He (DeSantis) has just impoverished all the older women of Florida, and I know at least 3,000 women across the state of Florida are switching to Democrat
…now that the leopard ate our faces…
Indeed…one of the best examples of that I have seen. IIRC this group supported the legislation as long as they were grandfathered in. Conservatism in a nutshell. Fuck 'em.
Alimony laws allow married people to operate as an economic unit. In a world without alimony, that is much more complicated. It can make a lot of sense to have one spouse focus on their career and the other focus on the household and family. That may really be the lifestyle they both want. However, without alimony, the risk of doing that falls completely on the one who doesn’t pursue a career. A system like that strongly encourages only “emotional” marriages, where the two people remain economically independent and each make economic decisions only taking their own personal best interest into account. Which doesnt sem like much of a marriage.
Of course, a similar debate can happen about prenups. OTOH, there are also people who refuse to discuss or plan for what happens if/when they die, suddenly or in the far future. Or if they become a vegetable, or demetia sets in, or whatever.
It never hurst to be ready for whatever life throws at you, and to have considered what to do in a way that does not devastate or impovrish everyone concerned.
Wrll, sure, but if you have to make a separate legal agreement, it still amounts to the state not recognizing marriage as an economic institution.
The problem is, the state is still in catch-up mode. It used to be, in the minds of the old-timey society leaders, that marriage was a simple institution. The man worked and brought home the bacon, the woman stayed home, barefoot in the kitchen, popping out children and raising them. Benefits from jobs applied to the family because only the man was working. Pensions applied to the worker, and then to the wife when he died, because she had nothing herself. A marriage broke up if someone cheated, but otherwise it was forever. In divorce, if the ex-wife cheated, she got nothing. Otherwise, the (cheating) man supports her, since she didn’t work, until some other schlub takes on that job.
Guess what? Life ain’t like that, especially now. Women work, not that homemaker isn’t work, ot course it is. (My wife makes substantially more than I did before I retired). Couples have overlapping jobs, benefits, pensions and retirement savings. They have fewer kids to raise than 50 years ago. Sometimes the marriage does not include women (or men). Financial independence means less likely to stick around in a bad marriage. Nobody is obliged to support an ex forever if everyone can go out and work.
Yet many laws are still written as if it’s 1923, not 2023. They are being updated piecemeal and this change is just one of them. For the average politician, the least done the better, because every update to social rules - whether it’s alimony, or community property, child support, gay marriage - is guaranteed to create an explosive reaction from those who disagree and a small “ho-hum, about time, what took so long?” from those who agree or have no dog in the fight.
I’m not so sure that everything is written as if it was 1923 - every support law I have looked at a result of this thread allows a judge to make support ( and property division) orders based on the individual circumstances within some guidelines, so that a 30 year old getting divorced after two years of marriage gets minimal support while an older person divorcing at 55 after a long marriage during which they were out of the workforce gets support until they can collect retirement income.
I also think that maybe you overestimate the financial independence of married couples. I don’t mean that one partner is dependent on the other , but rather the finances are often interdependent. For example, I have a pension and my husband doesn’t. For some period of time , I contributed a certain percentage of my earnings toward that pension. In addition to that pension we have retirement savings. Let’s say that we decide we can afford to save 10% of our combined income - and since my employer doesn’t match contributions and his does , we decide we will put in all in his account. We end up divorcing shortly before retirement time - I keep my pension and he keeps the retirement account that is in his name. Fair? Very likely not. To use a close to real life example, an annuity that provides the same income as my pension would cost $1.7 million. If all of our retirement savings went into my husbands account, he would not have anywhere near that amount and therefore would have nowhere near the income that I do. Things would have been much different if we had truly kept our finances independent - married people do things that are better for the family even if they would be worse for one individual if they were financially independent. They do things for convenience - both of our cars are registered and titled in my name because I worked literally next door to the motor vehicle office but that won’t matter in a divorce. The judge will divide the property equitably. Our health insurance premiums came out of my paycheck (and now my pension) - I don’t expect him to give me his share each month although I would if we kept our finances completely separate.
Yes, I won’t agree with you - that’s the situation in modern times. And that’s the basis of communal property.
I was never so rich as when I got married. One mortgage/rent instead of two, plus utilities; not a lot extra in food costs for one vs. two (a lot less dining out). We’ve both been able to save for retirement, and we own a fairly expensive home… If it came to that, untangling all that and then living separate lives would be financially worse. It’s basically impossible to say “I paid this, you paid that, this is mine, that’s yours” when who pays what where is determined by joint circumstances over many years.
One of my points, for example, is that high house prices (especially in Canada) are partly a result of women working. Basically, many couples hav a decent combined income. Most mortgages are essentially 95%-plus the interest for the first few payments. So the question is “how much can the average person afford?” When there are two incomes to which to apply the 30% rule (or is it 50% of disposable) then the amount the market can bear goes up. (Extremely low interest didn’t help this). As a result, odds are for most houses, one (ex)spouse cannot afford anything close to what a couple can.
I’m surprised that in all this discussion, nobody’s mentioned the trope “she gets the house, i still pay for it.” I assume that issue disappeared when typical long-term alimony did. I know when my relative in Idaho divorced, she had to remortgage the house in her name and buy her husband’s half. I presume this was possible because they’d bought early with lower prices, and had built a lot of equity. (And the kids were long gone)
It’s all going to depend on unique circumstances and particular state laws, as well as whatever the parties might negotiate between themselves. Sometimes giving the marital home to spouse A and requiring spouse B to pay both the mortgage and spousal support might make sense, such as if there are a number of minor children that need to be raised, including an infant, and spouse A will have primary custody. The kids have to live somewhere, and spouse A will likely have difficulty entering the work force while also having to raise an infant plus other children. The alternative, paying for daycare so spouse A can resented the work force right away, might even prove to be more expensive than mere spousal support.
But another couple, perhaps even married longer, might have no minor children, maybe both spouses do work, and a split down the middle a la communal property states will do it, without need for support.
But communal property is actually not the norm. The norm is equitable division, and equitable does not mean “equal” even as far as marital property goes. And even if fairness dictates awarding almost all the marital property to spouse A, that might not count for much if A and B are renters who have no real estate, no savings, no retirement, and only one car between them, and A has given up their prime work years to raise children. At a minimum, even with an uneven split of property, some kind of rehabilitative alimony might be necessary.
All that to say… it’s complicated. If you think there is some modern trend towards a one size fits all solution… there isn’t. And there shouldn’t be.
Moderating: Moderator Note
Just a friendly reminder that this is in FQ. Let’s all stick to the facts, please.