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The comment by Mark Harris says it all, but not as he intended. Litigants themselves are often the cause of the kind of 'bloodshed, time and cost' of which Coleridge complains. One or both parties may approach the breakup in various ways, the worst of which will display vindictiveness, greed and dishonesty. When a spouse decides to hide his or her wealth, to attack the other physically or otherwise, to lie and cheat over money or the children, when they hang onto the other person in order to continue the battle, often through their children the law has to step in and impose a solution.

In addition (and often magnifying the unpleasantness is the law and the legal system. Where the system has failed in the past it has often been because the judges were unwilling either to hear the issues (conduct etc) or unable to decide where the truth lay. In addition we had and still have the post code lottery in financial remedy, with dramatic differences between judges in the treatment of asset division. That more than anything was always a recipe for strife. If your lawyer can't be sure that you won't get what you want, however unreasonable you may be, then why settle?

There were far fewer serious disputes about property and children in the days when the law didn't give much to wives and fathers didn't get much of a look in with their children. There was greater certainty, lawyers could better predict the result and clients were dissuaded from attempting what seemed like the impossible. But it was so often grossly unfair that the new law of 1970 was inevitable. The current system, designed as it was to be fairer in both areas is vulnerable to manipulation by the unscrupulous party and the uncertainty stemming from the sheer variety of ‘fair’ results from the judiciary. One has only to look at the total failure of judicial leadership on the subject of pension offsetting to recognise that lawyers often can’t give their clients the lead they need.

In any event, we shall soon have the data to know if it was lawyers who caused the problems. With many more litigants in person much of the unpleasantness should disappear, shouldn't it?

I wouldn't advise anyone to hold their breath!