My understanding is that half of everything you earned and bought while married is on the table. Stuff you owned or earned before the marriage is not on the table unless you want it to be. Non-marital property vs. marital property.
I'm not a lawyer.
I'm not a lawyer.
Hearing face-to-face how badly this guy got fucked over was eye-opening to say the least. The truth is, family courts are highly biased against men. Get a pre-nup if you get married, or learn that truth the hard way.
Does anyone know about a study supporting this claim? Not that I'd be surprised, but confirmation bias can be a bitch...
Let's face it. It sucks to be a woman in 90% of the world. You do not have any right over your own body. You are a second rate citizen. At best. Oh and you are a commodity to be kept "intact" and sold through something that resembles marriage, but isn't marriage. Not to mention a vagina that has the audacity to bleed once a month causing pain that most men simply don't understand.
Yet it is equally hard to be male, especially if you deviate from the established norms of masculinity. It is quite interesting how society censors effeminate male behavior than masculine female behavior. It doesn't matter where you are born being a gender variant kid isn't exactly a nice deal. However, if you are the alpha male who pounds his hairy muscular chest while trying to club women, then you've got it made.
At the same time I see reverse discrimination operate for males in a lot of spaces. Granted it is not as wide spread as discrimination against women, but it exists. Somehow society has taught us that women cannot perpetuate sexual abuse, or any kind of abuse for that matter and we agree to tow the line. I've actually seen people being framed by women who abuse laws that exist to protect them against a chauvinistic society.
I guess this is what they call the human condition, and in a lot of ways it will stop only when we stop segregating people into roles based upon some difference we can come up with. I wish I could tell people to calm down and just let each other be.
P.S. - Read Sarah Hoffman's work on parenting a gender variant child (http://www.sarahhoffmanwriter.com/).
One place that I wound up reading about this, with lots of specific statistics quoted, was The Price of Motherhood. (That source had an obvious axe to grind. But including lots of citations from actual research, and that is the part I'd trust here.)
Custody of children goes overwhelmingly to women too: http://deltabravo.net/custody/divrates.php
What statistics are you referencing?
You point out that divorce is initiated 70% of the time by women. However that has little direct correlation with how the divorce goes.
You point out that women tend to get over 50% of the assets. This is true. However women tend to keep the kids, and therefore take an undue portion of the future economic liabilities coming from the relationship. In particular this makes it more likely that they will be granted the house - typically the couple's biggest asset. Furthermore if you include expected future income, women are suddenly much worse off.
And we come to the more important point. It is indisputable that women are much more likely to be granted custody of the kids. However most of the time men don't actually want custody of the kids. When men choose to contest it, they usually wind up with the kids. (For the simple reason that, having a more dependable source of income, men are typically in a better position to raise the kids.) you have to look at what the couple wanted. Men who choose to contest custody usually wind up with the kids. Therefore the fact that the woman tends to wind up with the bulk of the responsibility for that liability isn't actually a sign that women are coming out ahead in the divorce.
In this case they also get child support and, often, alimony.
However most of the time men don't actually want custody of the kids. When men choose to contest it, they usually wind up with the kids.
Source?
For the simple reason that, having a more dependable source of income, men are typically in a better position to raise the kids.
This isn't 1950 anymore. Women now outnumber men in many professions and are earning more college degrees. Of the couples in my office only one has a stay-at-home wife. In many of these couples the wife has a job with more authority and a better salary. Child care is being outsourced.
It's true that either side can lose out in a divorce but it's just not true anymore that divorce favors men.
Of course that means that if you're the only one working in a marriage that's half of your 100%. If you get married young you probably won't be starting with much.
But who knows. I'd want to talk to a divorce lawyer or judge.
I just wanted to clarify the common misconception that you can "marry someone and take half of their [existing] stuff".
Again I think this varies from state to state but at least in CA considerations like this make zero difference. You split anything acquired during the marriage 50/50. Period. I imagine the intent of this rule is to limit the legal wiggle room and consequently the court costs of a divorce but the first thing they'll tell you is to not even use the word "fair".
But you're right that things you owned beforehand remain yours.
And on top of that the judge that ultimately reviews the case can change the terms even if both parties have agreed to them. Presumably this is to fix the problem of making someone sign to a unfair arrangement under duress.
This annoyed me (scared me, really) when I went through my divorce, but ultimately our agreement went through the court unscathed (pretty much just 50/50, though certain things are complicated, like how do you value the dog??).
The yearly earnings of the breadwinner shouldn't matter, they both squandered that while married, right?, if they didn't well let's split it then, as that is fair?
Depending on how you define said net worth, possibly. But you have to define it very carefully. So that's probably not a good way to look at things.
The yearly earnings of the breadwinner shouldn't matter, they both squandered that while married, right?, if they didn't well let's split it then, as that is fair?
The problem is that the yearly earnings of the breadwinner are often affected by the support of the partner. If a woman puts her husband through med school, his expected future income is an asset that she had some role in providing him. Does she deserve to be compensated for that? If so, then how much?
Going the other way, suppose that she compromised her career for him. Sure, she can go back in the working world, but initial differences in income levels tend to permanently affect your future income. Does she deserve compensation for her likely permanent reduction in potential earnings? Speaking of which, how can you try to quantify that?
And then the million dollar question. Suppose that she is left with a permanent economic liability, aka kids. (When men contest custody, they get the kids 70% of time, but men seldom contest custody.) How do you fairly divide the cost of raising said kids?
Nothing is simple about the economics of what constitutes a fair divorce. And there are enough vague, open-ended questions there for both parties to come out feeling legitimately hard done by.
Or, if a husband supports his wife and pays for her schooling while he's the only one working, is she still entitled to half of everything he earned in that period, including 401k and stock options?
In CA the answer is yes.