NCJ Number
144047
Date Published
1993
Length
23 pages
Annotation
The growth of marital conflict mediation and the reasons for it are first discussed, followed by an analysis of the relationship between wife assault and mediation.
Abstract
Marital conflict mediation in the United States and Canada has grown markedly during the past 30 years. Rapid increases in the divorce rate during the past 20 years provided increased opportunities for work by all professional workers in the marital dispute settlement industry, family mediators included. Increases in the divorce rate have not been accompanied by proportionate increases in resources allocated to family courts. Also, divorce legislation established the no-fault ground for divorce, making the past less important than the present and the future. Changes in the relative popularity of psychoanalytic and family systems theory have also tended to favor mediation over adversarial processes, including lawyer negotiations. An extensive review of the relevant literature on the effect of divorce mediation on wife assault found very little effect. In a study by Kelly (1990), 106 couples who chose mediation and 104 who chose adversarial proceedings were compared during the divorce processing and at 1 and 2 years after the divorce. The study found no difference between mediation and adversarial groups 1 year after divorce. Members of the mediation group reported fewer conflict about child visitation and payment of debts than did members of the adversarial group. A high degree of anger 2 years after divorce predicted the frequency of conflict at this time, but participation in mediation or the adversarial process did not predict high anger 2 years after divorce. 2 tables and 52 references