I think the man that abused his pregnant wife might not be the best person to look for on the purpose of marriage. His reaction is clearly down to his wish to completely control any woman he...
If marriage is about love, then a lack of love should be the quintessential reason to divorce. However, if marriage is a contract for benefits, then it isn’t surprising that Crowder and other no-fault critics are outraged that it can be unilaterally broken.
I think the man that abused his pregnant wife might not be the best person to look for on the purpose of marriage. His reaction is clearly down to his wish to completely control any woman he manages to capture. For anyone not familiar with Crowder, he’s most famous for his “There are only two genders” meme with him “debating” passers by.
Duh, because Republicans firmly and unequivicolly have been taken over by the religious right, where divorce is a sin because marriage is a sacred eternal vow, not a bueracratic measure for making...
Duh, because Republicans firmly and unequivicolly have been taken over by the religious right, where divorce is a sin because marriage is a sacred eternal vow, not a bueracratic measure for making people's lives easier.
Their arguements are nonsense which has no place in a secular government.
Making divorce difficult makes it harder for victims to escape abusers.
List of divorces I've been privvy to seeing in my life:
Wife who divorced husband for videotaping other women in the shower by hiding cameras in their homes while visiting
Wife who divorced emotionally abusive husband
Wife who divorced emotionally abusive wife
Wife divorcing husband because she found a new man, has kids and is violating custody agreements
Husband who divorced wife because they got married young after getting pregnant at 17. They always resented each other for ruining each other's lives and both they and their kids were happier after divorce. There's about 5 of these with alternating gender of who initiated.
Not disagreeing, though my title would be: "In the wake of Dobbs, the religious right is emboldened to further weaken civil liberties." The article's title is that wishy-washy false neutrality...
Not disagreeing, though my title would be:
"In the wake of Dobbs, the religious right is emboldened to further weaken civil liberties."
The article's title is that wishy-washy false neutrality that acts like one half has a legitimate arguement.
Agree, and then some. The author says they are "alarmed", then sets up a sort of false reasonableness about the idea of taking a second look at banning no fault divorce. Pointing to anecdotes like...
The article's title is that wishy-washy false neutrality that acts like one half has a legitimate arguement.
Agree, and then some. The author says they are "alarmed", then sets up a sort of false reasonableness about the idea of taking a second look at banning no fault divorce.
Pointing to anecdotes like "Man with field seeks wife with tractor" seems designed to make it seem like these were contracts between equals. They ignore the fact that most transactions were between fathers or fathers and husband, and the women were not given much choice or agency, unless their fathers decided to do so.
Even if marriage is transactional, divorce proceedings have plenty of provision for dividing assets and property, just like the dissolution of any other contract.
From the article:
Steven Crowded ... expressed outrage and disbelief that his wife could divorce him **without his consent. ** (Emphasis added)
Here's the real point: dominance and control of women. To many in the religious right, the idea that a man's wife could assert her desires contrary to his own is repugnant. We saw it with Dobbs, we're seeing it here. They are catering to a base that is looking for a return to white male privilege.
I feel like this article makes a leap in logic that I'm struggling to follow. It defines the key principle of no-fault divorce as "the ability to divorce regardless of what the other party wants",...
I feel like this article makes a leap in logic that I'm struggling to follow. It defines the key principle of no-fault divorce as "the ability to divorce regardless of what the other party wants", but then spends the bulk of the article discussing very specifically whether love, specifically, is a "valid" reason to marry, or lack thereof a "valid" reason to divorce.
It seems like this author is sort of having a separate conversation, barely connected to the primary concern of the importance of no-fault divorce. You can agree that marriage can or even should be transactional and still be in favor of no-fault divorce; if one member of a transactional partnership feels that they are no longer receiving their expected value from that partnership, shouldn't they be able to end their participation in it? You can agree instead that marriage is a declaration of love, still be in love with your spouse, and yet wish to end your marriage for literally hundreds of reasons that you don't think you should have to prove to a judge. The question of whether marriages are "for love" feels almost wholly orthogonal to whether divorces should require state-sanctioned justification.
The important conversation here is the one that the author alludes to and then drops: "the ability to divorce regardless of what the other party wants", and rest honestly feels like sort of a nothing-burger of a thought.
There are many contracts that society agrees should cost something to break. If I sign a lease for five years, I can't just step away without paying damages. The family law system is complicated...
There are many contracts that society agrees should cost something to break. If I sign a lease for five years, I can't just step away without paying damages.
The family law system is complicated for a reason. Allowing no fault divorce simplifies things. You no longer have to prove infidelity or such like to a court. However you still have to figure out child support etc.
Family law is absolutely complicated, but IMO your reason/reasoning is overly generous. We have a legal system full of people. Some motivated by greed and power, and some just trying to do their...
Family law is absolutely complicated, but IMO your reason/reasoning is overly generous. We have a legal system full of people. Some motivated by greed and power, and some just trying to do their job and what’s right. Then it becomes a matter of trying to find what is just between two people emotionally overwrought and unfortunately too often really destructive to one another.
It’s complicated because of people. Not out of some high-minded legal framework designed to deter. That’s like saying the cops are right to be horrific and abusive and murderers because you want people to ‘fix it themselves’.
The bar is so unbelievably low on our legal system already, that I refuse to call it a Justice system. I’m not sure Justice really happens at all there anymore. It seems just like a revenue beast and boogie man. Please don’t try and rationalize for it.
When I said complicated for a reason, I was referring to complexity and history and corruption and the mix of competing policy goals the system attempts to provide for and the numbers of people...
When I said complicated for a reason, I was referring to complexity and history and corruption and the mix of competing policy goals the system attempts to provide for and the numbers of people dealing with the system.
I don't think the system is perfect or just. I do think switching away from no fault divorce will make it worse not better. I think it's hard to write laws and predict how they will impact people.
I think one aspect of the law that leaves many people cold is accepting the chance to be wronged, or seemingly wronged without recourse, because allowing that is most practicable or minimizes...
I think one aspect of the law that leaves many people cold is accepting the chance to be wronged, or seemingly wronged without recourse, because allowing that is most practicable or minimizes other forms of harm.
No fault divorces of course allow some loving spouses to be absolutely blindsided without any opportunity to know of, let alone address a problem in the relationship. Or just the simple emotional feeling that someone can do something to you (divorce), that you didn't want, with financial and other implications, without recourse. But this, in my opinion, is far and away the better system, as it gets the courts out of the business of quantifying wrongs in a relationship or trapping people in abusive or just unhappy situations.
Child support is much the same way regarding the assumptions made on the father or presumed father. Some situations are unfair to individual men, but these rules still end up minimizing the number of children lacking financial support, which is the intent of the policy.
I think this is something that the left and the right take turns figuring out, and then forgetting in the ebb and flow of time. That public policy is almost never without the chance for unfair outcomes. It seems that lately it is the right that has forgotten the harms some of our laws were keeping at bay. I suspect we will see more harms we thought left behind until the pendulum swings back the other way.
First, let me apologize for some tone there. I was overly harsh again. Embarrassingly enough, I also completely misread your comment above as somehow being against no fault divorce. It’s IMO the...
First, let me apologize for some tone there. I was overly harsh again.
Embarrassingly enough, I also completely misread your comment above as somehow being against no fault divorce. It’s IMO the way to go. No fault is as fair as I think we can or should expect to get. The rules are the rules, and you know it going in. If you want otherwise, prenups exist. This is from a divorced guy in a No-fault state with no prenup.
Also- I’ve got some baggage in this department in that that a close family friend went from having over a million dollars saved for retirement to destitute because of a malicious divorce. He’s in a trailer park and broken beyond repair in his late 70s now. It’s like a living tragic cliche. She destroyed him with a horrifying rebound marriage turned abusive, and the technicalities that allowed her to steal a retirement he built before she ever entered his life has added to my worldview about the US judicial system. You couldn’t make a believable movie from what I witnessed over about 5 years. This was not a no-fault state.
I’ve also seen patently illegal noncompete agreements enforced and good business owners needing to retain lawyers as a regular part of their business expense just because they were regularly sued by people lying and looking for a payday. Like every two years or so.
That’s actually, fortunately just about all of my legal experience. (Knocks wood). My own divorce notwithstanding, I’m trying to think of an instance where someone I knew came out of a courtroom with what I would call some kind of fairness, and I’m not sure I can. I will keep an eye out for it though, because that previous comment of mine sounds really cynical.
It’s true that many legal contracts have explicit language in them that declare penalties for violations. But that’s not so much society agreeing on those penalties as it is the two parties who...
It’s true that many legal contracts have explicit language in them that declare penalties for violations. But that’s not so much society agreeing on those penalties as it is the two parties who are entering into a contract together agreeing on them. Even in this case, the government will not force you to remain in your lease; even if there are penalties, you are allowed to break the contract.
There’s no literal legal contract signed between two people getting married in the US, though. You have to sign your marriage license application, in which you are confirming that you didn’t lie on the application, and you have to sign your marriage certificate, in which you are confirming that the marriage actually happened and you agree to it. There are no terms and conditions on these (at least, there weren’t on mine!), the they don’t represent an agreement between two individuals, but an agreement with the state.
Family law is complicated because of property ownership and parental rights, neither of which is intrinsically tied to marriage. If two people get married, but never pool their resources (not uncommon!) and don’t have children, divorce seems like it ought to be a simple matter, legally, of informing the state that the two are no longer married.
Oh this is very much not the case. Generally, once married, any wealth built during the marriage is considered marital assets, regardless of where that money is sitting, and is subject to that...
If two people get married, but never pool their resources (not uncommon!) and don’t have children, divorce seems like it ought to be a simple matter.
Oh this is very much not the case.
Generally, once married, any wealth built during the marriage is considered marital assets, regardless of where that money is sitting, and is subject to that 50/50 split upon divorce.
Wealth that was built before getting married is generally exempt from that split.
This actually simplifies matters, and insures a more-fair balance between individuals that, legally speaking, are functioning as a single unit.
If you don't want to mix assets, don't get married.
That said, that doesn't have to be done, provided the divorce is mutual. But if the state needs involved, it's very much a chopping block.
The details vary quite a bit between states. But states that don't distribute property the same way might be more generous with support awards. One way or another, the courts get involved.
The details vary quite a bit between states. But states that don't distribute property the same way might be more generous with support awards. One way or another, the courts get involved.
Yeah, the article conflates a whole lot of different concepts. The legal system has no concept of love. There's no requirement legally to love the person you're married to, or to fall out of love...
Yeah, the article conflates a whole lot of different concepts. The legal system has no concept of love. There's no requirement legally to love the person you're married to, or to fall out of love with a person you're divorcing.
Even bringing up the concept of love in this conversation is confusing things for no reason.
Honestly, it’s always about hierarchy: who submits and is obedient to whom; who is naturally as ordained by right of birth at the top. Every single cultural preoccupation and push of the current...
Honestly, it’s always about hierarchy: who submits and is obedient to whom; who is naturally as ordained by right of birth at the top. Every single cultural preoccupation and push of the current right (in the US) distills down to the same thing — who is allowed to seize control of another without, or with only incurring minimal, repercussions.
I don't see the contradiction here. Contracts can generally be broken by either party on short notice. Even if the breach goes against the term of the contract itself, general damages for breach...
If marriage is about love, then a lack of love should be the quintessential reason to divorce. However, if marriage is a contract for benefits, then it isn’t surprising that Crowder and other no-fault critics are outraged that it can be unilaterally broken.
I don't see the contradiction here. Contracts can generally be broken by either party on short notice. Even if the breach goes against the term of the contract itself, general damages for breach of contract relate to actual damages, which could include (judicially reasonable) penalty clauses.
The family law system does an adequate job of implicitly performing this calculation, namely through the division of marital property and (depending on jurisdiction and reasons) awarding spousal support. Couples who want an even more contractual marriage can arrange one through a pre-nup agreement.
Instead, I think the outrage about marriage being "unilaterally broken" comes from an implicitly religious framework. If marriage is a voluntary agreement between two people for mutual benefit, it's reasonable that it could be ended when it no longer provides a mutual benefit. If instead it is a sacrament, then God itself is a third party to the contract who ought to be satisfied. This kind of logic has little place in a secular legal system, and it ought to remain in the chapel.
I agree, although I wouldn't discount good old male chauvinism who want to treat women as property. Of course, the Venn diagram with that and religion likely has tremendous overlap.
I agree, although I wouldn't discount good old male chauvinism who want to treat women as property. Of course, the Venn diagram with that and religion likely has tremendous overlap.
I think more than that, the right believes that the contract implied in marriage is that a woman is submitting herself as the property of the man, and under his dominion.
I think more than that, the right believes that the contract implied in marriage is that a woman is submitting herself as the property of the man, and under his dominion.
I think the man that abused his pregnant wife might not be the best person to look for on the purpose of marriage. His reaction is clearly down to his wish to completely control any woman he manages to capture. For anyone not familiar with Crowder, he’s most famous for his “There are only two genders” meme with him “debating” passers by.
Duh, because Republicans firmly and unequivicolly have been taken over by the religious right, where divorce is a sin because marriage is a sacred eternal vow, not a bueracratic measure for making people's lives easier.
Their arguements are nonsense which has no place in a secular government.
Making divorce difficult makes it harder for victims to escape abusers.
List of divorces I've been privvy to seeing in my life:
I agree. But the fact that the debate is now mentioned publicly and argued is newsworthy.
Not disagreeing, though my title would be:
"In the wake of Dobbs, the religious right is emboldened to further weaken civil liberties."
The article's title is that wishy-washy false neutrality that acts like one half has a legitimate arguement.
Agree, and then some. The author says they are "alarmed", then sets up a sort of false reasonableness about the idea of taking a second look at banning no fault divorce.
Pointing to anecdotes like "Man with field seeks wife with tractor" seems designed to make it seem like these were contracts between equals. They ignore the fact that most transactions were between fathers or fathers and husband, and the women were not given much choice or agency, unless their fathers decided to do so.
Even if marriage is transactional, divorce proceedings have plenty of provision for dividing assets and property, just like the dissolution of any other contract.
From the article:
Here's the real point: dominance and control of women. To many in the religious right, the idea that a man's wife could assert her desires contrary to his own is repugnant. We saw it with Dobbs, we're seeing it here. They are catering to a base that is looking for a return to white male privilege.
I feel like this article makes a leap in logic that I'm struggling to follow. It defines the key principle of no-fault divorce as "the ability to divorce regardless of what the other party wants", but then spends the bulk of the article discussing very specifically whether love, specifically, is a "valid" reason to marry, or lack thereof a "valid" reason to divorce.
It seems like this author is sort of having a separate conversation, barely connected to the primary concern of the importance of no-fault divorce. You can agree that marriage can or even should be transactional and still be in favor of no-fault divorce; if one member of a transactional partnership feels that they are no longer receiving their expected value from that partnership, shouldn't they be able to end their participation in it? You can agree instead that marriage is a declaration of love, still be in love with your spouse, and yet wish to end your marriage for literally hundreds of reasons that you don't think you should have to prove to a judge. The question of whether marriages are "for love" feels almost wholly orthogonal to whether divorces should require state-sanctioned justification.
The important conversation here is the one that the author alludes to and then drops: "the ability to divorce regardless of what the other party wants", and rest honestly feels like sort of a nothing-burger of a thought.
There are many contracts that society agrees should cost something to break. If I sign a lease for five years, I can't just step away without paying damages.
The family law system is complicated for a reason. Allowing no fault divorce simplifies things. You no longer have to prove infidelity or such like to a court. However you still have to figure out child support etc.
Family law is absolutely complicated, but IMO your reason/reasoning is overly generous. We have a legal system full of people. Some motivated by greed and power, and some just trying to do their job and what’s right. Then it becomes a matter of trying to find what is just between two people emotionally overwrought and unfortunately too often really destructive to one another.
It’s complicated because of people. Not out of some high-minded legal framework designed to deter. That’s like saying the cops are right to be horrific and abusive and murderers because you want people to ‘fix it themselves’.
The bar is so unbelievably low on our legal system already, that I refuse to call it a Justice system. I’m not sure Justice really happens at all there anymore. It seems just like a revenue beast and boogie man. Please don’t try and rationalize for it.
When I said complicated for a reason, I was referring to complexity and history and corruption and the mix of competing policy goals the system attempts to provide for and the numbers of people dealing with the system.
I don't think the system is perfect or just. I do think switching away from no fault divorce will make it worse not better. I think it's hard to write laws and predict how they will impact people.
I think one aspect of the law that leaves many people cold is accepting the chance to be wronged, or seemingly wronged without recourse, because allowing that is most practicable or minimizes other forms of harm.
No fault divorces of course allow some loving spouses to be absolutely blindsided without any opportunity to know of, let alone address a problem in the relationship. Or just the simple emotional feeling that someone can do something to you (divorce), that you didn't want, with financial and other implications, without recourse. But this, in my opinion, is far and away the better system, as it gets the courts out of the business of quantifying wrongs in a relationship or trapping people in abusive or just unhappy situations.
Child support is much the same way regarding the assumptions made on the father or presumed father. Some situations are unfair to individual men, but these rules still end up minimizing the number of children lacking financial support, which is the intent of the policy.
I think this is something that the left and the right take turns figuring out, and then forgetting in the ebb and flow of time. That public policy is almost never without the chance for unfair outcomes. It seems that lately it is the right that has forgotten the harms some of our laws were keeping at bay. I suspect we will see more harms we thought left behind until the pendulum swings back the other way.
Like Measles. :(
Yeah, unfortunately.
First, let me apologize for some tone there. I was overly harsh again.
Embarrassingly enough, I also completely misread your comment above as somehow being against no fault divorce. It’s IMO the way to go. No fault is as fair as I think we can or should expect to get. The rules are the rules, and you know it going in. If you want otherwise, prenups exist. This is from a divorced guy in a No-fault state with no prenup.
Also- I’ve got some baggage in this department in that that a close family friend went from having over a million dollars saved for retirement to destitute because of a malicious divorce. He’s in a trailer park and broken beyond repair in his late 70s now. It’s like a living tragic cliche. She destroyed him with a horrifying rebound marriage turned abusive, and the technicalities that allowed her to steal a retirement he built before she ever entered his life has added to my worldview about the US judicial system. You couldn’t make a believable movie from what I witnessed over about 5 years. This was not a no-fault state.
I’ve also seen patently illegal noncompete agreements enforced and good business owners needing to retain lawyers as a regular part of their business expense just because they were regularly sued by people lying and looking for a payday. Like every two years or so.
That’s actually, fortunately just about all of my legal experience. (Knocks wood). My own divorce notwithstanding, I’m trying to think of an instance where someone I knew came out of a courtroom with what I would call some kind of fairness, and I’m not sure I can. I will keep an eye out for it though, because that previous comment of mine sounds really cynical.
No worries. No harm no foul.
It’s true that many legal contracts have explicit language in them that declare penalties for violations. But that’s not so much society agreeing on those penalties as it is the two parties who are entering into a contract together agreeing on them. Even in this case, the government will not force you to remain in your lease; even if there are penalties, you are allowed to break the contract.
There’s no literal legal contract signed between two people getting married in the US, though. You have to sign your marriage license application, in which you are confirming that you didn’t lie on the application, and you have to sign your marriage certificate, in which you are confirming that the marriage actually happened and you agree to it. There are no terms and conditions on these (at least, there weren’t on mine!), the they don’t represent an agreement between two individuals, but an agreement with the state.
Family law is complicated because of property ownership and parental rights, neither of which is intrinsically tied to marriage. If two people get married, but never pool their resources (not uncommon!) and don’t have children, divorce seems like it ought to be a simple matter, legally, of informing the state that the two are no longer married.
Oh this is very much not the case.
Generally, once married, any wealth built during the marriage is considered marital assets, regardless of where that money is sitting, and is subject to that 50/50 split upon divorce.
Wealth that was built before getting married is generally exempt from that split.
This actually simplifies matters, and insures a more-fair balance between individuals that, legally speaking, are functioning as a single unit.
If you don't want to mix assets, don't get married.
That said, that doesn't have to be done, provided the divorce is mutual. But if the state needs involved, it's very much a chopping block.
The details vary quite a bit between states. But states that don't distribute property the same way might be more generous with support awards. One way or another, the courts get involved.
Yeah, the article conflates a whole lot of different concepts. The legal system has no concept of love. There's no requirement legally to love the person you're married to, or to fall out of love with a person you're divorcing.
Even bringing up the concept of love in this conversation is confusing things for no reason.
Honestly, it’s always about hierarchy: who submits and is obedient to whom; who is naturally as ordained by right of birth at the top. Every single cultural preoccupation and push of the current right (in the US) distills down to the same thing — who is allowed to seize control of another without, or with only incurring minimal, repercussions.
I don't see the contradiction here. Contracts can generally be broken by either party on short notice. Even if the breach goes against the term of the contract itself, general damages for breach of contract relate to actual damages, which could include (judicially reasonable) penalty clauses.
The family law system does an adequate job of implicitly performing this calculation, namely through the division of marital property and (depending on jurisdiction and reasons) awarding spousal support. Couples who want an even more contractual marriage can arrange one through a pre-nup agreement.
Instead, I think the outrage about marriage being "unilaterally broken" comes from an implicitly religious framework. If marriage is a voluntary agreement between two people for mutual benefit, it's reasonable that it could be ended when it no longer provides a mutual benefit. If instead it is a sacrament, then God itself is a third party to the contract who ought to be satisfied. This kind of logic has little place in a secular legal system, and it ought to remain in the chapel.
I agree, although I wouldn't discount good old male chauvinism who want to treat women as property. Of course, the Venn diagram with that and religion likely has tremendous overlap.
Yeah I think it's key that divorce in the past was rarely a mutual decision, it is about who can make the unilateral decision.
I think more than that, the right believes that the contract implied in marriage is that a woman is submitting herself as the property of the man, and under his dominion.
I agree with you.