Science / Medicine : Wives Take Lead on Divorce

When American marriages end in divorce, the wife is nearly twice as likely as the husband to initiate the process, the National Center for Health Statistics said last week.

It said wives filed 61.5% of the divorce petitions acted on in 1986, compared with 32.6% filed by husbands. The remaining petitions were filed jointly.

The presence of children apparently did not encourage wives to remain in unhappy marriages. In the breakup of marriages where children were present, wives filed 65.7% of the divorce petitions, while women initiated 56.9% of the divorces of childless couples.

The report did not include an explanation for the disparity between the sexes.

Statistician Barbara Foley Wilson of the center said that traditionally women have predominated in filing divorce petitions. In past years, it was often considered gentlemanly for the husband to allow the wife to file the papers, she said.

What is surprising in this era of no-fault divorce is that the joint petitions have not become more common, she added. Joint petitions made up only about 6% of divorce cases, the report said.