Die Weimarer Reformdiskussion über das Ehescheidungsrecht und das Zerrüttungsprinzip (English shop)

Eine Untersuchung über die Entwicklung des Ehescheidungsrechts in Deutschland von der Reformation bis zur Gegenwart unter Berücksichtigung rechtsvergleichender Aspekte

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The Weimar Reform Debate on Divorce Law and the Breakdown Principle

A Study of the Development of Divorce Law in Germany from the Reformation to the Present, with Consideration of Comparative Law Aspects

Abstract

The modern development of marriage law is characterised by a process of far-reaching transformation. In divorce law, this development spans the extremes of the Catholic dogma of indissolubility and today’s West German divorce law based on the breakdown principle. The defining lines of development in this process of transformation are the secularisation of marriage law since the Reformation, the linking of the legal existence of a marriage to the actual existence of the marital community, and the internalisation of the understanding of marriage.

The focus of the study is the Weimar reform debate on divorce law, which opposed the restrictive divorce law of the Civil Code (BGB) of 1900 and called for easier access to divorce. In the Weimar debate, marital breakdown was understood as the factor actually justifying divorce and was placed at the centre of the debate on divorce law. In this way, the Weimar reform debate laid the foundations for the German divorce law in force today, which is based on the breakdown principle.

Mr Humphrey’s study is divided into three parts. In the first, legal-historical part, the author examines the development of divorce law from the Reformation up to the Weimar reform debate. In the second, comparative-law part, the author turns his attention to the development of divorce law in other European countries, which decisively shaped the state of the debate in the Weimar period. In the third part, the author presents the history of the impact of the Weimar reform approaches with regard to the reforms of divorce law of 1938 by the National Socialist regime and of 1976 by the social-liberal coalition.