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Comment by neya | Hacker News Reader

A good start would be enforcing truly gender neutral laws by governments all over the world. I personally know at least a dozen men who have been harassed by biased laws and judges when it comes to divorce. These are good men, who worked really hard and took care of their wives very well, only to get either cheated on or scammed for money and lost everything. 2 of them are even almost homeless now. Most of them have aged so poorly after just 2 years into the divorce. Their wives aren't even homemakers who sacrificed anything who are getting paid, mostly working women who have good lawyers who just abuse the laws to steal wealth. Until this system is fixed, men's mental health will always be down the toilet.

What I really learned from these men is never sign a contract where the other party is incentivized to break it.

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Brazilian law is far superior to US laws on this matter.

You only get to choose either:

* Partial Community of Property - the default: applies only to property acquired after the marriage; in case of divorce only that property is split 50/50

* Universal Community of Property - applies to all property before and after the marriage; in case of divorce all property is split 50/50

* Separation of Property - no property is shared at all; in case of divorce nothing at all is split. If you want buy and share property you have to do it explicitly. This is also mandatory in cases where one of the spouses is 70+ years old

Divorce is much less litigious here. It's basically impossible to lose all of your assets. It works the same for men or women.

There are some of the same issues in custody law as in North America but from what I read it still seems way better than in the US.

Having these options is common in other countries too afaict (with some minor differences)

I would be really surprised if the US didnt have these options too…

It's more that these are the only options. No other laws govern marriages. I'm sure other countries have sensible ones too. In the US they have all matter of legal dispute because it's too wide open.

Of course. After divorce, men do better financially. Women are happier. Men dont loose everything in divorce.

Absolute nonsense.

Just living together, informally, is already enough for the woman to take half your assets as it's already considered `Partial Community of Property`.

I can't think of anything where Brazil is generally superior to the US in terms of law.

Not true in the case of states without common law marriage.

In Islam, we have it much simpler. There's a dowry paid to the woman that becomes her property. Other than that, each person leaves with their own assets they came in with. If, during marriage, they acquired assets they decided to split half way (or any other percentage), that split holds post divorce.

> Universal Community of Property - applies to all property before and after the marriage; in case of divorce all property is split 50/50

This should not even be an option. If you worked your ass off to acquire wealth before marriage, someone new into your life should not be entitled to that.

You can definitely make a fair argument for wealth built together as partners. That is really fair. They can even have 100% of that. But wealth accumulated before that should not even be up for discussion as there was 0 contribution from the other partner.

Some people want that. It also has religious implications, some people believe the Bible says that's how marriage should be.

But you have to go out of your way to choose it.

Some people want to share everything they have. The idea that there shouldn’t be an optional legal mechanism that enshrines that in marriage is ludicrous.

Totally agree with this take.

Unfortunately, losing decades of your hard work for a less than a three year marriage makes for unbearable suffering and loss of any hope. The person losing that realizes they no longer matter.

One decision can ruin your life very quickly.

There is no confusion as to why suicide feels like the only option to so many.

It's basically impossible to lose all of your assets. It works the same for men or women.

The issue isn't assets, it's alimony. Brazil has the same issues with alimony as the U.S. does. Most modern countries do. (Asset splits are generally governed by statute and case law. Asset-related conflicts are about whether prenups are valid, or whether an asset is community/marital property subject to split. These same issues arise in Brazilian divorces.)

Also...Britney Spears and most other famous women with unfamous (or less succesful) husbands would like to weigh in on this conversation. It's not that men always get "screwed." It's simply that the more successful partner always ends up paying the other partner.

> Brazil has the same issues with alimony as the U.S. does.

No, it doesn't. Alimony for former partners is very rare in Brazil. If it happens it has a fixed period: a former partner will only pay alimony for 1 or 2 years, if any. Only in some very exceptional cases it exceeds that.

Maybe you're confusing it with child support, which is different.

And bear in mind I'm not red-pilling things here (don't associate me with those nutjobs please). In fact women still get the short end of the stick in Brazil when it comes to these things, it's much harder for them to start over after divorce. I'm just stating how much more logical it is when you have fixed and sane rules.

You don't even have to sign a contract to end up in this situation. In California at least, just habituating with someone for 10 years is enough for the courts to consider you effectively married. That needs to be fixed. Marriage should absolutely be a contractual agreement where one party is fully aware what they're giving up, signing over, or potentially losing, not something you end up in through no fault of your own.

EDIT: Turns out this is NOT true, or at least, nothing I can find seems to point to it being true. Just habituating with someone for a long time is not enough.

In BC it's 6 months.

Really? Looks like two years from their site.

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/life-events/divorce/famil...

it's 6 months to be common law in terms of employer benefits.

Unless something has changed recently, I’m fairly certain California doesn’t recognize common-law marriages.

this "just habituating with someone for 10 years is enough for the courts to consider you effectively married" is completely false and a myth. Especially in California.

Only a few states have something like the common-law 'marriage' you picture - but it's a really high bar.

There needs to consideration AND usually clear intent to marry (w/ nuance of course);

You can't simply fall into this by happenstance because you cohabitate for {n} amount of years.

California does have a (ever barrowing) Marvin Action.

But it's an incredibly high bar and not family court

You need to prove that essentially a contract exists between the parties; * e.g. consideration *

https://www.wgslawfirm.com/family-law/divorce-mediation/2025...

You need to really fuck up to end up common-law married. You are simply wrong about California (we don't do common law marriage at all), and in all jurisdictions I'm aware of that do have common law marriages, you need to present yourself as married in order for there to be any claim.

That's not some "oh, we live together, and under old-timey understandings that means we're married" requirement. That's publicly making a pattern of referring to each other as your spouses, often including at least some public documentation. Common law marriage is much more about protecting people who failed to dot their 'i's and cross their 't's when registering their marriage than it is about surprising a breakup partner with divorce precedings.

Hm, this flies in stark contrast to what I've been told and what I believed, but you're right as far as I can tell, common law marriage does not apply if you simply live with someone for a long time.

For the record I had heard this from a lawyer, not some random person.

Depending on the state, you don't need to refer to each other as a spouse, just that people get (or could get) the impression you're spouses.

My father's last "marriage" was like this. After several divorces he was dead set on never getting married again, made sure only his (or her) name was on any purchases, and made sure his friends knew the situation. After a messy breakup where he discovered she had been diverting money for drugs and hiding bills, her lawyer managed to convince an Alabama court to find a common law marriage. Not long afterward she ended going to prison for arson after setting aflame some of my father's personal and real property, and his dog[1], in piques of spite. I think those felony convictions happened prior to or at least concurrent with the common law marriage proceedings.

Of course, his real mistakes occurred before he ever started cohabitating. Common law marriage rules were far down the list of wrong turns. But in any event, ironically a few years later Alabama abolished common law marriage.

[1] Dog survived after heroic efforts by, IIRC, University of Alabama, but had pretty severe scaring.

All states in the U.S. that currently recognize or formerly recognized common law marriage require the couple to present themselves as a married couple, either by using the same last name, sharing bank account, or referring to each other as husband and wife, in addition to cohabitation.

It's a factual inquiry. There's no magic thing that's sufficient or necessary, though the things you list tend to strongly favor a finding of marriage unless you can rebut them. The core elements tend to be whether there was a mutual agreement (usually implicit) to marry and whether you held yourself out that way. In a dispute both sides present their evidence and a judge decides. Of course in a dispute one side will be claiming there was no agreement. It's not contract law; the inquiry can be far less mechanical.

> EDIT: Turns out this is NOT true, or at least, nothing I can find seems to point to it being true. Just habituating with someone for a long time is not enough.

It isn't true in California, it appears. It is true in a number of other places worldwide, Australia in particular.

Even in Australia, a de facto relationship – in which partners have a right to a property settlement upon separation – requires more than mere cohabitation of sexual/romantic partners. However, in practice, relatively few long-term cohabitating partners will be found not to be in a de facto relationship.

If men and women are the same thing with slightly different parts, then gender neutral laws make sense.

If men and women have meaningful differences then it makes sense to have gendered laws.

I think pandora's box is open never to be shut again on the conversation if we're the same or different.

Gosh, this thread is so full of sweeping takes. Different or equal in what regard? Income? Violent behavior? Or culinary skills? Maybe we should not codify stereotypes into law...

The current zeitgeist is trying to say that men and women are identical besides environmental cues.

I think that's a straw man that you won't find anybody defending.

I don't think anybody in their right mind is saying that. The prevailing wisdom seems to be to acknowledge that there are differences in different bodies that often manifest one way in women and another in men¹ but also to acknowledge that it is a lot more complicated than that, including that the binary male/female divide is not always sufficient³ and that environmental factors can have as much effect as the more easily analysed biological ones.

“They claim men and women are no different apart from their environment” tends to be a claim made by those who can't cope with the singular “they” let alone anything else, who are trying to make those who disagree on such points seem ridiculous.

---------

[1] particularly in the endocrine system, though in other parts² which might also have an impact on how we react to things and our mental health more generally

[2] it isn't just emotional matters and related coping mechanisms: heart attacks often manifest differently in women, or if not that then the signs are often misdiagnosed, for instance

[3] either for talking about specific detailed differences, or for identifying people in terms of their identity & phycological makeup more generally

In 2016 it was.

of course they have more differences than that.

no controversy of this in chimps.

no magical evolutionary moment when they became the same in humans.

biologists know this. sociologists start with an unfounded null assumption.

The assumption is that biological masculinity and femininity form a spectrum based on the complex interplay of genes, environment, and time, and that, just because you know what genitals someone sports, it doesn't mean you know how their bodies and minds will respond to particular circumstances.

This cuts both ways: you will often see physically emasculated men get treated as if they're not men, to their detriment. Think of less-developed young men being cut from sports teams; they have the same in-built need for physical activity, competition, even some measure of practicing dominance, as larger boys. Deprivation leads to frustration and more.

What spectrum lies between “can become pregnant” and “can make someone pregnant” other than “cannot do either”?

You seem to be treating stereotypes as facts.

I would argue the opposite. Women are born with something that (most) Men want. That puts them at a natural advantage.

Care to elaborate? This seems like very obvious double edge sword. We as a society try to mitigate this differences.

There is an asymmetry in the amount of sexual desire between men and women.

The status quo of "sexual liberation" doesn't do much to mitigate this difference. We no longer live in a monogamous society.

Women, likewise, want men. Did you never think of that?

Have you ever spoken with a woman?

I have thought of that. Regardless, there is a pretty obvious discrepancy of supply/demand in heterosexual relationships, which only becomes more evident through my relations with women.

We're all here arguing the "hender pay gap", yet women have the single most amazing gift granted to them by the universe that men will never have. What I'd give to be the one to have given birth to my own children.

Universal human rights are inalienable.

Distinction is always going to be less effective than universally agreed declaration. We can declare: all human beings have equal rights.

Pandora's box is the universality aspect, which must be manifest by those agreeing to declare the nature of ones rights in respect to others rights, both for oneself and for others. This is the reason a distinction-based legal position is poor policy.

We cannot distinguish between a man and a woman if we are agreeing to the universality of their equal human rights.

The we part is the difficult part, apropos pandora's boxes. But ultimately, universality is very empowering to the individual.

Getting precisely 50% of the assets of a marriage that dissolves isn't a universal human right though.

Well, asset management could also be held as a responsibility of the marriage in the first place, and that can only be done by way of expressing ones rights with another, properly.

That this expression has become the root of an industry of exploitation (divorce proceedings are a big circus) is clear. Rights are not a constant. They have to be expressed.

Like in vows, maybe.

If a man and a woman are both drunk and have sex, the man is declared the rapist. (This is said as an example of where the laws, as applied, are not gender neutral)

Yeah, not all states actualize human rights, whether they are party to the declaration or not, as well as others. I don't need to focus on any particular state - I've seen many of them - and understand that there are definitely shifting loads in the worlds cultural fabric.

Does that still happen if the women penetrate the man?

If the woman regrets it? Yeah, probably.

the desired outcome seems to be that men and women are the same in situations where being a man is beneficial. In situations where being a woman is beneficial that goes away. For example 80% of healthcare workers are women, it is the biggest?(or close to) industry in the USA but I have never once seen someone pushing to correct that imbalance.

I don’t even get how I am supposed to hold my partner to the same standards I would hold a close male friend/family member. If I knew a dude who freaked out and yelled/sobbed several times a month over something inane like where to get dinner I would drop them immediately. I have found just using the old adage “happy wife happy life” is most effective, but isn’t that inherently disrespectful? Like “I can’t reason with this person but if I upset them it’s gonna go poorly for me so I better let them have their way!”. The only way my relationship survives is if I have a bit of internalized misogyny and hold her to a different standard than I do myself or another man.

is being a healthcare worker beneficial?

> have never once seen someone pushing to correct that imbalance.

Conservative men rights advocates find such proposition insulting to men. It is not a manly men job.

Men in those positions are mocked by supposedly pro-male groups

> If I knew a dude who freaked out and yelled/sobbed several times a month over something inane like where to get dinner I would drop them immediately.

Why are you dating someone like that? Genuine question. I dont know ANY woman that cries that often. Not a single one.

Maybe be wise and break up.

The Swedish government has made several studies on why gender segregated professions stay segregated, for both men and women, and their findings have been very similar for both genders. There are indeed some incidents of in-group peer pressure to gender conform. However the biggest factor for both women and men is not negative reinforcement, but rather a lack of positive reinforcement. Women who work in STEM, or men who becomes teachers, has a significant smaller support network for their chosen careers compared to the majority. This in turn provide a poor insulation against setbacks and significant increase the risk of leaving the chosen path. The leaky pipe analogy has thus less to do with people being bullied out of their chosen professions, even if that idea has latched on to the public mind.

I'm not sure if it's about same or universal, someone else already said it's about universal human rights that all humans must agree to demonstrate a practice of care with and towards each other.

Do you have any examples of laws that couldn't just be thought out better and anchor their reasoning more accurately and neutrally? Falling back to using gender often just feels like a quick hack.

Falling back to gender (or race, or whatever protected class you’d like to consider) is far less about rote equality or equity than it is about correcting earlier imbalances of power/access.

People chafe against things like DEI as arbitrary favoritism completely failing to note that yes, this policy is meant to promote equality, not to represent it. In the case of promoting female stem workers you might say it’s a policy designed to give women equal-ish access to the job market by way of giving them preferential treatment in hiring, to counteract biases of men favoring men during that process.

The ideal outcome of any policy like this is that once the systemic inequity is resolved, the policy can be retired.

Assuming all humans and populations of humans are interchangeable parts. We are not. Not so much "race" - which is a fairly idiotic concept as it's applied -- but hereditarianism is very much a real thing. IQ equates with life outcomes and is highly heritable. How people migrate (or are forced to migrate) can help you understand a population and population differences. Nigerians who immigrate to the U.S. now do far better than populations that were brought over during chattel slavery. Likely those who were captured by their neighbors and sold to European slavers had to lose battles of some variety. Selection effect. There are also documented differences between native populations in regions. Things like the harsh winter hypothesis pose that harsher environments lead to higher IQs. Otherwise, why doesn't every country look like Japan? If we don't diagnose the real problems societal interventions will fail to help anyone in a lasting/meaningful way.

The "harsh winter hypothesis" is self-evidently risible. You have to ignore huge chunks of human history, during which the hot-weather civilizations did stuff like invent algebra while the cold-weather civilizations were barely worthy of the label "civilized", in order to take it seriously.

It's really weird that it ever became a serious talking point!

to be fair to the spirit of the idea, hot weather can be just as oppressive. Maybe adversarial conditions is more the point?

That sounds good in theory, but all too often people create discriminatory practices to counteract alleged biases that don't actually exist.

For instance, empirical evidence finds that gender bias in tech hiring favors women over men [1]. So DEI ends up exacerbating the bias, not counteracting it.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25069644

This is a place where gender neutral language would benefit the outcomes. The application of preferential treatment in hiring could be done based on the imbalance between minority and majority for any profession which are not deemed gender equal. That way it would counteract biases of the majority gender, in any given industry, that is favoring their own gender during the hiring process. The systemic inequity that leads to gender segregation could then be resolved.

DEI does not need to be selective favoritism. It could just be a policy to promote equality. It also happens that the government is the employer, and customer, of professions that has the highest grade of gender inequality (for both men and women).

most DEI policy pushes for a narrative saying their work is not done until their is equal _outcomes_ not just equal opportunity. And I know that it will never end because the more freedom we give the genders the more exacerbated their expressions become (in short, and on average, men orienting to objects and women orienting towards people).

> If men and women are the same thing with slightly different parts, then gender neutral laws make sense.

> If men and women have meaningful differences then it makes sense to have gendered laws.

This framing of the issue puts the discussion down an awkward rhetorical path that is difficult to recover from.

What if it doesn't matter whether someone looks or acts different; but it matters how society treats them and the outcomes that they face.

Black chess pieces and white chess pieces are superficially, trivially distinct. Yet, the player with the white pieces wins 52% to 56% of the time.

I'm calling it out here because it's a typical technocratic bad-faith argument that I'm personally tired of hearing.

What you're revealing is an underlying difference in constitution of Lib/Cons (to apply labels a bit grossly), in that L is usually concerned with enforcing outcomes despite the values it violates and R is usually concerned with enforcing values/rulesets despite the outcomes it produces.

Is "right" defined by the nature of existence or just by the ends? Some would say an outcome of hunger is unacceptable, some would say there are plenty of "wrong" (try to not make that moral meaning) behaviors which should result in hunger. (Such as refusing to work or trade value for other people's property ie food)

Yeah, precisely. I was just linking to the Disparate Impact Wikipedia page recently as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact

You managed to be wrong about both liberals and conservatives, assuming you meant the U.S. political spectrum.

how so?

While this line of thinking seems to match, there is a direct competing theory. Both sides focus is on benefiting their voting demographics, one using arguments based on enforcing outcomes and the other values/rulesets.

For example, there was an initiative in Sweden to improve diversity in the student body by giving minority demographics free bonus points during application. For any given minority the outcome would be a small but meaningful advantage compared to the majority so that over time the balance would improve and become closer to represent society as a whole. It was a very unpopular imitative, especially by the left, and later was found to be deemed discriminative. Such initiatives are only supported and approved by the legal system if they are selective.

Men and women are different, but now women make more money than men but the laws were written when the opposite was true

Equality and justice are certainly noble goals. but they are at this point merely goals. But in parallel, we very much need better support for the men going through the challenges that may come from the lack of equality in divorce proceedings.

Last week's tragedy here, with a father throwing his two young kids off a roof before jumping himself, has caused our community to focus - at least for a while - on what was missing and what our system did wrong and what could have been sone better to prevent that from having happened.

Where did this happen? Just reading that is terrible.

A Pittsburgh suburb. Outside my wife's window. unfortunately, her blinds were closed - otherwise, she might have seen something was about to go terribly wrong and alerted the authorities.

That is horrifying to hear.

Maybe men don't have supports until it's rock bottom or too late.

At the same time I don't think there's many men who beleive think the standard of supporting women, and children, early and often, should never be reduced or changed. Maybe it could be expanded.

>A good start would be enforcing truly gender neutral laws by governments all over the world.

This, a thousand times.

And I say that as a man who has lived in multiple countries in my lifetime, raising my family, through thick and thin.

>mens mental health

I no longer see it as a man problem, its a we problem.

People, especially men, need to get way more actively political than passively political in order to solve these issues. The biased judges are often ignorant and not even thinking philosophically about right or wrong or fairness in most of these cases. Also men have a natural bias to protecting women and children, which is also taken advantage of knowingly or unknowingly by the other side. People or individuals can be unfair and inconsistent, but systems can be fair and consistent. Make systems for this. Currently we don't exactly have consistent or fair systems for this. A decently defined system for the scope of handling divorce that is fair to both man, woman and children isn't something that is hard. It may feel like the brain would hurt, if you have not been thinking much.

Make Prenups mandatory, and make sure shared parenting is the default.

Everyone has a prenuptial: the state provides a default. Either explicitly, e.g. in writing, or implicitly, e.g. via court proceedings.

Closer then, to the ratio both had while single?

The idea behind an uneven split is that, in a lot of marriages, the partners do not act fully independently of each other. In marriages where one partner stops working to have or raise kids, they do so knowing the other partner will continue to work. Splitting according to the ratio before marriage would suit this (extremely common) type of relationship very poorly, because the partner who raised a child would have an interrupted career while the other wouldn't. It would be unfair and would discourage this (normal, often desirable) type of relationship

It still doesn't seem quite fair for the partner that simply married, didn't contribute financially, and has every incentive to simply leave and take 50% of the assets with them.

Hence why I said a Prenup ratio based upon what both groups had while single makes more sense.

Ambiguous without more context. 50% of assets for the time period determined by your relevant laws.

In my part of the world, that’s 50% of community property built after the relationship is formally recognized (e.g. marriage, cohabitation, etc.). You own less individually the more time you choose to commit to the relationship. That’s an incentive for the one with more assets to leave, and for the one with less assets to stay, if you want to think about it in those terms. However, that’s not a healthy way to maintain a relationship that builds community property.

But as per the root comment, the women divorcing their husbands weren't caretakers and had their own jobs.

Didn’t the marriage laws start favoring women because patriarchy caused immense bias and harm to women over the millennia and left them persecuted and penniless?

I don't think your rhetorical question adds much to the discussion at hand if we're being honest.

So, the solution is to penalize innocent men who had nothing to do with those events, let alone that era? How is that even a logically sound stance?

True. But society has largely achieved gender equality (and by many metrics such as educational attainment and life expectancy women are seeing better outcomes than men), yet many systems still favor women under the outdated assumption male privilege.

When a couple with two working spouses and no children splits, what is the rationale behind ordering the man pay alimony to his ex-wife that outearns him?

To attack a group of people you always need a convenient revenge myth. Like the Jews oppressed our poor people over millennia and now their children's children must pay.

A teenager boy or young man, what is his share of the guilt for any past injustices? Assuming that all women alive today have a father, don't they also share half of this supposed "guilt"?

I'd like to hear the women's side of the story.

The other side of the story is already in the comments. They cheated. Convenience. Some of them even literally confessed literally that. I am curious, is it because you think women can do no wrong and can only be victims? Otherwise, why would you say that in a narrative about declining men's mental health with hard data points by a government agency?

> Otherwise, why would you say that

Because I've known a couple different dudes who have gone thru nasty divorces and have said that kind of thing, how the laws and judges are biased and the deck was stacked against men. And in both those cases I happened to know, either via a trusted third party, or their kids, or their wives, or even from things they themselves had previously told me, that there was a whole lot more to the story that they weren't saying.

It's the same kind of thing as parents complaining their grown children have gone no contact, and if you only listen to the parents you think maybe they have a point, maybe the kids are blowing things way out of proportion, and it's unfair they don't get to see their grandchildren. But then if you talk to the kids and hear their stories it's quickly crystal clear why they did what they did.

I started reading this thinking I would disagree, but you're right, in some countries (Canada for sure), there's a weird thing that some genders are more equal than others. I know this sounds bad, but I am a left-leaning feminist.

I've seen first hand where spouses of equal education and opportunity are treated as traditional values applied.

And nearly always it's the male that has to take a second job/cash in their retirement to meet societies demands.

I went through a divorce in Canada, there is a thing called "amiable divorce/separation". Where both parties negotiate a fair divorce agreement rather than the standard "Pay continued support for X months/years + lump sum".

So there is some variability, and of course in my case it was a "happy path" scenario where both me and my ex-wife mutually wanted the divorce.

But by default you have to pay spousal support regardless of how well-off your partner is. The assumption is that women will be worse off after a divorce financially. Which is really not a contemporary point of view to make as a blanket statement.

You're not wrong.

But again, it seems weird when a male has to work 2 jobs in their 50's to send large monthly payments to a female that has a larger or equivalent net worth.

And it happens routinely. Of course, there are also a lot of men out there that just want to stiff their ex. But that doesn't mean my former example isn't happening.

> The assumption is that women will be worse off after a divorce financially

And this was exactly what happened to my friends. The women who sought alimony actually earned much more. The financial burden was so tough that it turned a good hard working member of the society into almost a criminal (if you don't pay alimony, you can be even arrested for it in some countries).

Would be nice to force men to take care exactly the same about the children.

Kid takes immense toll on the body, career development and retirement savings of the woman.

Untill men could give birth to the child the truly gender neutral laws are unreachable goal.

Also men live shorter life - should their tax rate be higher?

No, we could treat people in family court equally by gender, and look to the specifics of the case to help decide on what to do.

The rest of your comment is full of non-sequiturs, and even an outright error.

> Also men live shorter life - should their tax rate be higher?

If anything it should be the opposite: men spend fewer years post-retirement and thus as less of a burden on social security and pensions.

Social contributions towards retirement should be lower, but taxes should be higher so the government can get the same money from man they've raised as from woman.

But men on average spend more years working than women. Women's life expectancies are longer, but they retire earlier, by about 2 years: https://www.fairstone.ca/en/learn/budgeting-and-saving/whats...

Cool. You think that explains the findings in TFA related to adolescent boys?

From a better write up of this same story:

Young men aged 15 to 24 show concerning trends in their self-rated mental health and rates of mental illness. For instance, between 2012 and 2022:

the percentage who reported "very good" or "excellent" mental health fell from 70% to 52% the percentage who experienced: mood disorders increased from11% to 16% generalized anxiety disorder increased from 4% to 10%

It could. As a father of a 18yo I can tell that they are very well aware of what awaits them in their adult lives.

Really? They may think they're aware. but don't be swayed by their confidence. As a grown man, you know life has a way of surprising you.

He's saying: They are aware of stories of problems adults face.

It is absolutely true that someone else's life doesn't define their own future path, but that doesn't mean they don't latch onto those stories and project the negativity onto themselves. One cannot see the future, so it is quite common to look to others to predict what the future may hold. As you point out, the future is often completely different to what you imagined, but it is what you are imagining that shapes how you feel.

I’m the father of a 17 year old. He is very aware of the many challenges facing his generation and this is not a topic of concern for him or his peer-group. It’s almost as if this particular thread is dominated by selection bias.

More generally - we can ask if there is data in this study or another one that supports the idea that teen mental health issues are substantially due to their fears of unfair divorce terms they may face 20 years in the future. In my experience as a former teen and father of two, that is simply not happening and I’d need to see the data that says it is before I take it seriously.

They don’t have any real worries about how they will feel in their 30s because they think 7th grade was a long time ago and they don’t quite believe they are actually going to be 30 some day.

My comment is about grown men going through grief because of biased laws. What is the relation to "TFA related to adolescent boys"?

Now, to answer your data points regardless - I don't think you understand that divorce isn't in isolation, it obviously affects entire families, including children. So, I wouldn't be surprised if there is more data showing these young boys are from broken homes.

TFA means 'the article in the post'. They are asking you how your comment is relevant to the article being discussed.

Oh, got it. The article is actually a rehash of an official government publication:

https://www.canada.ca/en/services/health/publications/health...

And in here, you will find:

     Men die by suicide at about 3 times the rate of women. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among men and boys aged 15 to 34.

This is what I was responding to.

there's way to many comments projecting their issues on to the title.

UK is going the other way: they're consulting on giving non married couples rights.

https://www.setfords.co.uk/2026/09/01/new-rights-for-cohabit...

At the request of the family law lobby, naturally ...

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/a-fairer-end-to-...

"The very limited set of protections under the current law can leave cohabitants facing significant financial difficulties when relationships end, which disproportionately affects vulnerable groups such as women, and children..."

Women...so naturally vulnerable ?! In 2026?

> Women...so naturally vulnerable ?! In 2026?

All else aside for a second... yes? Women are both physically and economically (primarily when they are stay at home moms) vulnerable. No, that doesn't mean I'm saying that no men are vulnerable at all but averaged out to a population it's clear.

Economically disadvantaged often through choice is not "vulnerable". It's "economically disadvantaged", at best.

And I don't make a habit of pointing out women's smaller stature to call them vulnerable?? Wtf

> Economically disadvantaged often through choice is not "vulnerable". It's "economically disadvantaged", at best.

It leaves them economically vulnerable. When 100% of the income is going into one person's bank account that means they have the opportunity for economic control over their partner. Their partner does not have savings of their own to speak of. No, healthy relationships do not work that way. But a lot of relationships do.

Also, it's often not "through choice". A lot of the time childcare is more expensive than one parent leaving their job. A lot of families can't afford an alternative.

Force a Prenup ratio equal to the assets they had at the exact point prior to marriage, or meeting each other, as default. Make shared custody also the default, unless one side is found guilty of abuse.

It's 2026, and women are starting to outearn men in some cities. Why make men the sole breadwinners of the family?

> Force a Prenup ratio equal to the assets they had at the exact point prior to marriage

Which would completely ignore the economic imbalance I was talking about, which occurs during the marriage.

> It's 2026, and women are starting to outearn men in some cities. Why make men the sole breadwinners of the family?

Like I said, making a parent a stay at home parent is simply economic reality for many, while the kids are young and childcare is expensive. There’s no reason why that has to be the woman but the data shows that the vast majority of the time it is.

There probably isn't much of an economic imbalance if the prenup ratio was based on when both were single.

Even if one party earns less, I don't see how "vulnerable" that would make them if it was prior to meeting the other person.

> making a parent a stay at home parent is simply economic reality for many

The topic was couples/cohabitation/marriage, not child rearing. The concerns you raise would be equally applicable where the parents have decided they want absolutely nothing to do with each other. There is truth in what you are saying, but it is an entirely different topic. How to deal with the child is a negotiation that takes place around the child, not around a romantic relationship (or lack thereof).

In the romantic relationship, there is no realistic situation where one party ends up with all the money unless the other one willingly hands theirs over. But any of us can do that. I can willing give you all my money now just the same and there would be no good legal recourse if I decide it was a bad idea later. The only reason we have these ideas in the world of romance is due to the historical idea that women aren't capable of thinking for themselves.

How are you economically disadvantaged by having the choice to not get a job?

So the actual criteria is vulnerability, not sex or gender…

As indicated by the use of "such as" in the original quote, yes

Is this actually borne out by the data? According to a quick Google search, men make up 73% of Canadian homicide victims and 66% of the homeless population.

Averaged out to the population, it's not at all clear that women are physically and economically more vulnerable than men.

Pro-tip (for both unmarried men and women): You can sign a pre-nup even if you never have any nuptials. It turns out that people can choose to enter into a contract with each other at any time. There are plenty of reasons why people in a relationship may choose not to get legally married, but that does not mean you have to leave yourself at the mercy of the defaults in the law, which may or may not make sense for you.

This is especially important if there are children involved in your situation.

Are you saying there's effectively a pre-commonlaw agreement mechanism available to curtail fallout from even just a drfault commonlaw arrangement?

Pro tip: in Scotland (where the UK gov is taking inspiration from), that likely doesn't override rights in statutes

The law isn't simply a "default" in this matter that you can opt out of AIUI

People on HN are comically unaware of how frequently pre-nups get tossed out in court.

What you should have learned is a lot simpler. Don't marry the wrong woman.

Brilliant advice. Why didn't he think of that.

It's the same advice most people give to women who are in abusive situations. Gender equality means gender equal advice, right?

Equality usually implies trying to pull others up to the same level, not pushing them down to the same level, Harrison Bergeron style.

> Don't marry the wrong woman.

I guess you missed the last part of my comment. Women are majorly incentivised legally to walk out of a marriage while being financially rewarded for it. Even if you marry the "right" woman, it doesn't guarantee she won't turn into the "wrong" woman over time. And in modern times, it doesn't take a lot for that transition especially with social media really rallying to take advantage of the legal loopholes - eg. you can cheat on your partner AND walk away with 50% of the marital wealth.

After divorce women experience larger average losses in wealth than men do.

Hmmm yes my country expects women to earn their own money (the government is paying for your university degree so you better use it you lazy harlots!) but then people start whining about declining birth rates. You just can't win.

Equality under the law in just about every area of law would go a long ways. Divorce and family court stuff is just but one example of many

It's important for people to remember they don't marry other people.

Legally, people are marrying a law in their place of residence, marriage is a contract and agreement with the government.

Through a marriage to the government's law first, two people are married in the eyes of the law.

The first time I came across this it made me wonder how much people are aware of this central, third party in between the two people in their marriage.

> It's important for people to remember they don't marry other people.

Of course you do. As you even point out yourself, you marry the government, which is people.

> The first time I came across this it made me wonder how much people are aware of this central, third party in between the two people in their marriage.

Considering that the traditional marriage process involves two people standing in front of representatives of the government and declaring promises to them it seems like it'd be a bit hard to miss? I suppose if others also don't realize that government is people then they might not realize what the people in the audience are doing? But, then again, given that the two people prepared to make those promises are usually responsible for inviting that audience to the wedding you'd think they would have questions about why they are there otherwise?

In my post, it's about marrying a law, not the people running the law.

Both marriage to the law and marriage to the government was said. I chose to focus on the latter. However, as the law is nothing more than thoughts people have, it too is just people. Any social construct is going to be people.

I agree that divorce proceedings could be more equal than they are. But society is not gender neutral, so things like divorce proceedings aren't either. Women are far, far more likely to be stay at home parents. That means they're far more involved in childcare and far less likely to be earning money independently. That makes the situation very difficult when it comes to divorce.

You're not wrong but in situations where there are no kids, and no one stayed home "unfair" settlements are forced.

Why not have the laws take into consideration stay at home status regardless of gender?

This is the way I'd prefer!

There is the underlying reality and bias. When I'd pick up my kid from Kindergarten it was me and 20-30 other moms hanging out on the playground afterwards. So yes, in that sense we may not see gender neutral outcomes.

The bias however is absurdly strong. My first lawyer said I should have taken my ex's offer of slightly less than 50/50. She said that my ex's floor was 50/50 and that if we couldn't show that we could effectively coparent they'd give it to the Mom.

That's exactly what happened and it held through her completely cutting me off from my son. I even went through a modification try and the same Judge upheld the situation.

As a result I haven't spoken with my son in almost 2 years now.

I would definitely have preferred to have had a couple more days a week off with my kids while they grew up, and given their Mum a chance to do her thing, too. Instead, it became my responsibility to pay the bills, and the rest of the crews right to make them. So yeah, that's what I did.

>2 years

Kids need their Dads, and Dads have to be strong as hell for them, even still, in this modern world. I am super glad to have gotten my two giant oafs into adulthood well enough to be surfing the wonders the world has in store for them both .. but yeah, you'll get your ass kicked. Be a kick ass Dad, then.

The most important thing is that your son knows you're there for him as he grows up. Maybe keep a journal, don't stop writing important things to him, notes and ideas from his Dad, for him to read when he gets his own agency over things.

How is it even possible for someone to prevent you from seeing your own child for two years? That would be completely illegal in my country. Can one parent really just decide to cut the other parent out of their child's life and get away with it? It's absolutely proven than this is against child's children best interest.

Yes, this is why a prenup asset ratio and shared parenting should be the default in America (and Canada).

It happens all the time.

How is it possible? Well, theoretically it's not. The order I got and subsequent denial of modification blatantly violate state law and appealate precedent. But it's all procedural. The standard for the underlying opinion of the judge is that if there is one fact to support that opinion then the ruling is upheld.

So I could have appealed and won. But then I go back to the same judge that doesn't think my kid should have any contact with me and all she has to do is find one fact to support that.

More often a custody order is just a piece of paper. The primary parent can screw with visitation easily and it takes time and money to go to court. The original divorce cost me $100k, another contempt motion $7k, and the failed modification $20k.

Custody ends for Fathers when they give up. I gave up unusually early (which royally pissed off the judge) and this is my punishment.

Family court is a scam, and if you end up there you’ve already lost. For some reason your usual legal rights don’t apply; the entire system seems to be constructed to drain everyone of money. It’s basically the definition of “the process is the punishment.” I’ve never seen a good outcome from it.

For one anecdotical story like that, there's 100 more where the man is neglecting their kid, so this should be taken with a grain of salt

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