Disappearing Taboo

"You dirty lover, you dirty lover!" right-wing Republicans shouted at Nelson Rockefeller when he tried to address the 1964 G.O.P. Convention. Aside from challenging their favorite, Barry Goldwater, Rockefeller had committed the sin of divorcing his wife of 32 years and marrying another woman, also divorced.

In the twelve years since that scene, divorce has become widespread, almost common. Last year U.S. divorces exceeded 1 million for the first time. It is thus interesting, but hardly surprising, that divorce is no longer a taboo and has virtually vanished as an issue in national politics. No one could care less whether Betty Ford was divorced from her first husband before she married Jerry (nor whether the President's former rival, Ronald Reagan, got a divorce and remarried). And without more than a momentary pause, Ford and his advisers put Robert Dole on the ticket even though he was divorced in 1972.

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