My parents got divorced, but my Mom had always been a stay at home mom. She had absolutely no working experience, no career, etc. There was no way she could have paid even 99/1 since she didn't even have any income separate from my father. This is probably less common now, but I still know lots of families where the mother does not have a career outside the home (and 1 example of a father not having a career outside the home).
Because the reason the mother doesn't have career experience is because she spend the time contributing to the family in other ways, allowing the husband to focus more on work. Had she not been married, she would have (by necessity if nothing else) had a career outside the home instead. Social security generally provides a bare minimum safety net, if that; it's unreasonable that one spouse should walk away in a far better financial position than the other after both contributed to the marriage.
Mother made the choice to prioritize family over career. That was always an option. I see no reason to punish other person. If the other person forced mother, she should have divorced at that point and gotten on with the career. Abortion and adoption is realistic options for possible children.
I see no reason why such person deserve anymore than bare minimum. That is bare minimum that society considers acceptable. So clearly it should be acceptable for absolutely everyone.
So a couple get married. They (voluntarily) have children. Then they make the decision together that the wife will quit work to spend the majority of her time raising their children and managing the household, while the husband will continue working outside the home, as his earnings are sufficient to support the family. Some time later they divorce. You're saying at this point the husband should now keep his entire income for himself, and the wife should have to rely on social security? She would effectively then have to choose between remaining in the marriage or becoming destitute. How is that reasonable? I guess you're saying that no one should choose to live in a single-income family, to guard against this eventuality?
Yes. And the wife can re-enter the career or start a new one. It is not so hard these days. I see no reason why the wife should be allowed to leech of the husband. And no she won't be destitute. Finding minimum wage work should not be impossible.
Yes, if you want to be sure that you don't end up badly, either accept that minimum standard is social security. Or safe up yourself. Don't expect to be able to exploit someone else for your heightened standard of living.
Maybe it's easier to explain on HN as being about founders. A marriage is a single legal entity, like a startup, where the two founder share equal equity (by default) with no vesting. It doesn't matter that one founder does the sales and brings in revenue and the other builds the product: the equity split is still 50/50.
Obvs prenups etc tweak the split/vesting schedule effectively, and that's fine, but don't expect to be a CEO of a startup, sell £1M of product and be able to walk away with the entire value of the business.
But to follow your analogy, 'keeping the partnership amicable' was traditionally seen as falling more to the person not out bringing money into the business. Divorce was much rarer when single-income arrangements were the norm, there may be some uncertainty as to causality but the two went hand in hand. If it's in someone's job description to keep the family together and they fail to do that - well granted, sometimes they were up against impossible odds, but it seems like the stay-at-home partner is getting the best of two eras, modern responsibility for keeping the marriage together and earlier responsibility for contributing financially.
If two parties agree to something, it doesn't fall to only one of them to make sure everything works out, regardless of the behavior of the other party.
Divorce was indeed lower when women typically had no way of supporting themselves, and therefore were often forced to stay in a marriage. That hardly seems like the better end of the deal.
>If two parties agree to something, it doesn't fall to only one of them to make sure everything works out, regardless of the behavior of the other party.
Sure, that's why I stipulated 'sometime you're up against impossible odds'. But I don't see how there can be talk of an equal partnership when one party is expected to bring in all the money and do half the emotional labour, and typically a good chunk of the housework in the process.
Even if Ekaros is single without children, I don't see how one can grow up in a society without understanding how difficult it would be for a parent to give up their child.
Adoption may be the best option for some people in some situations. I can imagine that. But presenting it as an obvious solution to this problem indicates a glaring gap in their understanding of human beings.
Not everyone has money for divorce. If we really want to make it better, we can lower filing fees or get rid of them entirely. Getting married is cheap in a lot of places, and that means poor folks can have the legal benefits of marriage. It is a shame that poverty can keep you there.
50/50 custody isn't always good for the child, though. I know a kid that really had anxiety issues, in no small part because 50/50 makes for somewhat unstable housing.
There isn't really a such thing as 50/50 child support. The bigger reason for child support is because one parent obviously makes more than the other one, and the support is supposed to ease the burden. I'd rather expand the safety net so that less support is needed. Not only that, but I'd make sure that the support receiver gets the money every month regardless of whether or not the other parent pays. You can pay support to the government instead of directly to the other party. Also of note: Support tends to be higher or lower depending on custody - and to be fair, it applies to never-married relationships as well. I'd also note that we should be sure that both parties can keep up proper residences for the children. Visitation means you need the house space (bedrooms) for the children, for example, and support shouldn't mean that you lose access to your children.
Paying to the government instead of directly to the other party is such an excellent idea it kind of blows my mind that this is the first time I've heard it. So many unnecessary disputes around spousal/child support that could be solved with that measure. The government is already good at collecting and distributing money; that's basically what it's for. Seems blindingly obvious.
I know it is done in other places - and I think you are right. It could simply eliminate some anxiety and arguments - it takes someone's ability to pay out of the picture completely. Anything that makes it easier to be a good parent with one's ex should be encouraged.
That's how it is in Quebec/Canada and I'm surprised it's not the norm. It's indexed to inflation. Either party can request a re-evaluation if their situation has changed.
Here over 50% of kids are born from unmarried parents, and that proportion has steadily increased through the years. 20% of couples separate before their first child is 5 years old. 50/50 parenting is the norm. Might sound scary, but as someone in that situation, it took some time to get used to, but worked out fine.
Common law covers child support but not spousal support. It can be a major risk if one spouse is financially dependent on the other (see Cirque du Soleil, Éric vs Lola).
All of your points are already covered in the linked article.
Except it says that mediation is better than legal fees, regardless of who pays. The article's claim is that this shift away from the adversarial process is probably the biggest factor, though others also contribute.
And 50/50 custody is already the norm in many places, according to the article.
"Laws in Australia, Sweden and some American states require judges to consider splitting custody time more or less down the middle."
The first one started with mediation. The process was highly feminized, and all the mediators were women. I felt very much that they were predisposed to the view that I was "at fault". The process failed, in that we weren't able to agree a settlement. It was useful only in that we were required to perform disclosure, and to discuss the disclosed documents in a fairly non-judicial forum; disclosure would be necessary anyway when the settlement went to court. In court, my solicitor was a woman; my wife's was a woman; and the judge was a woman.
This is the UK; Family Court proceedings were subject to very strict secrecy. The press couldn't report Family Court proceedings, not even anonymized, so basically the public had no idea what kinds of things went on in Family Court. It's become a little looser now, but only a little. It's high time for reform of UK family law.
[Edit] I advised people "don't get married". Then I went into my second marriage, which ended 3 years later. Dogfood much?
I wanted to add that I have also taken part in marriage guidance. That counsellor was also a woman; I remember her describing me as "a tough nut to crack". This was the premier marriage guidance outfit in the UK.
It seems an incredibly stupid thing for a trained counsellor to say; who wants to be "cracked"? It certainly alienated me from that process.
Perhaps most of the men these people encounter from troubled marriages are objectively arseholes, but I doubt it. I don't think many arseholes go to marriage guidance, and I don't think they engage with mediation. I know that many psychotherapists are people who have been through therapy; I wonder if these cousellors and mediators are women who have experienced spousal abuse themselves.
In the UK, Family Court proceedings are secret. I agree that it's wrong; but the rationale is that this kind of court proceeding often needs participants to have confidence that what they say to the court isn't going to be made public. I agree with that too.
I think it's fine to protect the identity of the participants; but I think that if the way these courts work were more widely known, then reform would come quicker. It's a sort of Catch-22.
Remove custody percentages as a part of support payments and the financial incentive that drives a lot of this behavior goes away. In other countries where support payments are not a major thing, a lot of the nastyness of divorce also goes away too. I like this section of the book "real world divorce" about it: http://www.realworlddivorce.com/International
The standardizing of support payments that a lot of these countries (and it looks like some US states) do seems like a fair way to reduce the potential exploitability too. The price of raising a child isn't tied to income, so why should the payer's income matter beyond reducing payments (ideally with the state stepping in like the Danish system) for those who can't make the normal amount?
The idea is that the wife and children should not experience any decline in their standard of living as a result of the divorce. They are entitled to live the way they would have lived had the marriage continued; if the husband is rich then that includes owning a nice house in an expensive city, luxury cars, private schools, etc.
If the system’s goal were merely to ensure that they land on their feet, it would look very different.
> The idea is that the wife and children should not experience any decline in their standard of living as a result of the divorce.
Specifically, in the case of child support, the idea is that the children should not (the idea that the spouse should not tends to be factored in to alimony.) e.g., to quote the California law on child support: “Children should share in the standard of living of both parents.” Family Code § 4053(f)
Well, that's the idea behind alimony, which is sometimes mixed in with child support. But child support is mostly rooted in the idea that raising a child requires more support than a single individual can provide.
If it were just about continuation of lifestyle, my mother wouldn't have been entitled to anything as my parents were never together.
That seems like an impossible goal. If there are 2 houses instead of 1, it's going to require getting cheaper houses, smaller yards, etc. Both parties' standard of living will go down.
Not necessarily. It could result in one house and yard staying the same, and the other one being a one bedroom apartment across town with almost no furniture. In this case, only one party's standard of living goes down.
Sorry--I was making a joke. The implication being that in a middle class divorce (at least in the US), it's pretty common that the standard of living for the mother and children is maintained when it comes to house size, yard, etc. because she ends up keeping it. The stereotype is that he ends up in the crappy apartment and writing the big alimony checks and child support payments.
It's glossing over a bit to not acknowledge that one's standard of living is taking a much bigger hit than the other. It's also not the case that 100% of income in a marriage contributes to standard of living (or equally between spouses), so there absolutely are cases where an ex-wife with sufficient alimony and child support could end up with a nicer house, car, etc. than when she was married. This dichotomy is what drives a lot of the angst that comes up when dealing with these legal processes.
> Both parties' standard of living will go down.
This isn't quite true is all I'm saying. The higher earner's standard of living almost certainly will go down. The other spouse's standard of living may or may not.
I agree I was wrong in that they both will go down 100% of the time. It's possible to come up with rare situations in which one or the other will go up.
But to me it seems that if one of them is going to go up, it's more likely to be the higher earner whose standard will go up. The divorce caused the higher earner to lose access to a lower income (possibly zero), so thus possibly not much financial downside. The divorce caused the lower earner to lose access to a higher income, so a large financial downside.
> It's also not the case that 100% of income in a marriage contributes to standard of living
Are you saying a divorce could lead to more efficient use of money? That doesn't seem like the case to me. When married they were in 1 bedroom in 1 house. Now they're in 2 bedrooms in 2 houses. Less efficient. If there are kids and shared custody, the kids need double the bedrooms as well.
>(or equally between spouses)
Ok, I sort of get that point. If for example while married the higher earner spent 60% of his/her income on hobbies that didn't benefit the lower earner, then the lower earner was given 50% of the higher earner's income as alimony, that would mean the lower earner could possibly benefit. But those numbers are crazy. Most money is spent on housing, which benefits both spouses. To spend such a giant amount on a single spouse's hobbies is very unusual.
If you start from the premise that maintaining the children's quality of life is the top priority (which I believe) then it follows pretty logically from there. Keep the kids in the house, with the parent most able to care for them. Unfortunately, this is usually the mother; in a more perfect world, it would be the father just as often.
It also implies the other spouse (usually father), shouldn't be an equal active co-parent and have autonomy over where the money for the child goes, and it goes only to the other parent.
Maybe in a few decades we will recognize that you should incentivize both parents to be active in the child's life.
Sounds like the worst possible outcome for the kids. A constant state of chaos in your life, even if both parents are reasonably good at taking care of a kid, interested in it, have the financial means, etc.
Yeah, I remember as a kid the one dude in our trailer park who had a 50/50 arrangement with their other parent in town. Poor kid never had any of us go over to their house to seek them out, because we didn't know the schedule. Childhood social structures can be fragile things that are invisible to adults.
Also, 50/50 custody as a norm.
50/50 Child support as a norm.
Maybe 90% of the nastiness would absolutely disappear.