Divorce

Marriage laws are reciprocal between the US and Great Britain. Marriages performed in one are honored in the other, as are divorces granted.

If all you want is a divorce, that is uncomplicated and can be accomplished at home. Most such divorces are uncontested by the other party, as such marriages do tend to be irretrievably broken. Often the spouse fails to respond, and the divorce is granted by default.

The complications arise in the matter of division of property, alimony and child support. If you want to secure support or property, it would be best to file in the country where the spouse and property are located, as divorce settlements are not necessarily reciprocal, i.e., there may be no practical way to enforce them.

These issues can get extremely complicated if you have an uncooperative spouse, especially if children are involved. A good attorney would be a must if there are encumberances.

If the NISI period has passed for your jurisdiction and the divorce would be considered final, or absolute, under the law then yes, your divorce is final. However, you have not explained the extent of the misspelling. It is assumed that your ex-husband's name was spelled correctly in all the filings leading up to the divorce and the error was made in drafting the decree.

You should visit the court and ask a clerk about how to file an amendment that would result in a divorce decree showing the proper names of the parties.

That depends on your perspective. The goal of American child support laws is to ensure that parents fulfill their obligation to provide for their children financially. Whether or not our system meets that goal is a matter of intense debate.

Critics say that the laws aren’t fair for non-custodial parents, or that the laws don’t make enough distinctions to allow for unusual circumstances. To dig into those issues, let’s look at a few child support statistics, courtesy of the CDC:

• About half of all 13.6 million custodial parents have child support agreements. Some of these agreements are informal, which means they're not legally enforced.
• About two-thirds of custodial parents receive some payments from non-custodial parents.
• However, only 43.5 percent of custodial parents receive the full amount of child support owed to them. That means a large percentage of noncustodial parents make partial payments.
• In 2015, the total amount of child support due was $33.7 billion.

Given those numbers, it might be reasonable to question whether child support laws are justified, since a hefty percentage of noncustodial parents aren't paying their due (or they're paying less than the full amount of their obligation). There are two simple conclusions: Either child support payments are set at unreasonably high levels, or noncustodial parents don't face serious legal repercussions for failing to pay.

In either case, there's something wrong with the system we use to mandate child support payments. However, there are other factors to consider.

States set child support laws, not the federal government.

Here's an issue with the phrasing of the question: For the most part, states set and enforce child support laws, and those laws vary greatly from state to state.

That's not to say that there aren’t any nationwide regulations concerning child support. For example, federal law makes it illegal for parents to willfully fail to pay child support after receiving a court order, even if that parent is not living in the state where the order was charged. This gives courts the right to enforce child support laws across state lines.

Also, per 18 U.S.C. § 228(a)(2), people who owe child support cannot cross state lines or flee the country to avoid paying their past-due child support. If they do so, they face fines and prison time.

Apart from those laws, however, states are responsible for setting up their child support systems. All child support enforcement matters "must be addressed at the local or state level before concerns can be raised at the federal level," per the Department of Justice.

States generally set their child support models to one of these standards:

The Income Shares Model - This is the most common model, used by 40 states. The basic idea is that the child should receive the same proportion of the parental income that they received when the parents were together. It considers both parents' income. Therefore, if a custodial parent makes significantly more than the non-custodial parent, the non-custodial parent will pay less (and vice-versa).

The Percentage of Income Model - In this model, the support calculation looks at the noncustodial parent’s income, but not the custodial parent’s income. Seven states use this model.

The Melson Formula - The most complicated of the models, the Melson Formula incorporates several public policy judgments in order to adequately provide for the basic needs of each parent (in addition to the children's needs). Basically, it allows more money for child support as income changes. Three states (Delaware, Hawaii, and Montana) use the Melson Formula.

A paper written by Jennifer Noyes of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison noted that “"he Income Shares model is perceived to be fairer than the Percentage of Income model because it explicitly, rather than implicitly, accounts for the contributions of both parents in the calculation of child support."

However, Noyes also pointed out that shared-custody arrangements are becoming more common, and some states have revised their child support calculations to accommodate for these situations. It’s extremely difficult to calculate a perfectly "fair" payment in every case, and each of the models has issues. That’s part of the reason for the high number of non-payments in the U.S. child support system—states have a tough time figuring out fair systems that adequately protect children.

So, are American child support laws justified? Yes and no. Ultimately, child support laws make sense; it takes two parents to create a child, and both parents have an obligation to provide for their children, regardless of whether or not they have custody. However, our system could probably use some improvement, and any changes will have to occur at the state level.

The short answer: That depends on which divorce statistics you use. The shorter answer: It's almost certainly Arkansas.

Per estimates from the Census’ 2017 American Community Survey, Arkansas has the highest divorce rate, with 17.14 divorces per 1,000 married individuals.

However, divorce statistics can be complicated, and "divorces per married individual" is just one method of measuring divorce rates. If you look at the crude divorce rate, meaning divorces per 1,000 people (regardless of if they've ever been married), Idaho, Oklahoma, and several other states have higher divorce rates than Arkansas.

Keep in mind, though, that crude divorce rates aren’t spectacular for measuring trends, because they’re influenced by dozens of factors that don’t show up in the statistics. For instance, states with lower marriage rates tend to have fewer divorces, for obvious reasons. Generally speaking, crude divorce rates are highest in the South and lowest in the Northeast, and that’s influenced by the fact that marriages are more common in the South.

Another reason crude divorce rates aren't ideal is that they include children and single adults who obviously cannot divorce. "Divorces per married individual," the statistic where Arkansas comes out on top, is slightly more useful than "divorces per individual," since it only looks at the married population.

Other estimates look at the refined divorce rate, which is measured as “divorces per 1,000 married women.” This is generally seen as a better stat, since focusing on one gender tends to produce a more reliable idea of divorce likelihood—when you divide the refined divorce rate by 10, you get the percentage of marriages that ended in divorce that year.

If you have trouble seeing the logic there, just know this: Arkansas still wins (or loses) when you look at the refined divorce rate.

Here are the top five states according to the refined divorce rate:

1. Arkansas (25.5 divorces per 1,000 married women)
2. Delaware (24.0)
3. Kentucky (22.8)
4. Alabama (22.5)
5. Oklahoma (20.6)

Here are the bottom five states:

1. Illinois (12.9)
2. New Jersey (12.4)
3. District of Columbia (12.1)
4. Montana (12.0)
5. Hawaii (10.1)

By most measures, Arkansas has the highest divorce rate in the United States. We can’t really say why without digging deep into the research, but some factors known to affect divorce rates include economic issues, occupational stress, education level, and age of first marriage.