People will eat each other.

We're gonna have to celebrate two Christmases.

Murph, calm down.

Divorce isn't scary.

In fact, it's a good thing.

Are you serious, dude?!

Half of all marriages end in divorce.

Oh, yeah, that's what everyone says.

But it's not actually true.

(crowd cheering)

Oh, hey, a dance circle.

(chuckles)

♪♪

Properly calculated, divorce rates in the U.S. have never exceeded 41%.

And after peaking in the late '70s and early '80s,

since then, the divorce rate has actually gone down.

(crowd cheering, music stops)

So what? Divorce is still awful.

Why do you think that?

Because it means a happy marriage is over.

No, it means a bad marriage is over.

And before access to divorce improved in the '70s,

people were trapped in those awful relationships.

(Adam) In the old days,

to get a divorce,

you often needed both spouses present.

My husband is trying to kill me.

And where is this husband?

Knife shopping.

No dice!

(Adam) You also needed to establish fault,

so if you wanted a boring old amicable divorce,

you were forced to lie to a judge.

Who was cruel or inhumane to whom?

Damn. It-- it was me.

I, uh, attacked him with scissors?

Ah, yes, dice.

Divorce horse, do your thing.

(neighing) Let's go!

(neighing)

And this was particularly bad for women

because, in many states, domestic violence

wasn't considered grounds for divorce.

So they could become trapped in abusive marriages.

(Adam) But all that changed in 1969

thanks to Ronald Reagan.

As governor of California, I introduced no-fault divorce,

a revolutionary innovation that made it far easier for folks to separate.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this marriage!

(chuckling)

The concept soon spread to other states

and by some estimates,

reduced cases of female suicide by 20%.

Wow.

That's why divorce rates rose in the '70s.

Not because society was crumbling,

but because divorce was finally available to the people who really needed it.