Divorce in Chile
Entry from: "Chile: A Country Study" published by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress.
Chile is one of the last countries in the world that has not legalized divorce. A law permits marital separation under certain conditions, but it does not terminate the conjugal bond. Despite the Catholic hierarchy's opposition to the legalization of divorce, at least half of all Chileans apparently favor enacting such a law. In the 1990 CEP-Adimark survey, 55.6 percent of those interviewed were in favor of legal divorce.
The differences of opinion on divorce among various categories of the population are noteworthy. Support for its legalization is slightly stronger among men than among women. It is much stronger among young adults than among the middle-aged, while only a minority of older people support it. High-income respondents constitute the group most in favor, whereas lower-income respondents largely disapprove (70.1 percent to 15.5 percent); a small majority of those with middle and lower incomes support legalization. A slight majority of self-identified Catholics are in favor, but among practicing Catholics a majority reject the notion. A small majority of those who said they are Protestant reject legalization. This rejection is stronger among weekly churchgoers. Curiously, Protestants (mainly Pentecostals, who tend to have very traditional opinions) are closer to the positions of the Catholic hierarchy than are Catholic respondents.
Although Chile does not have a divorce law, a surrogate and well-institutionalized means of severing conjugal bonds is the annulment of civil marriages. Civil marriage ceremonies are the only legally valid ones, and couples who have church weddings must also marry at the civil registry. The annulment is usually done with the assistance of attorneys who argue that there has been some procedural error in the civil marriage process. It often involves obtaining witnesses who would attest to facts, whether true or false, that vitiate the original proceedings, such as asserting that the couple does not reside where they said they did when they were married. This is enough to make a case for invalidating the action of the civil registrar who performs the ceremony and draws up the papers. To a large extent, Chile's lack of a proper divorce law can be attributed to the ability of separated couples to annul their marriage following these procedures. As a result, the political pressure to enact a divorce law is diffused. In 1991, the latest year for which there were published figures, there were 5,852 marriage annulments (and 91,732 marriages) in the country; the number of annulments showed a steady increase over seven years from a level of 3,987 in 1984. The actual number of separations of married couples is much higher, especially among those who lack the means to hire the necessary annulment lawyers. New bonds are often established outside of wedlock.
Data as of March 1994
