1) I worked in the Family Court for a year -- it's definitely not draconian and broken to men. As I said in another post -- it is only in rare occasions, like habitual drug use (not just alcoholism) that either parent loses custody on divorce, and in such cases, the woman was just as likely to lose custody to the father.
2) The divorce rate has been going down steadily, despite the lack of change in divorce laws -- the rise in divorce was a social phenomenon, not a legal effect. Less harsh laws might have some effect, but not the level of impact you're thinking.
So that would be a categorical no to the first, and a qualified yes to the second.
> BTW, only first-year law students use legal dictionaries, which do not have the force of law in any state, and at best, offer only the shared elements of the meaning of a term as it is individually used in all 50 states.
And y'know, I linked to one because it had cross-links and some backgrounds and an opinion of a U.S. Supreme Court Judgment, which I thought made it of some value.
A detail, like whether unconscionability is subjectively determined at time of divorce would be an interesting debate. You could say it's not subjectively determined under the law, that each state has reasonably clear law on that score. Or you could note that is as an ambiguous word in the CA code that calls for a judgment call that's not particularly objective, and will be made differently by different justices with different values about what's fair or not.
But in the end, it doesn't matter much. I reckon most people got a thorough going-over of it and are more educated now.
For the hell of it, because I'm curious - I had two central thesis-type statements and I'm not sure you agree or disagree.
1. The American [family court] legal system right now is absolutely draconian and broken to men.
2. If the laws were made less brutal to men, I think you'd see more people marrying, marrying at an earlier age, having more children, and paradoxically - I think the divorce rate would go down.
Yes? No? Lots of interesting details, points of debate, ways of interpreting law and statistics - but I'm a bit curious if you're basically a Yay or Nay on those thoughts if you happen to still be reading.