Essay Sample on Classification of Divorce

A majority of people will affirm to the fact that marriage is always the happiest and perhaps one of the most important stage of one's life. However, challenges and disagreements arise and sometimes grave enough to cause permanent separation - what is known as divorce. This is the act of legal annulment of a marriage by a court of law or any other body vested with such powers in a given jurisdiction. While it is always thought that this is just a simple act, the fact is that it is always complex and may involve a range of procedures. Since the marriage process in itself encompasses legal as well as social matters, some divorce may take a legal approach while others may resort to customary procedures.

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To begin with, we have an uncontested divorce. In this situation, the partners concerned work out together all the terms and conditions that each should fulfill during and after the divorce process. They proceed to file such documents with the relevant authorities and, therefore, eliminating the need for a court trial. The key aspect here is an agreement between the partners and might involve services of private legal professionals who not only ensure the fairness of the terms to both parties but also their legality as far as divorce laws are concerned in the particular jurisdiction of interest.

On the flipside, there are contested the divorce. Such types of divorces usually feature couples who are unable to reach an agreement on their terms of separation, including the partition of property, or the trusteeship of the children got in the legal marriage. At this point, they are usually required to go through settlement negotiations conducted by competent and entrusted bodies such as courts of law. They can also involve trial proceedings and lawyers if the concerned parties are unable to reach an amicable agreement during the initial stages.

Thirdly, there is a default divorce. This is a kind of divorce granted to a spouse who submits a divorce request to a court of law, but the other spouse who had left without reason does not respond in time, never returns, and hence cannot be found. Even though the other party never gets a chance to respond or take part in court proceedings, the divorce is considered legally enforceable.

Fourthly, we consider collaborative divorce that is a modification of the disputed or contested divorce. Although the couple involved do not reach an agreement, in the beginning, they resort to the hire lawyers who conduct out of court settlement negotiations. Both parties need to collaborate and appear for the settlement meetings and reveal the required details for open discussion before a mutually binding pact is struck. It should, however, be noted that failure of this divorce method may lead to the hiring of new layers by the parties to take part in the court proceedings.

Finally, there is a summary divorce that involves couples who had been in a marriage for a short time of fewer than five years, own little property, have no children and also little shared debts. The entire divorce process must be proceeded by an agreement between the partners to separate. It is the simplest divorce type because very few considerations have to be looked into, and hence, little paperwork is required.

In conclusion, different types of divorce have been looked at based on legal proceedings since they are the ones with prior laid down procedures. It is, however, noteworthy that other kinds of recognized divorces take the customary approach. The limitation is that a proper classification cannot be made on this basis because the rules shift from one culture to another. Also, the issues that usually emerge as of contest during divorce normally have legal aspects; therefore, a need to concentrate more on legal classifications.