I Now Pronounce You Legally Null and Void
laphamsquarterly.org
laphamsquarterly.org
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86#English
generally it is not used in the us, as we have dropped it.
In some places it can be made legally binding against your will https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palimony_in_the_United_States
This is something I really don't understand. If both parties want the divorce and can agree on any asset splits, a divorce costs whatever the filing fee is. A few hundred dollars and you're done.
I am in full agreement with you - the majority of divorces should be simple. They should be a form you complete in a clerks office. But that's not how it actually goes, unless both parties are very, very agreeable, and even then you'd better hope the judge is in a good mood and doesn't overrule what you've both agreed to (no I'm not kidding).
That aside, assets can be divided up without involving lawyers. Indeed, hiring lawyers is the pretty much the one thing you can do to guarantee that the divorce will be acrimonious, because the lawyers could care less about your (or your soon-to-be-ex spouse's) feelings.
I've never seen a judge throw out an amicable divorce settlement drawn up by parties without their own lawyers. At most, they required the divorcing parties to have the agreement looked over by a lawyer to make sure it satisfied necessary legal requirements.
And I had three lawyers warn me of exactly this scenario. I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm saying as a lay-person that the law is very frustrating.
This was my experience as well. I've been wondering if there is an audience for tools to help people going through a divorce, especially for those in the tech industry, since there are often complicated concerns over stock options, RSUs, 401k, bonus plans, etc. that are included in most tech worker's total compensation (btw - this is what you use to calculate support, not salary) that can. I had a very hard time finding help during my divorce for complicated topics such as these, and had to turn to many costly specialists to apply their formulas to determine community property.
But otherwise, the Nolo Prenuptial guide is sufficient for most marriages and is in fact the guide that judges in SoCal will recommend.
I suspect the downvote is because you brought up gender. You aren't supposed to point out that there are differences in the way men and women are treated upon leaving a marriage.
To give an example, I have my 2 kids almost 50/50 split custody (I have them 6pm Thursday to 6pm Sunday) and had my child support set at $1700 per month. This was on top of an additional $1800 per month of spousal support, which I had to give up my 401k to pay off because I couldn't afford that much monthly expense). My ex makes variable income of $3,500 to $5000 per month working part time as a wedding photographer. My wages are garnished, and if I ever have a change in circumstances, I will have to go through a lengthy court process just for a shot at that. In the meantime, I would be responsible for the original amount plus interest until such time as the court saw fit to change it.
I'm a good father. I love my kids and want to support them. The way the system is currently structured, if you made more money than your spouse during the marriage, you have to provide the same "lifestyle" as you had during the marriage to your children, regardless if they are in your care or not. I struggle to make ends meet, while my ex is able to live comfortably, take them on numerous expensive vacations, etc. because so much of my income is given to the other party as child support, but can spent as they see fit.
This is the real problem, I think - people can't seem to split agreeably. If you have a good solution for that I'm sure we can clean up all the messy divorces. Until then though...not sure what options we have.
Here are some more common barriers. Notice that these are 'assets' that are not controlled by the couple:
* Social Security with survivor benefits * Pension payouts * Health Insurance coverage (1 person's job has HC, the other doesn't)
A lingering view of marriage is the idea that the two individuals are now a single entity and should be treated as such by the government and companies. From a 21th century perspective this doesn't make much sense. Historical a loan might have been given to a family, and if it defaulted the debt transferred to the other family members. Today that is no longer a practice. Welfare is usually on a per-person basis with some minor exceptions. The biggest exception here in Sweden is insurance which still has some "family" aspect attached in both cost and coverage.
As it stands, a man who has accumulated significant assets and net worth as is common in the tech industry, would be easily ruined by a divorce to the wrong woman. Prenuptials do not always save you.
The more cynical modernist take is that it's a mix between a tax break and privatized welfare that should be abandoned as soon as it stops feeling good.
That's from the States PoV, and since they make the laws that govern marriage it's a reasonable position to take.
All the other stuff (eg religious baggage) that comes along are optional extras.
This 18th century view was thankfully mostly abolished by later centuries. We don't see children going into debt slavery just to repay their parents or grandparents sins. An other 18th century concept is that children starved and died if they did not have a supporting family. There was no welfare state or no social net. A major progress in the way government operates today is that government operates on individuals. The PoV of the state is that there is individuals that need food, healthcare, and social support. Those individuals could be a child in which a lack of essential needs cause the state to bring in social services. The family is only a factor when evaluating the available support an individual has, but in the end its the individual that the government focus on. 18th century marriage law did not look at the individual, and as such it made sense that marriage was a single entity that formed a family which members had legal responsibility to each other. The state issued the laws that defined a family, the family protected each member, and the chain of command (and law) was simple, clear and established.
Sure, figure out a ceremony so people can celebrate their love and proclaim their loyalty to each-other. But why should the law and finances get so tightly involved?
Marriage was never about "single earner families." In pre-Modern times, both spouses worked/farmed/whatever to support the family.
The point of legally recognizing marriage is to give the partnerships a simplified method of recognizing their rights to/in/with each other. You can recreate most of these rights separately if you wish--all of them except the one related to spousal testimony.
As for finances...if you're willing to go through the hassle of drafting a prenup, the spouses can maintain separate finances as well, though in the event of a divorce, the judge will critically examine the agreement to make sure that both spouses were independently capable of supporting their pre-marital and marital standards of living, which generally limits the usage of this arrangement to independently wealthy couples.
Divorce laws reflect women traditionally not having any means of financing their own lives and being dependent on men especially since the article notes they could not gain higher education even after some jobs opened up to women so would they divorce they would be stuck with very slim financial options (i.e. low paying non-career positions viewed as feminine)
It did note however that men used to get ownership of the children in the event of a divorce. I do not know when that changed because I have seen stats that show women are more likely to get the children today.
Yet from what I’ve seen in most cases, if there are any children involved in a marriage, the woman will get them AND the house in a divorce. The man will be on his own, possibly paying a hefty child support.
My suspicion is you were likely down voted by someone with strong feelings to the contrary who sees no point in arguing it given your stated position and the fact that this is an overwhelmingly male forum.
I post as openly female. I try to be really evenhanded. But I have been here nearly 9 years and have been trying to figure out how to make money online during that time. I know people who made good money because of connections made through HN and that has not worked for me. It is clear to me that my gender is a large factor in that.
It's pretty offensive to me to read that you want to protect the wealth of men on the grounds that "women can support themselves" while acknowledging women generally make less and simultaneously decrying the imposition of needing to pay child support.
I'm not really interested in debating this with you or anyone. I remain appalled that I could spend so much time here while homeless and struggling to eat while men here poo poo the idea that sexism is any kind of real financial burden for women.
I appear to be the only woman to have ever spent time on the leaderboard of HN (under a different handle). That's one woman out of quite a lot more than 100 people over the years given that names on the board come and go.
I like HN. I have a lot of good things to say about it. But comments like yours still leave me shaking my head and astonished at the blindness that can be found in such a generally intelligent, well educated etc crowd.
The ones that have made fortunes off of here could probably do it through any other place just as easily.
Hell, some days I feel like I can’t even get a word in, and I’m the epitome of a Silicon Valley straight white male.
I will reiterate that this is exactly why I think you were down voted: someone disagrees with you, doesn't care to engage you in discussion about it and doesn't care to deal with the fallout from voicing disagreement in an overwhelmingly male forum that will generally be sympathetic to your concerns.
If sexism is not an issue here, where are the other 16+ openly female members of the leaderboard?
Piss on me as an individual all you like, but the data does not support an assertion that gender is irrelevant on HN.
The HN forums are mostly for discussion of the tech industry and emerging tech/trends. Job hunting is very secondary here.
Women in America most definitely can support themselves easily. We are a top country for gender equality. Even with a small pay gap, women can still support themselves here. BLS has a lot of informative data on women in the workforce for those interested.
So to summarize, yes - women can support themselves without a man in the USA today. Which I think was the poster's point.
Since the 1980's California now fairly strongly pushes joint custody.
Joining with a bad business partner can ruin you completely. Dissolution of a partnership may mean one partner is disadvantaged in favour of the other partner (depending on the partnership agreement). Marriage is a special type of partnership where we have a default partnership agreement, by statute and/or common law, because it's in the best interest of society, but you can override that with a contract if you like.
If you live in a sensible jurisdiction (maybe not, you're likely in the US) family law is already gender neutral. If you don't like the idea of marriage, fine, but the problem is only marriage law if your marriage law is lousy.
No business partners would enter a deal with equal shares if one brings 1M in assets and the other zero. A marriage forces them to.
> generally speaking, Separate Property includes: •Any property that was owned by either spouse prior to the marriage; (random link with explanation: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jefflanders/2011/04/12/understa...)
1) Prenuptial agreements exist, you can alter the terms of the partnership.
2) As someone else mentioned, pre-marriage assets are generally kept separate.
3) Business partners enter into all kinds of arrangements - maybe one parter brings in less money but has more expertise, connections, or will work more hours over the life of the partnership.
They are not completely free; the law has bounds.
> Whereas in marriage, the terms are fixed by the state.
That's not true, there are default terms set by the state and, within the bounds of the law, they can modify them. Hence pre-(and post-)nuptial agreements.
> No business partners would enter a deal with equal shares if one brings 1M in assets and the other zero
You can probably find examples showing that that generalization is overstated, but, sure, that would be unusual.
> A marriage forces them to.
No, even in a “community property” state, it doesn't, even in the absence of a special agreement between the parties. Community property is generally that property acquired during the marriage; assets brought in at the formation remain separate property, in general.
See https://www.amazon.com/Price-Motherhood-Important-World-Valu... for documentation of this fact.
(Speaking anecdotally, I came out much worse off for my first marriage and that was mostly my fault. My second marriage has been a delight though.)