The earliest known divorce laws were written on clay tablets in ancient Mesopotamia around 2000 BCE.
早在约公元前2000年，最早的离婚法律就刻在了古代美索不达米亚的泥板上。
Formally or informally, human societies across place and time have made rules to bind and dissolve couples.
无论是正式的还是非正式的，不同时期、不同地方的人类社会都制定了约束和解除夫妻关系的规则。
Inca couples, for example, started with a trial partnership, during which a man could send his partner home.
比如，印加族的情侣们实行试验性伴侣关系，试验期间，男性可以让他的伴侣回家。
But once a marriage was formalized, there was no getting out of it.
但双方一旦成为了法定夫妻，便不可分开了。
Among the Inuit peoples, divorce was discouraged, but either spouse could demand one.
因纽特人则不鼓励离婚，但是夫妻任何一方都可以要求离婚。
Or they could exchange partners with a different couple -- as long as all four people agreed.
或者他们可以与其他夫妻互换伴侣--只要四个人都同意。
The stakes of who can obtain a divorce, and why, have always been high.
谁能离婚以及为何离婚所投入的赌注一向很高。
Divorce is a battlefield for some of society's most urgent issues, including the roles of church and state, individual rights, and women's rights.
离婚是当今社会上最棘手的问题们的战场，其中包括教堂和国家的作用，个人权利和女性权利。
Religious authorities have often regulated marriage and divorce.
宗教权威通常会去制约结婚与离婚。
Muslims in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia began using the Quran's rules in the 7th century AD
公元7世纪，居住在非洲、中东和亚洲的穆斯林们开始参照《古兰经》中的规矩，
generally, a husband can divorce his wife without cause or agreement, while a wife must secure her husband's agreement to divorce him.
丈夫往往可以在无理由或无协议的情况下与妻子离婚，但是妻子却需要得到丈夫的许可才可以离婚。
In Europe, Christian churches controlled divorce from the 11th century on,
从11世纪开始，欧洲的天主教开始干涉离婚，
with the Catholic Church banning it entirely and Protestant churches allowing it in restricted circumstances, particularly adultery.
天主教当时不允许离婚，而新教教会则在少数情况下允许离婚，例如通奸行为。
In the late 18th century, a series of changes took place that would eventually shape divorce laws around the world.
18世纪末，世界各地的离婚法律在一系列改变的推动下最终成型。
Following centuries of religious conflict, Europeans pushed for state governance separate from religious control.
经历了几个世纪的宗教斗争，欧洲人奋力争取了一个与宗教分离的政治体系。
Secular courts gradually took over education, welfare, health, marriage -- and divorce.
法院掌管了教育、社会福利、健康、婚姻--与离婚。

The French Revolution ushered in the first of the new divorce laws,
法国大革命引领了第一批新离婚法，
allowing men and women to divorce for a number of grounds, including adultery, violence, and desertion, or simply mutual consent.
允许男性和女性在不同情况下离婚，例如通奸、暴力、遗弃家庭，或者单纯双方同意。
Though progress was uneven, overall this sort of legislation spread in Europe, North America and some European colonies in the 19th century.
虽然进展并不平衡，这种立法很大程度上在19世纪的欧洲、北美，以及一些欧洲的殖民地中传播。
Still, women's access to divorce often remained restricted compared to men.
即便如此，女性的离婚权利相比男性还是受到了限制。
Adultery was considered more serious for women -- a man could divorce his wife for adultery alone,
通奸对于女性来说更加的严重--男性可以单单因通奸与妻子离婚，
while a woman would need evidence of adultery, plus an additional offense to divorce her husband.
但是女性却需要通奸的证据，加上辩护才可以与丈夫离婚。
Sometimes this double standard was written into law; other times, the courts enforced the laws unequally.
有时这个双重标准会被写进法律；而其他时候，法庭会不公平地进行判决。
Domestic violence by a man against his wife was not widely considered grounds for divorce until the 20th century.
直到20世纪，丈夫对妻子实施的家庭暴力通常不被认为是一个决定离婚的因素。
And though new laws expanded the reasons a couple could divorce, they also retained the fundamental ideology of their religious predecessors:
虽然新的法律扩充了夫妻可以离婚的理由，它们还是保留了宗教前辈留下来的核心观念，
that a couple could only split if one person wronged the other in specific ways.
夫妻只可以在另一方有明确过错时离婚。
This state of affairs really overstayed its welcome.
这种状态存在过久而使人生厌。
Well into the 20th century, couples in the U.S. resorted to hiring actors to jump into bed with one spouse, fully clothed, and take photos as evidence of cheating.
进入20世纪，美国的夫妻甚至通过雇佣演员表演，并拍照取证，去制造另一方出轨的证据。
Finally, in the 1960s and 70s, many countries and states adopted no-fault divorce laws,
最后，在20世纪60和70年代，很多国家实行了无过错离婚法律，
where someone could divorce their spouse without proving harm, and importantly, without the other's consent.
配偶不需要证明另一方有过错便可以离婚，最重要的是，不需要得到另一方的同意。
The transition from cultural and religious rules to state sanctioned ones has always been messy and incomplete
从文化和宗教条例到国家准许的转变，一直是棘手和残缺的，
people have often ignored their governments' laws in favor of other conventions.
人们经常因更倾向其他惯例，而忽略政府的法律。
Even today, the Catholic Church doesn't recognize divorces granted by law.
直到今天，天主教仍旧不认可法律批准的离婚。
In some places, like parts of India, Western-style divorce laws have been seen as a colonial influence and communities practice divorce according to other religious rules.
在有些地方，例如印度的部分地区，西式的离婚法律被当作殖民的影响，社会里的人们按照其他宗教的规定实行离婚。
In others, though the law may allow for equal access to divorce, bias in the legal system, cultural stigma,
在其他地区，即便法律给予夫妻双方离婚的资格，法律体系的偏见、文化歧视，
or community pressures can make it far more difficult for certain people, almost always women.
或者社会施加的压力，都会让某些人群更难离婚，尤其是女性。
And even in the places where women aren't disadvantaged by law or otherwise, social and economic conditions often make divorce more difficult for women.
即便在那些女性在法律上不处于劣势的地方，社会与经济性因素通常使女性更难离婚。
In the United States, for example, women experience economic loss far more than men after divorce.
比如，离婚后的美国女性相比男性承受了更大的经济损失。
At its best, modern no-fault divorce allows people to leave marriages that make them unhappy.
幸运的是，现代的无过错离婚让人们远离不快乐的婚姻。
But dissolving a marriage is almost never as simple as sending two people their separate ways.
但是，解除婚姻并不是让双方分道扬镳这么简单。
What divorcing partners owe each other, and how they manage aspects of a once shared life remain emotionally and philosophically complex issues.
离婚的双方对彼此有哪些亏欠，他们如何管理一个曾经与他人一起度过的人生，仍旧是情感与哲学上复杂难解的问题。