Random thought came to mind tonight, not particular to any situation.
Does a person (“Working Spouse”) have any legal recourse or protections against a spouse (“Lazy Spouse”) who decides to just stop any gainful employment/monetary earning? Say Lazy Spouse wakes up one day and just decides to stop working and wants to rely on the Working Spouse to be the sole breadwinner.
The scenario I’m imagining is that the Lazy Spouse is capable of working, but simply choses not to… whether it be fake complaints of bodily pain/injury, or just the lack of effort to acquire a job, or who abruptly quits the current job and wants to vegetate.
Does Working Spouse have any way to protect himself/herself and… his/her (or their) accumulated assets from the Lazy Spouse?
I am imaging the greater the financial earning power of Working Spouse, the more there is to lose through a potential divorce/separation. I assume this puts even more pressure on Working Spouse or limits the options Working Spouse has to deal with it?
This obviously depends on the the law of the place concerned, but in general you cannot compel somebody to work; that’s too close to slavery. If working spouse considers this behaviour unreasonable, and neither blandishments nor exhortations can persuade lazy spouse to return to work, then working spouse has the choice of accepting lazy spouse’s choice, or seeking a divorce.
I know in many state non-support of one’s spouse is grounds for a seperation or divorce. So it seems while you couldn’t force them back to work, it could give you grounds to divorce them.
People very rarely go presto-changeo from achievers to lazy slackers or slackerettes, Barring serious illness, mental dysfunctions, drugs, or large environmental changes like having kids or a spouse making so much money it’s pointless to work if you don’t want to, it’s almost unheard of. Laziness is usually a pretty ingrained and obvious behavioral habit, and as such only a pretty retarded worker-bee spouse can really claim they were surprised by the sudden laziness.
By “this,” I hope you mean that only one spouse was traditionally employed outside the home for pay, not that it was the norm for one spouse (presumably the woman) to be lazy and just rely on Working Spouse as sole breadwinner. There’s quite a difference between the two scenarios. Even traditionally, many women earned money directly in a number of ways (cottage industry, taking in laundry, sewing, canning, vending hot food), especially poor women who didn’t have the luxury of relying on a spouse with a steady job that provided good income.
Back when divorce was all but impossible, I believe that there existed some option for a man who had been abandoned by his wife to place a public notice in the newspaper that he was no longer legally responsible for her debts. That may be the closest we can get to the OP’s question apart from the divorce option.
concepts like slavery, debt bondage and indentured servitude are so passé so it’s not really going to be the case that our legal regime will punish someone for their decision not to work.
the closest thing that you’ll get to being “forced” to work by a court in a family law situation is a court’s refusal to downwardly modify a child support sum due to (actual or perceived) deliberate underemployment/unemployment
As you can see from the links, non-compliance with a seek work order can get you jail time.
I’m unaware of an analogous order that’s available during the marriage.
Imputed income, which is what you are referring to, usually only comes into play if the obligor is able to pay the fulll amount of the support obligation, but wants it reduced (or a lower amount in the first place) based on income.
In the old system it was agreed upon by both partners, and so was different from the scenario in the OP. It’s true that usually the stay at home spouse worked hard (even if not for money) but it still wasn’t a problem if the working partner was rich enough so the stay at home spouse had to do nothing.
Yes I imagine changes or the choice to put less effort into working (and eventually stopping work) happens over time. In turn, the consideration of the Working Spouse to respond with divorce I bet doesn’t come up until time passes a bit as well.
And the other posts are right, I was not imagining a situation where it is agreed upon to have a homemaker and/or a dedicated person raise children at home who accomplishes forms of “work” that contribute to the household. But I was thinking it could start there in some situations… a dedicated homemaker who then neglects to contribute to the household and uses the opportunity to simply not work and not contribute.
It feels quite discouraging to work hard as Working Spouse faces a situation of a Lazy Spouse and potential divorce… especially if Working Spouse is expected to make some form of support/alimony payments based on income (from working hard).