  The separation of the charge- and spin ordering temperatures of the stripe
phase in cuprate superconductors has been used to argue that the striped phase
is charge driven. Scaling analysis of a non-linear sigma model shows that the
effect of spatial anisotropy on the transversal spin fluctuations is much more
drastic at finite temperatures than at zero temperature. These results suggest
that the spin fluctuations prohibit the spin system to condense at the charge
ordering temperature, despite a possible dominance of charge-spin coupling in
the longitudinal channel.
