I just read a piece out of the Law Society Gazette about Kentucky changing its child custody default to 50-50 shared parenting, and then watching divorce drop.<\/p>\n
If you want a clean lesson in how society works, there it is.<\/p>\n
Back in 2018, Kentucky passed a reform that starts custody cases with the assumption that both parents should have equal rights and equal parenting time, unless there\u2019s evidence that would put the kid at risk. It replaced the long-standing presumption in a lot of places where \u201cprimary custody\u201d usually meant mom, and dad got turned into a weekend visitor.<\/p>\n
And after that?<\/p>\n
According to reporting cited in the Gazette (and attributed to the Wall Street Journal), divorce filings in Kentucky dropped by roughly 25 percent in the years after the law took effect.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not a tiny wiggle in the data. That\u2019s a cultural shift you can see in a chart.<\/p>\n
Am I saying one law \u201cfixed\u201d marriage? No. People are complicated. Economics are complicated. Culture matters.<\/p>\n
But incentives are real. And family court incentives have been rotten for a long time.<\/p>\n
For decades, a lot of states ran on an unspoken rule: mom is the default \u201creal parent,\u201d dad is a \u201chelper\u201d who needs permission.<\/p>\n
Now, some families choose that setup, and that\u2019s their business. Voluntary agreement is fine. The problem is when the state rigs the starting line, then acts surprised when people strategize around it.<\/p>\n
Because when the state hands out a default winner in divorce, you create a prize fight.<\/p>\n
If one parent believes divorce means they \u201cwin\u201d the kids, win the home base, win the support structure, and reduce the other parent to a visitor who pays for the privilege, you\u2019ve basically turned a family breakup into a legal jackpot. It\u2019s like putting a slot machine in the kitchen and acting shocked when somebody pulls the lever.<\/p>\n
And the divorce industry knows this. The lawyers know this. The system runs on conflict.<\/p>\n
So when Kentucky changed the default, they changed the payout.<\/p>\n
The Gazette\u2019s summary gets to the point: clearer expectations around custody outcomes can reduce incentives for prolonged legal disputes, and reduce the perceived \u201creward\u201d of divorce when kids are involved.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not romance, but it is reality.<\/p>\n
Libertarians say it all the time, and we keep getting proved right: people respond to incentives.<\/p>\n
The Fed \u201cstimulates\u201d with cheap money, and surprise, you get asset bubbles and malinvestment. Welfare programs penalize marriage, and surprise, you get fewer intact families. Family court rewards custody warfare, and surprise, you get more warfare.<\/p>\n
So Kentucky removes a big part of the custody advantage game, and divorce filings drop.<\/p>\n
Tell me that doesn\u2019t make you wonder how many divorces weren\u2019t really about \u201cwe grew apart,\u201d and were more like, \u201cI can do better in court.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not here to shame everybody who got divorced. Some situations are unsafe. Some relationships are genuinely broken. Life happens.<\/p>\n
But as a society, we\u2019ve spent decades pretending divorce is always \u201cjust a new chapter,\u201d like it\u2019s switching gyms or changing phones. That\u2019s insane. Kids aren\u2019t furniture you split down the middle. A family isn\u2019t an app you delete when it gets annoying.<\/p>\n
And here\u2019s the bigger point nobody wants to say out loud.<\/p>\n
When families fall apart, the state moves in.<\/p>\n
Not because the state is loving. Because the state is hungry.<\/p>\n
More fractured households means more dependency, more bureaucracy, more caseworkers, more court dates, more \u201cprograms,\u201d and more taxes. It\u2019s like hiring the fire department to mow your lawn: expensive, slow, and you\u2019ll probably lose your house in the process.<\/p>\n
Keeping families together isn\u2019t just a moral point. It\u2019s a freedom point.<\/p>\n
Strong families are a shield against the state.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t like the government being in the family business at all. I\u2019d rather adults handle adult problems, voluntarily, with community and faith and friends, not court orders and threats.<\/p>\n
But if we\u2019re going to have family courts, the default should not be \u201cpick a winner and sell the loser a visitation schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kentucky\u2019s law built a rebuttable presumption: joint custody and equally shared parenting time is treated as the starting point. If that presumption shouldn\u2019t apply in a given case, the court can rebut it with evidence. That matters, because it shifts the system from \u201cfight for the prize\u201d to \u201cshow why this case is different.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a healthier baseline than a setup that silently assumes one parent is more important just because of gender, tradition, or vibes.<\/p>\n
And it sends a signal to married couples too: if you split, you\u2019re not going to \u201cwin\u201d the children. You\u2019re going to share them. Like you should have been doing all along.<\/p>\n
This is where the conversation has to be honest.<\/p>\n
A shared parenting default raises a serious concern: what if a parent is violent or controlling? What if the other parent fears leaving because they think the court will still force a split custody arrangement? That\u2019s not a hypothetical. Domestic violence is real, and the state has a long history of failing to protect the vulnerable while pretending it\u2019s doing exactly that.<\/p>\n
The reporting referenced by the Gazette includes criticism from domestic violence advocates and social workers who worry about a one-size-fits-all presumption.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re not crazy to worry.<\/p>\n
But here\u2019s the thing. The solution is not to keep a biased default that treats one parent like a secondary citizen. The solution is to do what courts claim they do already: evaluate facts, demand evidence, and protect kids when there\u2019s actual danger.<\/p>\n
Kentucky\u2019s framework still allows the presumption to be rebutted. The law also directs courts to consider domestic violence and child welfare factors. Safeguards on paper only matter if they work in practice, so if states adopt shared parenting, they should also tighten up enforcement against proven abuse and make sure protective orders and evidence actually get weighed.<\/p>\n
Libertarian view here is simple: due process matters, and individualized facts matter.<\/p>\n
A default of equal parenting time makes sense when both parents are fit and loving. It does not mean we play dumb about violence. It means we stop treating one sex as the automatic parent and the other as the automatic risk.<\/p>\n
The part that hit me wasn\u2019t even the policy detail. It was the outcome.<\/p>\n
A 25 percent drop should make every serious adult pause.<\/p>\n
Because it suggests something uncomfortable: a lot of couples were one custody advantage away from pulling the plug.<\/p>\n
And that means we\u2019ve trained people to think marriage is a vibe, not a vow.<\/p>\n
Shared parenting laws might reduce the weaponization of divorce. They might cut down the legal blood sport. They might lower the temperature.<\/p>\n
But they can\u2019t rebuild the habits that keep a marriage alive. A statute can\u2019t teach forgiveness. A judge can\u2019t teach patience. A custody presumption can\u2019t teach commitment.<\/p>\n
That part is on us.<\/p>\n
If you want to keep families together, you need a few things that government cannot manufacture:<\/p>\n
And yeah, I\u2019ll say it plainly: kids need both parents, when both parents are safe and present. That shouldn\u2019t be controversial. The controversy comes from a system that profits when families turn into opposing legal teams.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not pretending Kentucky is perfect. I\u2019m not pretending every case fits a neat 50-50 split. Life is messy.<\/p>\n
But Kentucky\u2019s shift is a reminder that policy incentives shape behavior, even behavior as personal as whether people stay married. If you reward conflict, you get conflict. If you remove the jackpot, fewer people pull the lever.<\/p>\n
If that nudges even a slice of couples to pause, get help, and stay together for their kids, then yeah, that\u2019s a lesson worth learning.<\/p>\n
Because keeping families together is not just sentimental. It\u2019s social stability. It\u2019s mental health. It\u2019s the difference between raising confident kids and raising kids who feel like they got traded in a legal settlement.<\/p>\n
Electing a new politician to \u201cfix the family\u201d is like swapping deck chairs on the Titanic and calling it a rescue mission.<\/p>\n
But changing the incentives that turn divorce into a prize fight?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s at least a move in the right direction.<\/p>\n