This article explores the narrative structure of family law where divorce is available on ground of irretrievable breakdown following separation for one year. It argues that contemporary no-fault regimes exemplify law's procedural republic, a space with its own legal, ethical and political requirements which has little if any connection to the life-worlds of the parties. Through an analysis of intractable parenting disputes it argues that the interaction of no-fault divorce, the requirement to have regard to the best interests of the child and the principle that children have a right to contact with both parents has led to the creation of particular narrative forms. These narrative forms are characterised by their absolutism and map the unresolved grievances surrounding marital breakdown onto parenting disputes where the statutory requirements map them onto particular narratives and counter-narratives. In this process, the narratives of expert witnesses play an increasingly prominent role, as do the naive narratives put forward by litigants in person. The article argues that these narratives are, in important ways, fictions and that they are compelled by the procedural requirements of no-fault divorce. It argues further that these fictions are a consequence of the empty narrative space at the heart of family law. © 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
