Do Children Need Both Parents? Some Issues of Russian Law

1. Divorce means the end of a marriage. Spouses become ex-spouses, what actually means that they become strangers towards each other. For them it means the end of the family. They divide their property, finalize their financial relations, and the sooner they do this the better they are. However this is not the case with regard to children. First, for the children their parents’ divorce does not mean the end of the family. Second, children cannot be divided. The ex-spouses continue to be the legal parents of their children at least until the children reach the age of majority. Nevertheless “division ” of children is one the most complicated and painful issue that the courts have to decide, and the “clean break ” concept is not applicable here. One of the most negative results of divorce is that the children inevitably loose contact with one of the parents; only in rare cases both parents remain completely accessible as they were in a functioning marriage. The main task of the law in this regard is to create a mechanism that would protect the right of a child to have a family, to stay in touch with both of his parents (to the extent, of course, the law may interfere and influence the parents’ behavior)