Equal Marriage, Equal Divorce?

BACKGROUND

On 23rd September 2015, The States voted to legislate to enable same-sex marriage by January 2017 at the latest. However, The States has used the opportunity of extending marriage to include same-sex couples to also consider the issues around divorce and the dissolution of marriage (both heterosexual and same-sex) generally.

ANALYSIS

An interesting issue on which same-sex marriage and heterosexual marriage potentially clash concerns adultery. Adultery is grounds on which one can divorce. In law, adultery is defined as a sexual relationship between a man and a woman. If one party to a marriage were to form a sexual relationship with another person of the same sex, the other party would not be able to rely on the grounds of adultery. If adultery is to survive as grounds for divorce in the future, it will either have to be redefined to be gender-neutral or will simply not be available if a spouse has engaged in a sexual relationship with persons of their