My friend Jamie got married young to a man she’d only known for six months. They were both 21 and drunk on love. I was concerned as they’d already had issues prior to this, with lots of aggressive fighting and alcohol consumption on his part.

Three years and two children later, she realized she needed to get out of the marriage but felt profoundly stuck. She was poor and had little money to afford an attorney. Her husband was misrepresenting his income to avoid child support payments. He was also fighting tooth-and-nail to get custody of the kids, despite contributing so little to parenting when he had the chance to.

Sadly, she still remains legally married to this day, though still separated for many years. It has had major consequences for her life, and does for many of her socioeconomic background.

The origins of the problem

In addition to the right to have a public trial, the 6th amendment guarantees us the right to a lawyer — but this only applies to criminal trials (because the amendment only applies to prosecution by the US government against you).

Civil trials include evictions, child-custody disputes, and divorce. These can be drawn out and complicated proceedings that drain enormous time and resources.

And as a matter of pecking order, divorces are among the last to get volunteer attention from lawyers. More urgent matters, such as people losing their houses, ranks higher on this list.

Poorer individuals are prone to incur greater losses and disadvantage over time due to unresolved divorces. This furthers their divergence in quality of life from higher income individuals, who tend to marry later and divorce less. Children, shared money, assets, and property, make a contested divorce enormously messy and often leave fights in a stasis that hurts all involved.

And if only one person can afford an attorney, the other is in an unfair predicament, as that opposing attorney can arrive with piles of evidence and make an innocent party out to be a devil, and lead to a lopsided judgement that’s hard to undo.

Society puts much effort into avoiding divorce, as it is ultimately not a good thing by some measures. It can lead to estrangement from children and poor mental health outcomes for them, regardless of whether the parents separate or fully divorce.

However, studies have delineated the notion of “good divorces”, where we define positive outcomes for both parties, and especially for kids — which happens when a high conflict household results in a divorce, and there is a healthy arrangement in shared custody and financial costs. But these divorces are much more likely to be achieved my middle class and higher earning families, who can afford childcare, legal representation, and counseling to cooperate on these means.

Divorce itself can be cheap, but not when lawyers get involved. Their fees average between $11,000 and $14,000 nationwide for a divorce, though they can go much higher.

And if you make minimum wage or close to it, or are on government assistance, this is a crippling burden to carry.

In other cases, one person can’t afford to move out, so they get stuck living with someone — and sadly, this often becomes a highly combustible situation when they start dating.

The unfortunate statistics

Many low-income marriages continue indefinitely in the books. It is unfortunate because, as divorce has been more readily accepted, the rates of domestic violence and suicide have fallen as happiness have risen for women. The cycle of feeling “trapped” is repeating itself and many don’t recognize it.

Professor of Law at Harvard, Dr. James Greiner, ran a study on low income people’s attempts to get a simplified divorce in Philadelphia across five years. On paper, this should be an easy task, as the divorce isn’t contested, and shouldn’t necessitate lawyers. Even further, it’s constitutionally mandated that we should be able to get a divorce even if we can’t afford to pay.

Dr. Greiner’s study found that many low-income individuals still struggled to navigate this system. Finding the correct paper work to fill out, knowing where to go, having access to photocopiers and typewriters, and the limited hours at facilities, compounded to make divorce harder and less common.

It was even worse with contested divorces. If you represented yourself in court, there was a minimum $300 fee that couldn’t be paid via check (which seems to fly in the face of the aforementioned constitutional amendment) and a form that couldn’t be handwritten There are all types of rules and submission windows you have to go by, and if you fill out even one form slightly wrong, you can be forced to start all over again.

Divorce procedures vary state by state, but in many — they can be incredibly cumbersome and difficult. This is because the system was designed by lawyers, for lawyers, and is described by researchers as a “state-enforced, cartel-like” system that is self-reinforced by change-averse legislatures.

And yet — it’s incredibly easy to get married. You can show up at the courthouse, fill out a few forms and walk out with a permit in short order in many states.

Why do they make it so painfully difficult to leave?

Per Laurie Kohn, professor of law at George Washington University, “It’s the deep-seated state commitment to keeping people married.” She added that many of her clients are people who were married-but-separated for 20 years, but are finally getting remarried, but first need to undo their original marriage.

Some lawyers will voluntarily consult with people who need representation, but can’t afford it, and instead offer them guidance on how to represent themselves in court. This is especially true when they learn of cases of abuse. But, understandably, there are only so many free hours to go around, and many people face the reality that they need to go it alone, and eventually throw their hands up and call it quits.

We should rethink how we on and offroad people with marriages, and if putting artificial barriers and paperwork is really benefitting anyone at all. As a divorced man, it never felt like a rushed decision to get divorced. It takes a great deal of pain and heartbreak to finally go through with such a decision. Adding rules, fees, and paperwork to this process does nobody any favors.

If anything, it exacerbates the strain that low-income families already face, and in many unfortunate cases, traps women and children in an abusive dynamic that isn’t easy to undo.

The legal system in and of itself is intimidating if you haven’t dealt with it. If we aren’t going to make it easier to divorce, we should establish better and more readily available resources to help underserved communities, so that we can undo destructive family cycles that the system is perpetuating.

I would advise you to attempt to work it out with your partner before attempting the divorce and getting lawyers involved, as it can be an adversarial and expensive system. Mine was a simplified dissolution of marriage which was cheap, and easy to do because we both agreed on how to split.

And before digging in your heels in a disagreement, ask yourself if its worth the cost of a lawyer to fight over these assets.

Lastly, I’d caution the obvious here — that few things are more consequential in your life than your choice of spouse. Few things impact your finances, health, happiness, and even longevity more than this decision. Choose wisely.