonly in medieval Western and Central Europe, Scandinavia, and Germanic regions. The institution of guardianship enabled a landscape of property rights which precluded wards from making decisions about their future, inheriting property, and made guardians the beneficiaries of the ward's marriage. Using rational choice theory and qualitative data from Nordic, Icelandic, and other Western European legal systems and literary sources I argue that the practice of guardianship and the reflection of it in the legal system were the leading factors to the institution of bearing witness to consummation or bedding rituals. Since concubines were common and males were entitled to both concubines and a legitimate wife, illegitimate children posed a threat to guardian's inheritance claims. Guardians were the decision makers for their wards and employed bedding ceremonies to mitigate risk and ensure the proper lines of succession along with peaceful inheritance of their property was successful. When guardians ceased needing to concern themselves with inheritance and succession, bedding rituals became more private until they disappeared altogether.

In England between 1660–1857 a husband (or a wife) could sue anyone their partner had an affair with for monetary compensation. This type of suit was known as a criminal conversation. Using rational choice theory, I argue that criminal conversations were a rational institutional arrangement for individuals involved in the institution of marriage during this period. Criminal conversations helped mitigate duels and vigilante justice stemming from adultery by providing financial rewards, and facilitated Coasian bargains between parties seeking mutual divorce. When criminal conversations became common media read by the public and began to threaten elite rule of the populus, criminal conversations were banned as a tort and the state took over divorce proceedings.