The Durability of Marriage in Poland in the Years 1945–1950 in the Light of the Practice of the District Court in Kraków and in Słupsk

The new law on marriage (and civil status records) introduced in post-war Poland on 1 January 1946 created a new legal status for many planning to enter into marriage and those who wanted to divorce. The law unified on a national scale, treated marriage as a secular institution, and concluded before a state civil registrar. The spouses could enter only a subsequent religious marriage according to their confession. Five outdated marriage codifications, dating back to partition times, were eliminated from legal circulation. A new secular divorce law was introduced, which was separated from the religious norms of spouses, and thus Catholics were allowed to divorce. The socialist state limited the freedom to divorce by introducing a broad catalog of positive grounds for divorce. The possibility of divorce upon the spouses’ unanimous request was introduced for a period of 3 years (1946–1948). This was a chance for spouses who had not had children and had not lived together for many years to apply for divorce. The practical effect of introducing the new divorce law after 1946 was that the District Courts in Kraków and Słupsk saw a sharp increase in divorce cases, and the parties initiating divorce were increasingly women (wives).