While divorce among the elderly is uncommon and relatively few have ever experienced a divorce, the proportion who will have been divorced before reaching old age will increase rapidly in the future. Reasons for expecting an increase in the divorce rate for the population over age 65 are suggested. Knowledge about the effects of marital status upon well-being suggests that being divorced or separated is detrimental to one's social and economic welfare in old age. A futurist set of speculations about impact of the phenomenon is offered.