When Divorce Was Off the Table, English Couples Dissolved Marriages with Beer
atlasobscura.com
atlasobscura.com
You will see jail time. US family debtors [child support, wife support, etc] are a large portion of the US jail system. Sentences are particularly cruel since it is often not your fault: loss of employment, serious housing crises, etc. Ironically, once you enter into the jail system for non payment (non-employement) - you will probably lose any FUTURE job opportunities.
Here is a guy explaining why he can't 'work' - applied for 50 jobs - off to jail says the judge.
That's...highly variable between different jurisdictions, even within the US, since every state’s family law is different (and support formulas and practices may even vary by county within states.) AFAIK, most states adjust spousal support periodically (of allow parties to request modifications) based on circumstances of both parties except in the case of a settlement specifying permanent fixed support, and the trend is away from true permanent support (even at variable levels) except where the supported spouse genuinely cannot become employable.
Permanent alimony is only awarded in 7 US states, and I know that at least in one of those, NJ, it's certainly not guaranteed and can be negotiated around. In the state I'm getting a divorce in and the state I'm currently living in the cap is 1/2 the term of the marriage.
Additionally divorce is a complex process that is largely about handling the cases where the two parties cannot agree. If both parties agree a divorce can be finished in an afternoon and the outcome can be whatever both parties agree to pay. But even in a highly contested divorce there is still a lot of room for negotiation. Even in states that allow permanent alimony this can be negotiated. It's pretty rare that your divorce won't settle before the final court date.
Furthermore, even if your ex-spouse is awarded permanent alimony, you can always go back to court if your earnings is severely limited. No court in the world is going to make you pay alimony based on a $100k income if you end up being forced to make $40k.
Also in the highly contested divorces I've seen up close, no one actually 'wins'
That's nontrivial. Court takes a lot of time.
My point is that it is a modern perspective to paint the "house wife" / "home maker" (mostly the wife due to tradition) as someone who just does menial chores and as an "unproductive" member of society - just because she doesn't earn capital. Where as if you see it from the perspectibe of a family member, she / he as a home maker has different but equally important responsibilities too and plays a vital role in a family unit / society.
My grandparents fom my father's side were rural farmers however, and yes, like you rightly pointed, these women really had more responsibilities. I recall that my grandmother, at one point had to manage a household of around 40 people (including the labourers who worked in their farm)!
It is seriously possible that a couple could be married 2-3 years, have it break down because of unreasonable causes e.g one person shows their true self, and then the other person must pay alimony the rest of their lives? If this is the case, then sure I'm in agreement with that being absolutely stupid.
When it’s part of the deal, it is supposed to be temporary while the children grow up, not a permanent right of the wife to cease supporting her lifestyle.
It was supposed to help the children. Marriage was for the children initially.
Otherwise, it seems possible we could end up with a situation where 20% of men get 80% of women like many other species and the males have to keep fighting each other to determine who gets them.
If only the Alpha males get to reproduce then you only select for Alpha male type characteristics. You don't select for the gene sets that will produce new inventions, good craftspeople, or people who can work at administration of larger groups.
https://www.businessinsider.com/no-such-thing-alpha-male-201...
Is it ethical to require half of the species to be dependent just for societal stability?
Divorce is the end of an arrangement. If one party is risking losing half of what they built with their spouse plus support in perpetuity then what does the other party risk?
I will, however, add that not everywhere does any sort of alimony - not every state in the US does it, even, and I can only imagine the difference between countries. I originally from Indiana, which only allows such thing in a limited number of cases. There aren't laws that provide for it. If your spouse leaves, you are just out of luck - though you might be entitled to some retirement benefits.
I’m surprised that so many people assume men have much choice. They’re often put in that position de facto, and they do checkout of marriage because the rules are unbalanced worldwide.
Between 42% and 75% people in Japan, depending on how you ask the question, plan not to marry or not to even seek love. In USA, MGTOWs get a lot of hate because they checkout of the idea of a romantic relationship. They are explicitly forbidden in the ToS of Vimeo. Today it is forbidden to talk to men about the risks and the number of females who adopt toxic behavior in marriage, and the sole accepted answer is usually: « That’s why it’s important to discuss with your wife ».
When people say « Well, men have accepted the contract of marriage, they should suffer the consequences », first I hear no such obligation about women, but men do massively fight the unbalanced rules of the contract, and are humiliated by society when they do it.
Look at it this way: “I think society should put less expectation on men to be the primary provider while women care for children and the home, and both should be expected to take equal roles in both”, would be a perfectly reasonable approach to solving the problem of childbirth affecting women’s careers (the problem that alimony is currently meant to solve) that everybody could agree with... and in fact feminists have been arguing for a very long time. MGTOW don’t argue that because they don’t actually want that - they often seem to actually want those traditional roles, but don’t want to make things right if a relationship fails.
If you discovered a minefield in your backyard, would you merely avoid it or would you also tell others to avoid the minefield and naturally get angry at whoever set up the minefield?
>“I think society should put less expectation on men to be the primary provider while women care for children and the home, and both should be expected to take equal roles in both”
It is far, far easier to protect yourself from society than to change society.
Unfortunately most divorces are initiated by women. Should the man still be required to pay alimony in such cases? What if the man initiates it due to cheating? Women tend to receive alimony in all cases which is pretty disgusting.
Effective way to avoid this is to not arrange things this way. She won't get alimony if she kept her career.
Also, working women are more likely to ask for divorce. Being stay at home when relationship turns bad is sorta trap even with alimony.
Today it is done either as a value thing (e.g. conservative Christian who believe this is morally right) or for convenience - you actually can't work 40+ hrs plus half of nights/weekends while doing half childcare. Staying at home allows partners career to be unaffected by home.
When couple decide they want to split things that way and we're like that for long years, then it makes sense that the one whose career and salary is benefiting pay the other one who lost employemen possibilities.
I have however never claimed the above is reasonable or preferable split at all ( unless you both have 4 kids or something). I am all for moms working and for partners to share both household work and both earn.
If she initiated to break a marriage by cheating, she did out of her own volition and should have been mindful of her actions having consequences, rather than shifting the burden conveniently on husband.
In other cases where also the degree and market value of the divorcee woman is close to zero, its also the responsibility of the her to get back to college with a loan of her own. This is because the husband is already contributing equally towards the living expenses of kids+house financially and is taking care of it( its not nil) along with providing for wife for whatever the benefit I got from her. So the husband doesn't owe her anything. These are the terms by default by entering the contract.
If I was a stay at home dad, I did get covered with a roof, food and cloth. Not only that, I get enough security in such matrimonial home from any threat of life, the alternative being homelessness ceteris paribus. My contribution towards my working wife is way lesser in value compared to what she gives me even after I took care of her children who were my children as well.
So I can't ask for alimony as if I earned it in case of divorce. Alimony should at best be a loan not security. You got to list out the contributions of husband during the marriage too!
Just because my ex-wife was a stay at home mom doesn't make me a free cash supply after marriage. Her alimony is temporary to find herself a job and she is expected to stand on her own feet as soon as possible. I'd also argue that she should pay back with interest whatever it took to support her from financial destitution post marriage. The husband is not at all obligated to pay for someone's living, even if she was his wife before.
Even after correcting and compensating with current rules of alimony, if husbands are richer and wives are poorer financially after divorce, that itself is an indication of husband's cost towards such marriage and working wife's freebies of such marriage. Even then, most women are initiating the divorce because financially poorer doesn't mean being in completely destitute. Free money!
If the only thing that keeps partner with you is being destitute, then your relationships and marriage is death. You are just exchanging pretention for money, if that.
And for christ, why would you want to stay with some who despises you and is with you only because she would be destitute otherwise? Like, what is the point of that all?
Don't agree to sacrifice her earnings for marriage. Then, there is no alimony and nothing of the rest after. None of these problems - except it being easier to leave for both of you when it fails.
This is the most Orwellian term I've heard all week. I think a better word for this is "slavery".
Citation: https://www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-democrat/index.ssf/2012/...
> “The practice in England was not really a sale, but rather a sort of customary divorce plus remarriage in which a woman who had committed adultery was divorced by her husband and given to her partner in adultery,” says Matthew H. Sommer, a Department of History Chair at Stanford University and author of Polyandry and Wife-Selling in Qing Dynasty China.
He stopped coming or answering his phone as soon as we got the letters... Now plenty of things could have happened, but my theory is the garnish is high enough that he’s rather bounce around and get one ungarnished week out of as many different places as possible. Even if the math doesn’t work out, he may just be resentful enough to blow off jobs that comply w garnishing.
Can someone remind me of any good reason to marry a woman nowadays?
Or even in expected in another country, e.g. I almost married my Turkish girlfriend a few years ago. (The relationship ended before that happened, very long story) I'm in Australia, but that really felt like we were in Turkey. Couldn't walk down the street holding hands, because Turkish people would see and the family would find out. It seemed having a boyfriend is a kind of shameful, bad thing for a woman, but suddenly if you get married, it's all wonderful, you're no longer fair game for harrassment etc. I've never wanted to get married in the least (it never came up with any girlfriend I'd had before that), and don't know how anyone can promise to love another forever - but to make my partner and her daughter's lives better, in many ways, so easily, seemed a very good reason.
By obeying the "boyfriend is a kind of shameful, bad thing for a woman" logic one becomes responsible of "perpetuating" this backward, hurtful culture.
lol, you've never been married have you
If you're married a lot of things are easier if one of you passes away, otherwise things have to be prearranged. Are all household bills in joint names, are all investments with named beneficiaries, are all assets defined in a will, are all credit agreements covered, are there end of life choices documented?
The lawyers benefit from it at least.
Otherwise it's a lose / lose situation for everyone.
No losing your house, no alimony... maybe they were on to something. Let wives also be able to sell their husbands and bring it back!
Not everywhere has alimony either. If the money-making wife leaves the husband who has raised kids, he's just out of luck.
I don't know how it works in the US, but here in Poland, all your assets from before marriage remain exclusively yours after you marry. They're not subject to split in the case of a divorce.
If you're worried about losing a significant sum of your assets as a result of marriage, the only solution is to not get married. Prenuptials are generally considered to be worthless and any decent lawyer will find a way to get them thrown out. According to point 5 here [1], a case could easily be made that the plaintiff wasn't prepared for having to find a house after divorce, their quality of life is significantly worse than the standard they've come to adapt to after marriage, etc.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jefflanders/2013/04/02/five-rea...
You will pay whether you’re married or not: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common-law_marriage
And that's just for folks already living in the same country. I couldn't live with my spouse before marriage because we lived in different countries. While one allowed a fiance visa, it was only good for 6 months, during which the fiance not only couldn't work, but couldn't open a local bank account.
This is especially true in countries that openly favour one of the spouses. For exaple ones where the legal framework doesn’t consider the contribution each spose had to the marriage, and one of them will invariably receive financial aid.
My first marriage ended in divorce, and we settled entirely amicably, out of court, because we both thought it would be pretty horrible to drag the other through the court system just because it turned out we wanted different things in life.
To assess integrity, it's not enough to look at how someone treats you, the person they love. It's also important to look at how they treat things they don't care about, how they treat things they hate, how they approach things they don't want to do but have to do anyway, how they treat people under their power like employees or serving staff. How they treat the promises they don't have to keep. Because if the love dies, that may be how they'll treat you.
Then life goes on and someone who they thought was decent goes through a difficult time in life and backstabs them.
Even ignoring the very simple fact that people do change, there's the undeniable fact that the circumstances around a person change and it can and does push people to do things that they typically wouldn't do.
People who've lived comfortable lives and never had money troubles think they'll always be fine, but the minute their finances take a slight dip, they panic. It's a problem they never expected and it's probable they'll make some irrational decisions. Or maybe that person you've trusted all your life found out their brother has cancer and they're desperate to do anything to pay for the bills.
Shit happens. People try to adapt to it however they can. Thinking you'll avoid problems just by judging their integrity with a firm handshake and getting to know them is setting yourself up to be screwed over by people who know how to find an easy target, if not setting yourself up to be one of those virtuous people who screws over other people because your motives are good and theirs aren't.