Divorce, sexism & gold-digging

[squeakage]

QUOTE (Tony @ Jul 10 2004, 18:39)

It just shows that women and marriage is just one fucking big waste of time!!

does it?

[Daredevil Tony]

QUOTE (squeakage @ Jul 10 2004, 18:40)

QUOTE (Tony @ Jul 10 2004, 18:39) It just shows that women and marriage is just one fucking big waste of time!! does it? Most of the time but im just being cynical this evening, excuse me please.

[squeakage]

QUOTE (Tony @ Jul 10 2004, 18:48)

QUOTE (squeakage @ Jul 10 2004, 18:40) QUOTE (Tony @ Jul 10 2004, 18:39) It just shows that women and marriage is just one fucking big waste of time!! does it? Most of the time but im just being cynical this evening, excuse me please. you are excused Mr dare devil   you may now leave the table

[Daredevil Tony]

QUOTE (squeakage @ Jul 10 2004, 18:48)

QUOTE (Tony @ Jul 10 2004, 18:48) QUOTE (squeakage @ Jul 10 2004, 18:40) QUOTE (Tony @ Jul 10 2004, 18:39) It just shows that women and marriage is just one fucking big waste of time!! does it? Most of the time but im just being cynical this evening, excuse me please. you are excused Mr dare devil   you may now leave the table I thank you.

[Ian Cashman]

if i had that much money i would pay out to arrange a lil 'accident' for the wife and kids.

 

[Guest Jay]

QUOTE (LiquidEyes @ Jul 10 2004, 15:24)

QUOTE (Dawn @ Jul 10 2004, 14:47) perhaps she is going to have far less than if he'd stayed married to her. So she should!   Now they are divorced, why should she stay minted? Just because she's "used to it"? (!) What kind of an argument is that?   You seem to be suggesting that she is entitled to have all the benefits of still being married to him (i.e. the kids, plus loads of dosh) but without all the hassle (i.e. actually being married to him!)   You think she should have the right to have her cake and eat it? You still haven't given one good reason why a person's situation WITHIN marriage should have any bearing on their situation AFTER divorce.   She may have helped him with his career in various intangible ways, but unless he was paying her a wage to be his manager/agent/whatever, she would be clutching at straws to quantify the value of her contribution in monetary terms.   The controversy of this case relates in particular to the fact she (for example) "rescued his career" by helping him out of alcoholism, which sets a very dangerous legal precedent, as I have already argued, and nobody has come up with a satisfactory counter-argument.   As I have said: if I save my wife from being knocked down by a bus, does this mean I'm entitled to a portion of her future earnings? Does it bollocks.   It is your DUTY to help your partner if you love them. But retrospectively trying to claim entitlement to money for it is treading on very dodgy ground.   I'm trying to avoid dwelling on this particular case, because as you rightly say we don't know all the details. But the fact remains, in a typical divorce situation, an arbitrary amount of the richer party's money is given to the poorer party. Why should this be so?   from stu, jay & kether:   Well said.

[alasdairm]

QUOTE (LiquidEyes @ Jul 10 2004, 07:24)

But the fact remains, in a typical divorce situation, an arbitrary amount of the richer party's money is given to the poorer party. Why should this be so?

but it's not an strictly an arbitrary amount.

 

obviously there are exceptions and it's wrong to generalise but one way of looking at this is that, when getting married "what's mine is yours and what's yours is mine".

 

that is, on becoming married the assets of the marriage are the sum of the parts. so, one person could have brought 1 'asset unit' and the other 99. one person could have brought 49 and one 51. whatever, by sayign 'i do' you are making a number of commitments - one of which is that the whole is now the sum of the parts. period.

 

now they are married, they both agree that the union now owns 100 units. in the event of a divorce, the assets of the marriage are split equally - both parties receiving 50.

 

you can agree or disagree wih the principle and you can certainly find exceptions to any general rule but i would argue that, if nothing, the split is not arbitrary.

 

alasdair

[LiquidEyes]

QUOTE (Jessica Rabbit @ Jul 10 2004, 18:00)

Look, Andy, you didn't sit through the whole of the court case and hear the lawyer's arguing and the judge's reasons for awarding her the money. All you've read is one condensed article, with selective bits taken out of a court case that has probably gone on for ages.

I agree that bits will have been taken out of the article selectively. I simply don't believe there is ANY reason why she should get so much money.

 

Give me ONE example scenario where the poorer party deserves to be allocated an arbitrary sum of money from the wealthier party, and I will accept your line of argument.

 

I'm not interested in contrived legal jargon - I'm interested in a moral argument. Something hypothetical will be fine; obviously we don't know what was said in the courtroom.

 

I'm trying to use my imagination, but the strongest argument I can think of is "because she would find it hard to adjust to being relatively 'poor' again". It is my belief that the law is simply 'soft' on the dependent party, but if somebody can suggest a hypothetical reason why she MIGHT actually need/deserve that money, I'm all ears.

 

As you say, I'm not a lawyer, so if I've comprehensively misunderstood our divorce laws and somebody can correct me, I will eat humble pie.

 

But I believe that, in the general case where a person marries a rich partner, and the poorer party is financially dependent upon the richer party during the marriage, and they split up, the poorer party tends to receive an arbitrary sum of money upon divorce. I know of cases (anecdotally) that have gone both ways, and I'm inclined to believe the law is quite fuzzy in this area. But I am certain that it is possible for the poorer party to profit unfairly.

 

I'm not trying to get on my high horse about the law, which I freely admit I don't know much about. I'm not questioning whether what has happened is LEGAL. I'm simply questioning whether our divorce laws have any basis in morals.

 

If there is not ONE moral reason why she should get all that money, then basic logic says that either the law is unethical, or the ruling was illegal.

 

I don't buy this line of attack that "we don't know all the details of this one case, ergo we are not allowed to form opinions about the issue in general". I am as cynical as the next man when it comes to the media, but if nobody can even think of even ONE reason why she should have got that money, I don't understand how we can remain so neutral about the issue.

[LiquidEyes]

QUOTE (alasdairm @ Jul 11 2004, 14:05)

now they are married, they both agree that the union now owns 100 units.

I guess what it boils down to, is that I disagree with this principle.

 

Or alternatively, I disagree with the principle that the poorer party retains their 'advantage' even when the marriage is over.

 

As long as one or other of these principles remains so, then the law encourages and rewards gold-diggers, which is my issue.

 

If I marry my girlfriend, and she continues to earn more than I do, and we subsequently split up, I would refuse to accept my share of her [relative] wealth, even if I was legally entitled to it.

 

I find the financial implications of marriage highly un-romantic.

[alasdairm]

well, people marry for many different reasons. my thoughts on marriage and earning are in line with yours.

 

i think it's useful, for the purposes of this discussion if nothing else, to decouple the spiritual/love/whatever aspect of marriage and the logistical aspects. like it or not, they're all part of the thing we call 'marriage'.

 

if a couple are marrying for love but feel that the 50/50 aspect of the logistics is unfair, they can do something about it. people have it within their control to protect themselves on the logistic side. if they choose not to exercise that choice, the devil's advocate in me says they deserve everything they get...

 

alasdair

[LiquidEyes]

QUOTE (alasdairm @ Jul 11 2004, 14:48)

people have it within their control to protect themselves on the logistic side.

They certainly do in the US (pre-nuptial agreements).

 

However I have read that pre-nups have much less legal 'clout' in the UK, and often can be contested or dismissed.

 

(Like I said, I'm not an expert in this area.)

 

As a side-note, if anybody wants to watch a piss-funny film about divorce and gold-digging, check out "Intolerable Cruelty" with Catherine Zeta-Jones and George Clooney.)

[Lisa]

QUOTE (LiquidEyes @ Jul 11 2004, 14:38)

QUOTE (alasdairm @ Jul 11 2004, 14:05) now they are married, they both agree that the union now owns 100 units. I guess what it boils down to, is that I disagree with this principle.   Or alternatively, I disagree with the principle that the poorer party retains their 'advantage' even when the marriage is over. It's about what is put into the marriage, whilst they are still married, not what they started off with Andy, be it financial or otherwise.

[paula]

ive not read the story, cos im being lazy, but read this thread

 

does she get a third off his wages?

[paula]

if she gets a third then than sounds pretty fair,

[Alex]

One damned fine reason why I don't want to get married.