Dealing with Divorce: Your Rights and Responsibilities

Jerry A. Dykman is a lawyer in Morden, Manitoba.

This book is an excellent introduction for the lay reader to the present
state of the broken-marriage industry. It gives a unique history of the
evolution of divorce law: at one time grounds for divorce had to be
proved in court, whereas now we have “no fault” divorce, based on
marriage breakdown, which can be finalized without a court appearance.

It sets out the emotional, financial, and parental crises and outlines
the unbiased views on child support (to the paying spouse, always too
much; to the receiving spouse, never enough—with the recipient’s
bias being more justified).

It is beyond the scope of such a brief text to cover the regional
discrepancies in how provincial legislation deals with legal separations
and how the courts administer relief to spouses prior to the actual
divorce. How the issues of custody, child support, visitation rights,
and the division of marital property are dealt with can vary widely
throughout Canada. Procedure and culture can be different even within
the same province, depending on whether the divorce takes place in a
rural setting or an urban one.

The effect of marital breakdown on children is discussed at length,
since they are the innocents who take no sides. The authors recommend
that the adversarial process be used only as a last resort, when all
other methods have been exhausted. They also foresee, in the next 10
years, the disappearance of fault as a basis for divorce, volunteer
counselling to relieve the overworked professionals and agencies, and
greater protection for children.

One might be left with the erroneous impression that division of
property, pensions, and commercial assets plays only a minor role in a
process that can drag on for years, and that an uncontested divorce
should “not take more than two hours of an experienced lawyer’s
time.” As for literary style, passé buzzwords such as “viable
option” and “quality time” could have been edited.

It is obvious, however, that the book is written from the perspective
of the deep changes in family structure during the past 25 years, and
the attempts of the legislators and courts to keep up with them. To
those faced with the prospect of divorce, this handbook offers able
counsel.