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Divorce of same-sex couples

April 26, 2023

"Gay divorce" redirects here. For the musical, see Gay Divorce.

The extension of civil marriage, union, and domestic partnership rights to same-sex couples in various jurisdictions can raise legal issues upon dissolution of these unions that are not experienced by opposite-sex couples, especially if law of their residence or nationality does not have same-sex marriage or partnerships.

Conflict of laws

In jurisdictions where same-sex unions are not possible, also divorce or annulment is often not possible, while general conflict of law rules sometimes exclude divorce in the jurisdiction where the marriage was celebrated.

In some jurisdictions divorce is possible, even if marriage is not possible. They are listed below:

Jurisdiction Comment
Aruba Marriages from the Netherlands only[1]
Israel [2]

United States

Marriages and divorces in the U.S. are governed by state law, not federal law. That means that states are free to set their own rules for who is eligible for marriage (e.g., the minimum age for marrying) and establish their own rules and processes for divorce. Nonetheless, every state had a general residency requirement for divorce cases, requiring at least one of the people seeking the divorce to reside in that state. Before the federal government recognized same-sex marriages in 2013, through the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Windsor, same-sex couples who legally married in one state could find themselves unable to divorce after relocating to another state that did not recognize their marriage as valid. That could result in the need for a costly civil lawsuit to attempt to resolve issues of property rights, and property settlements that were negotiated outside of court could potentially trigger federal gift tax requirements.[3]

Before the Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, couples in same-sex marriages could generally only obtain a divorce in jurisdictions that recognized same-sex marriages.[4] When Delaware and Minnesota legalized same-sex marriage in May 2013, they passed legislation allowing non-resident couples who had legally married within the state, but who were not able to divorce in the jurisdiction where they were residing, to obtain a divorce through their courts.[5][6] Florida legalized divorce for same sex couples as the result of a court decision[7] that followed lawsuits by couples who had legally married in other states but had not been allowed to divorce after relocating to Florida.[8][9][10]

After the Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell, same-sex couples could legally divorce in any U.S. state.[11][12]

Divorce rates

Belgium

Between 2004 and 2009, the average annual divorce rate for all homosexual marriages was almost 2% (the total rate of divorce over those 5 years was 11%) Also between 2004 and 2009, lesbian divorce rates were nearly double of those of gay men.[13]

Denmark

As of 1997, the same-sex partnership divorce rate (17 percent) was significantly lower than that of heterosexual couples in Denmark (46 percent). The vast majority of gay marriages in Denmark are male-male. Fourteen (14) percent of these end in divorce, compared to 23 percent of female-female marriages. The higher rate for lesbians (almost double), is consistent with data showing that women initiate most of the heterosexual divorces in Denmark.[14]

Netherlands

In the Netherlands, slightly more marriages between women are recorded than between men: between 2006 and 2011 on average 690 and 610 per year respectively.

The lesbian divorce rate is much higher than the divorce rate between men: in the same period on average 100 women and 45 men divorced per year (i.e., Lesbian divorce rate = 14%, Gay Male divorce rate = 7%).[15]

A study tracking married couples over a 10-year span found lesbian marriages were most likely to end in divorce. Of the 580 lesbian couples who were married in 2005, 30% were divorced ten years later compared to 18% for heterosexual couples and 15% for gay male couples.[16]

Norway and Sweden

A study on short-term same-sex registered partnerships in Norway and Sweden found that divorce rates were higher for same-sex couples than opposite-sex marriages,[17] and that unions of lesbians are considerably less stable than unions of gay men.[18]

In the above study, lesbians divorce risks were 10% higher than for gay men (Table 4).

A study of marriage dissolution rates in Sweden spanning the years 1995-2012 found that 30% of both male same-sex marriages and heterosexual marriages ended in divorce, whereas the separation rate for female same-sex marriages was 40% (their Figure 7a).[19]

United Kingdom

The divorce rate of same-sex couples within 29 months of the introduction of legally binding civil partnerships was slightly less than one percent in the United Kingdom.[20]

As of 2013, lesbian couples were twice as likely to initiate actions to end legally recognized partnerships as compared to gay men.[21] In 2016, married female couples were approximately 2.5 times more likely to divorce than male couples.[22]

According to Office for National Statistics, divorce rate of heterosexual couples is at its lowest since 1971 in England and Wales. The divorce rate for same-sex couples increased in 2016 and 2017,[22][23] which the Office for National Statistics explained as a likely result of the fact that same-sex marriages have only been legal since 2014.[23]

United States

Massachusetts, the first U.S. state to allow same-sex marriage, does not track how many of the divorces in the state are between same-sex couples.[24] A 2011 study for states with available data initially reported that the dissolution rates for same-sex couples were slightly lower on average (on average, 1.1% of all same-sex couples were said to divorce each year, ranging from 0% to 1.8% in various jurisdictions) than divorce rates of different-sex couples (2% of whom divorce annually).[25] The Washington Post retracted a headline about this report because the study had incorrectly calculated the percentage due to an error in capturing when the same-sex marriages began. As a result, the corrected findings show a 2% divorce rate for same-sex couples—the same as opposite-sex couples.[26] A 2019 study using three large samples from the United States and Canada found the divorce rate of same-sex couples to be larger than that of heterosexual couples. They found a larger difference among the subset of couples with children. Same-sex couples in this category divorced at a rate of 43% over the study period, as opposed to 8% for heterosexual couples with children.[27]

Some studies have shown that lesbian committed relationships do not last as long as gay male committed relationships.[28]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Case BM9542" (in Dutch). Court of first instance of Aruba. 5 March 2008. Retrieved 18 December 2010.
  2. ^ Lior, Ilan (3 December 2012). "Court grants divorce to gay couple for first time in Israeli history". Haaretz.com. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
  3. ^ Ellis, Blake (13 May 2013). "The high cost of same-sex divorce". CNN Money. Retrieved 21 May 2013.
  4. ^ "Tips on Avoiding Same-Sex Divorce Complications". The Huffington Post. 13 May 2013. Retrieved 15 May 2013.
  5. ^ "House Bill 75, Sec. 7". Delaware Legislature. Retrieved 12 May 2013.
  6. ^ Minnesota Legislature. "Senate File 925, Sec. 7". Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Retrieved 12 May 2013.
  7. ^ Silvestrini, Elaine (2 June 2015). "Lesbian couple in Tampa gets court OK to divorce". Orlando Sentinel. Tampa Tribune. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  8. ^ Anton, Leonora (24 March 2014). "Tampa couple's divorce could challenge same-sex marriage ban". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 12 April 2014.
  9. ^ Cordover, Adam (16 August 2014). "Florida Bar Family Law Section Moves to File Brief in Same Sex Divorce Appeal". ABC Family Law Blog. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
  10. ^ Silvestrini, Elaine (27 April 2015). . Tampa Tribune. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  11. ^ Ellis, Lindsay (14 August 2015). "Supreme Court's Gay-Marriage Ruling Allows Something Else: Gay Divorce". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  12. ^ O'Brien, Sarah (13 November 2017). "Same-sex divorce poses complications for some splitting couples". CNBC. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  13. ^ EL. Gender Across Borders. Archived from the original on 27 December 2015. Retrieved 26 December 2015.
  14. ^ Marian Jones (1 May 1997). "Lessons from a Gay Marriage: Despite stereotypes of gay relationships as short-lived, gay unions highlight the keys to success". Psychology Today. Retrieved 20 April 2011.
  15. ^ "Lesbiennes scheiden veel meer dan homo's (Lesbians divorce much more than gays)". Nu.nl (in Dutch). 24 January 2012.
  16. ^ Janene Pieters (1 March 2016). "Marriages Between Women Most Likely To End In Divorce". NL Times. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
  17. ^ Andersson, Gunnar (February 2006). "The Demographics of Same-Sex 'Marriages' in Norway and Sweden" (PDF). Demography. 43 (1): 79–98. doi:10.1353/dem.2006.0001. PMID 16579209.
  18. ^ Andersson, Gunnar (February 2006). "The Demographics of Same-Sex 'Marriages' in Norway and Sweden" (PDF). Demography. 43 (1): 79–98. doi:10.1353/dem.2006.0001. PMID 16579209.
  19. ^ Kolk, Martin; Andersson, Gunnar (9 January 2020). "Two Decades of Same-Sex Marriage in Sweden: A Demographic Account of Developments in Marriage, Childbearing, and Divorce". Demography. 57 (1): 147–169. doi:10.1007/s13524-019-00847-6. PMC 7052034. PMID 31919806. Retrieved 20 August 2022.
  20. ^ Tony Grew (7 August 2008). . Pink News. Archived from the original on 11 April 2009. Retrieved 20 April 2011.
  21. ^ "UK: Lesbian Couples Twice As Likely As Gay Men To End Civil Partnerships". The Independent. London. 8 October 2013. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
  22. ^ a b "Lesbian couples two and a half times more likely to get divorced than male same-sex couples, ONS figures reveal". The Independent. 18 October 2017.
  23. ^ a b Mohdin, Aamna (26 September 2018). "Heterosexual divorce in England and Wales is at lowest level since 1973". the Guardian. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
  24. ^ LeBlanc, Steve (9 June 2015). "Numbers show how gay marriage has fared in Massachusetts". Mass Live. Associated Press. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  25. ^ Badgett, M.V. Lee; Herman, Jody L. (November 2011). Patterns of Relationship Recognition by Same-Sex Couples in the United States (PDF) (Thesis). The Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law.
  26. ^ "Same-sex divorce rate not as low as it seemed". The Washington Post. Retrieved 15 December 2014.
  27. ^ Allen, Doug; Price, Joseph (2 July 2019). "Stability Rates of Same-Sex Couples: With and Without Children". Marriage & Family Review. 56 (1): 51–71. doi:10.1080/01494929.2019.1630048. S2CID 198627778. Retrieved 20 August 2022.
  28. ^ "Divorce and Marriage Rates for Same-Sex Couples". The Huffington Post. 10 November 2011. Retrieved 16 April 2014.

Further reading

  • Dodge, Jeffrey A. (January 2006). "Same-sex Marriage and Divorce: A Proposal for Child Custody Mediation". Family Court Review. 44 (1): 87–103. doi:10.1111/j.1744-1617.2006.00069.x.
  • Goldhaber, Oren (April 2007). "I Want My Mommies: The Cry for Mini-DOMAs to Recognize the Best Interests of the Children of Same-sex couples". Family Court Review. 45 (2): 287–301. doi:10.1111/j.1744-1617.2007.00144.x.
  • Herman, Greg (Spring 2012). "Legal Effects of Same-Sex Marriage and Divorce". American Journal of Family Law. 26 (1): 5–6.
  • Joslin, Courtney. G. (July 2011). "Modernizing Divorce Jurisdiction: Same-sex Couples and Minimum Contacts". Boston University Law Review. 91 (5): 1669–1721. SSRN 1880168.
  • McCarthy, Ellen (9 April 2012). "A Court's Conundrum: When Same-Sex partners Want to Split". The Washington Post.
  • Smith, Tovia (20 July 2011). "Gay Divorce A Higher Hurdle Than Marriage". NPR. Retrieved 22 April 2012.

April 26, 2023
divorce, same, couples, divorce, redirects, here, musical, divorce, extension, civil, marriage, union, domestic, partnership, rights, same, couples, various, jurisdictions, raise, legal, issues, upon, dissolution, these, unions, that, experienced, opposite, co. Gay divorce redirects here For the musical see Gay Divorce The extension of civil marriage union and domestic partnership rights to same sex couples in various jurisdictions can raise legal issues upon dissolution of these unions that are not experienced by opposite sex couples especially if law of their residence or nationality does not have same sex marriage or partnerships Contents 1 Conflict of laws 1 1 United States 2 Divorce rates 2 1 Belgium 2 2 Denmark 2 3 Netherlands 2 4 Norway and Sweden 2 5 United Kingdom 2 6 United States 3 See also 4 References 5 Further readingConflict of laws EditIn jurisdictions where same sex unions are not possible also divorce or annulment is often not possible while general conflict of law rules sometimes exclude divorce in the jurisdiction where the marriage was celebrated In some jurisdictions divorce is possible even if marriage is not possible They are listed below Jurisdiction CommentAruba Marriages from the Netherlands only 1 Israel 2 United States Edit Marriages and divorces in the U S are governed by state law not federal law That means that states are free to set their own rules for who is eligible for marriage e g the minimum age for marrying and establish their own rules and processes for divorce Nonetheless every state had a general residency requirement for divorce cases requiring at least one of the people seeking the divorce to reside in that state Before the federal government recognized same sex marriages in 2013 through the Supreme Court s decision in United States v Windsor same sex couples who legally married in one state could find themselves unable to divorce after relocating to another state that did not recognize their marriage as valid That could result in the need for a costly civil lawsuit to attempt to resolve issues of property rights and property settlements that were negotiated outside of court could potentially trigger federal gift tax requirements 3 Before the Supreme Court s 2015 decision in Obergefell v Hodges couples in same sex marriages could generally only obtain a divorce in jurisdictions that recognized same sex marriages 4 When Delaware and Minnesota legalized same sex marriage in May 2013 they passed legislation allowing non resident couples who had legally married within the state but who were not able to divorce in the jurisdiction where they were residing to obtain a divorce through their courts 5 6 Florida legalized divorce for same sex couples as the result of a court decision 7 that followed lawsuits by couples who had legally married in other states but had not been allowed to divorce after relocating to Florida 8 9 10 After the Supreme Court s decision in Obergefell same sex couples could legally divorce in any U S state 11 12 Divorce rates EditBelgium Edit Between 2004 and 2009 the average annual divorce rate for all homosexual marriages was almost 2 the total rate of divorce over those 5 years was 11 Also between 2004 and 2009 lesbian divorce rates were nearly double of those of gay men 13 Denmark Edit As of 1997 the same sex partnership divorce rate 17 percent was significantly lower than that of heterosexual couples in Denmark 46 percent The vast majority of gay marriages in Denmark are male male Fourteen 14 percent of these end in divorce compared to 23 percent of female female marriages The higher rate for lesbians almost double is consistent with data showing that women initiate most of the heterosexual divorces in Denmark 14 Netherlands Edit In the Netherlands slightly more marriages between women are recorded than between men between 2006 and 2011 on average 690 and 610 per year respectively The lesbian divorce rate is much higher than the divorce rate between men in the same period on average 100 women and 45 men divorced per year i e Lesbian divorce rate 14 Gay Male divorce rate 7 15 A study tracking married couples over a 10 year span found lesbian marriages were most likely to end in divorce Of the 580 lesbian couples who were married in 2005 30 were divorced ten years later compared to 18 for heterosexual couples and 15 for gay male couples 16 Norway and Sweden Edit A study on short term same sex registered partnerships in Norway and Sweden found that divorce rates were higher for same sex couples than opposite sex marriages 17 and that unions of lesbians are considerably less stable than unions of gay men 18 In the above study lesbians divorce risks were 10 higher than for gay men Table 4 A study of marriage dissolution rates in Sweden spanning the years 1995 2012 found that 30 of both male same sex marriages and heterosexual marriages ended in divorce whereas the separation rate for female same sex marriages was 40 their Figure 7a 19 United Kingdom Edit The divorce rate of same sex couples within 29 months of the introduction of legally binding civil partnerships was slightly less than one percent in the United Kingdom 20 As of 2013 lesbian couples were twice as likely to initiate actions to end legally recognized partnerships as compared to gay men 21 In 2016 married female couples were approximately 2 5 times more likely to divorce than male couples 22 According to Office for National Statistics divorce rate of heterosexual couples is at its lowest since 1971 in England and Wales The divorce rate for same sex couples increased in 2016 and 2017 22 23 which the Office for National Statistics explained as a likely result of the fact that same sex marriages have only been legal since 2014 23 United States Edit Massachusetts the first U S state to allow same sex marriage does not track how many of the divorces in the state are between same sex couples 24 A 2011 study for states with available data initially reported that the dissolution rates for same sex couples were slightly lower on average on average 1 1 of all same sex couples were said to divorce each year ranging from 0 to 1 8 in various jurisdictions than divorce rates of different sex couples 2 of whom divorce annually 25 The Washington Post retracted a headline about this report because the study had incorrectly calculated the percentage due to an error in capturing when the same sex marriages began As a result the corrected findings show a 2 divorce rate for same sex couples the same as opposite sex couples 26 A 2019 study using three large samples from the United States and Canada found the divorce rate of same sex couples to be larger than that of heterosexual couples They found a larger difference among the subset of couples with children Same sex couples in this category divorced at a rate of 43 over the study period as opposed to 8 for heterosexual couples with children 27 Some studies have shown that lesbian committed relationships do not last as long as gay male committed relationships 28 See also Edit Law portal LGBT portalStatus of same sex marriage status around the world Civil solidarity pact French civil unions available to same sex and opposite sex couples Civil union Domestic partnership other non marriage legal unions available to same sex couples in certain jurisdictionsReferences Edit Case BM9542 in Dutch Court of first instance of Aruba 5 March 2008 Retrieved 18 December 2010 Lior Ilan 3 December 2012 Court grants divorce to gay couple for first time in Israeli history Haaretz com Retrieved 5 April 2014 Ellis Blake 13 May 2013 The high cost of same sex divorce CNN Money Retrieved 21 May 2013 Tips on Avoiding Same Sex Divorce Complications The Huffington Post 13 May 2013 Retrieved 15 May 2013 House Bill 75 Sec 7 Delaware Legislature Retrieved 12 May 2013 Minnesota Legislature Senate File 925 Sec 7 Office of the Revisor of Statutes Retrieved 12 May 2013 Silvestrini Elaine 2 June 2015 Lesbian couple in Tampa gets court OK to divorce Orlando Sentinel Tampa Tribune Retrieved 30 May 2018 Anton Leonora 24 March 2014 Tampa couple s divorce could challenge same sex marriage ban Tampa Bay Times Retrieved 12 April 2014 Cordover Adam 16 August 2014 Florida Bar Family Law Section Moves to File Brief in Same Sex Divorce Appeal ABC Family Law Blog Retrieved 16 August 2014 Silvestrini Elaine 27 April 2015 Tampa lesbian couple still trying to get legally divorced Tampa Tribune Archived from the original on 12 June 2018 Retrieved 30 May 2018 Ellis Lindsay 14 August 2015 Supreme Court s Gay Marriage Ruling Allows Something Else Gay Divorce Wall Street Journal ISSN 0099 9660 Retrieved 5 March 2021 O Brien Sarah 13 November 2017 Same sex divorce poses complications for some splitting couples CNBC Retrieved 27 July 2019 EL Marital Bliss Gender Gaps Gender Across Borders Archived from the original on 27 December 2015 Retrieved 26 December 2015 Marian Jones 1 May 1997 Lessons from a Gay Marriage Despite stereotypes of gay relationships as short lived gay unions highlight the keys to success Psychology Today Retrieved 20 April 2011 Lesbiennes scheiden veel meer dan homo s Lesbians divorce much more than gays Nu nl in Dutch 24 January 2012 Janene Pieters 1 March 2016 Marriages Between Women Most Likely To End In Divorce NL Times Retrieved 17 May 2018 Andersson Gunnar February 2006 The Demographics of Same Sex Marriages in Norway and Sweden PDF Demography 43 1 79 98 doi 10 1353 dem 2006 0001 PMID 16579209 Andersson Gunnar February 2006 The Demographics of Same Sex Marriages in Norway and Sweden PDF Demography 43 1 79 98 doi 10 1353 dem 2006 0001 PMID 16579209 Kolk Martin Andersson Gunnar 9 January 2020 Two Decades of Same Sex Marriage in Sweden A Demographic Account of Developments in Marriage Childbearing and Divorce Demography 57 1 147 169 doi 10 1007 s13524 019 00847 6 PMC 7052034 PMID 31919806 Retrieved 20 August 2022 Tony Grew 7 August 2008 Less than 1 of civil partnerships end in divorce Pink News Archived from the original on 11 April 2009 Retrieved 20 April 2011 UK Lesbian Couples Twice As Likely As Gay Men To End Civil Partnerships The Independent London 8 October 2013 Retrieved 16 April 2014 a b Lesbian couples two and a half times more likely to get divorced than male same sex couples ONS figures reveal The Independent 18 October 2017 a b Mohdin Aamna 26 September 2018 Heterosexual divorce in England and Wales is at lowest level since 1973 the Guardian Retrieved 27 September 2018 LeBlanc Steve 9 June 2015 Numbers show how gay marriage has fared in Massachusetts Mass Live Associated Press Retrieved 30 May 2018 Badgett M V Lee Herman Jody L November 2011 Patterns of Relationship Recognition by Same Sex Couples in the United States PDF Thesis The Williams Institute UCLA School of Law Same sex divorce rate not as low as it seemed The Washington Post Retrieved 15 December 2014 Allen Doug Price Joseph 2 July 2019 Stability Rates of Same Sex Couples With and Without Children Marriage amp Family Review 56 1 51 71 doi 10 1080 01494929 2019 1630048 S2CID 198627778 Retrieved 20 August 2022 Divorce and Marriage Rates for Same Sex Couples The Huffington Post 10 November 2011 Retrieved 16 April 2014 Further reading EditDodge Jeffrey A January 2006 Same sex Marriage and Divorce A Proposal for Child Custody Mediation Family Court Review 44 1 87 103 doi 10 1111 j 1744 1617 2006 00069 x Goldhaber Oren April 2007 I Want My Mommies The Cry for Mini DOMAs to Recognize the Best Interests of the Children of Same sex couples Family Court Review 45 2 287 301 doi 10 1111 j 1744 1617 2007 00144 x Herman Greg Spring 2012 Legal Effects of Same Sex Marriage and Divorce American Journal of Family Law 26 1 5 6 Joslin Courtney G July 2011 Modernizing Divorce Jurisdiction Same sex Couples and Minimum Contacts Boston University Law Review 91 5 1669 1721 SSRN 1880168 McCarthy Ellen 9 April 2012 A Court s Conundrum When Same Sex partners Want to Split The Washington Post Smith Tovia 20 July 2011 Gay Divorce A Higher Hurdle Than Marriage NPR Retrieved 22 April 2012 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Divorce of same sex couples amp oldid 1150683875, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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