Legislative Update: Divorce Waiting Period, Educational Programs
Arizona Senate Bill 1199 amending sections 25-329 and 25-351, Arizona Revised Statutes; relating to domestic relations was introduced. It proposes changing the waiting period for a divorce to be finalized from the current 60 days to 180 days from the date of service of the Petition for Dissolution of Marriage or the acceptance of service. It also includes topics to be discussed during an Educational Program for parents and children going through a divorce.
You can look at this a number of ways: (1) it will produce a cottage industry of entities that provide these courses and they will thrive economically ; (2) it will give a chance for the State to make divorcing couples aware resources available to try to resolve marital difficulties and keep them together; and possibly (3) it would lenghthen the time and expense that it takes for a divorce action to percolate through the system.
This Arizona divorce legislation presupposes that two intelligent people have not already tried, and even exhausted, other avenues of reconciliation for saving their marriage. It supposes an amicable relationship between the spouses, ignoring the very real probability of danger from abuse, physical, mental, emotional and otherwise.
These suppositions are insulting to the intelligent, amicable divorcing couples and likely dangerous for those persons who need to get out of a dangerous marriage.
I find it very insulting that this legislation tries to impose its simplistic views on me and my fellow Arizona citizens.