Legal Question in Family Law in California

There is no legal difference between a legal separation and a divorce except you cannot marry someone else. Legal separation is almost exclusively used for religious purposes by people whose faith prohibits divorce, and in some rare cases of mostly wealthy, mostly elderly people to protect one spouse from losses of assets due to something happening to the other spouse, such as long term or catastrophic illnesses. Buy dividing the property as in a divorce the couple severs the marital community and preserves 1/2 the assets, while remaining married. If you are going to go your separate ways, there is no point in a legal separation rather than a divorce except for religious reasons.

I agree. With a legal separation, you are still legally married and cannot marry another person without first terminating the prior marriage.