Gov. Terry Branstad said Saturday he is considering asking the Iowa Legislature to make it more difficult for Iowans to get a divorce.

Branstad’s reasoning behind his tougher divorce law stance is that Iowa’s current “no-fault” law makes it too easy for couples to get a divorce. Branstad believes this law provides too easy an avenue for couples to split and break up families.

“We’re looking at things we can do to support the family, including some changes in the divorce laws and some things that can reinforce the idea of having a two-parent family,” Branstad said.

Perhaps the Governor and the Legislature should look at ways to support under-privileged families, provide better educational services for children, and causes for people to get divorced in the first place, rather than trapping people in unhappy marriages which probably causes more harm than a loving single-parent family could.

Branstad seems to be approaching this problem from the wrong end. While it is readily apparent that people are getting divorced more frequently than in the past, it would be more beneficial to examine the reasons why people are getting divorced rather than attempting to force people to “make it work” or do it “for the kids’ sakes” when there may be no actual possibility of happy co-existence for a couple.

If this law is intended to make people carefully examine what a divorce will mean for their lifestyle and their families, that is an admirable goal. But Branstad doesn’t seem to be seeing the whole picture.