Reworking the Past, Imagining the Future: On Jacob's Silent Revolution

Abstract

In Silent Revolution: The Transformation of Divorce Law in the United States, Herbert Jacob, a political scientist, undertakes a potentially illuminating and necessarily interdisciplinary inquiry: How and by whom have recent changes in American divorce law been effected? Jacob gives a multistate history of the last 25 years of American divorce legislation. He examines the adoption of no-fault divorce grounds, the rise of marital property law, shifts in spousal support doctrine, and the introduction of joint custody. He focuses on the two most populous states, New York and California, gives brief attention to another handful of states, and examines the formulation of two key provisions of the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act (UMDA).' Jacob asserts that relatively few persons, mostly experts, brought about the changes. These experts characterized their statutory reforms as and thus succeeded in achieving change with little public participation or scrutiny. He formulates a theory of policy making in which important legal changes are effected with minimal public involvement. Experts who seek to use the routine policy process define