Divorce law by country

This article is a general overview of divorce laws around the world. Every nation in the world allows its residents to divorce under some conditions except the Philippines (though Muslims in the Philippines have the right to divorce) and the Vatican City, an ecclesiastical sovereign city-state, which has no procedure for divorce. In these two countries, laws only allow annulment of marriages. Divorce in Islam Divorce in Islam can take a variety of forms, some initiated by the husband and some initiated by the wife. The main traditional legal categories are talaq (repudiation), khulʿ (mutual divorce) and faskh (dissolution of a marriage by an Islamic Court). Historically, the rules of divorce were governed by sharia, as interpreted by traditional Islamic jurisprudence, though they differed depending on the legal school, and historical practices sometimes diverged from legal theory. In Argentina, the legalisation of divorce was the result of a struggle between different governments and conservative groups, mostly connected to the Catholic Church. In 1888, Law 2,393 established that marriage and divorce in Argentina would be controlled by the State, not the Church. The law allowed for separation of the spouses by judicial order on the grounds of adultery, insults, violence, or desertion, but did not allow for dissolution of marriage. Only in 1954, President Juan Domingo Perón had Law 14,394 passed over the objections of the Catholic Church. For the first time in the country, marriages could be ended and divorcees could remarry. But Perón was forced out of the presidency one year later by a military coup, and the government that succeeded him abolished the law. From 1968 onwards, couples could legally separate without proving fault, but marriages still could not be dissolved. Finally, in 1987, President Raúl Alfonsín was successful in passing the divorce law (Law 23,515), following a ruling of the Supreme Court. The new law also provided for gender equality between the wife and husband.