Today's instant divorce is more likely to happen online than anywhere near Reno, then the "Divorce Capital of the World." In 1939, "divorce ranch" was a familiar idea, immortalized in a famous film of that yea, "The Women."
In my novel, Unbridled: A Tale of a Divorce Ranch, readers can follow Lara Treadwell, a young woman
reluctant to end her marriage, who goes to such a ranch in 1951. There she finds the camaraderie of other women inspiring and, through the love of a handsome wrangler, begins to know what she needs and wants from life. Unbridled: A Tale of a Divorce Ranch brings to life a slice of history that this writer feels privileged to have experienced. Treadwell’s tale is a fictionalized version of my own personal growth while getting a “quickie divorce” at one of Reno’s divorce ranches. Because divorce in most states from the mid-1930s up through the 1960s meant a wait of over a year, a preponderance of women—and some men—raced to the “Divorce Capital Of The World” to “take the six-week cure” or get “Reno-vated”—a term coined by Walter Winchell in the Clare Booth Luce movie.
With no-fault divorce now common in most states, divorce ranches are a thing of the past, but it’s important to realize how difficult it was to get a divorce in the 1950s in most states in this country and how a lot of young married women were not as knowledgeable about their rights as they are today, nor as free to exercise them. Today, divorces are easier to get, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. The U S. Census Bureau reports that 50 per cent of all marriages entered into today will end in divorce. It is even possible now to divorce online!
To read more, go to www.MariluNorden.com where you can order Unbridled: A Tale of a Divorce Ranch from a link to Amazon.com.