A Divorce Lawyer Contemplates the Divorce Fair

I’ve spent a lot of time around divorce and people going through it. But I have to admit this is a new one even for me. Thousands of Parisians took part in a “Divorce Fair” last Sunday.

If you’re wondering what goes on at a divorce fair, you can read the AP article about it and see for yourself. 60 vendors, ranging from lawyers and counselors to tarot card readers and self-esteem counselors, hawked their services to those Parisians unfortunate enough to need them. The participants also listened to presentations with names like “Plastic Surgery’s Role in Re-Conquering Your Image” and “How to Re-seduce Your Partner Using the Gestalt Method.”

Not sure how I feel about this. A part of me wants to encourage anything we in the culture can do to make divorce less brutal for those going through it, including bringing together in one place the services they need, and yes, even the services I think they don’t. On the other hand, it just seems a tad icky to have it so clearly and transparently illustrated that there is an entire industry (of which I am clearly a participant) set up to traffic on and profit from the misery and vulnerability of those going through divorce.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.

One thought on “A Divorce Lawyer Contemplates the Divorce Fair”

  1. I stumbled across your site while looking for an address for Judith Wallerstein – the purpose of which is my own long saga of divorce, parental alienation and family dismemberment.

    Realizing the basic purpose for your site (and your profession), the commentary on the research of Wallerstein/Blakeslee is not surprising: that divorce is not really “the problem”, but instead, “bad marriages”…. Still, other data (other sources) seem to agree with this groundbreaking work (see Father Facts, National Fatherhood Initiative, 5th Ed. among other collections of data).

    If I had to sum-up my own view of divorce (no-fault) in America, it would that marriage has been reduced from a contract to a relationship of convenience. No-fault (as a cause) has been the single largest contributor to burgeoning divorce rate (since the 1970’s) and to the dilution of marriage as an institution. And as to “bad marriages”, how can you possibly know — given the ease and access to divorce in America.

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