October 19, 2007

• Is the idea of marriage too outdated for the 21st century?

  Just like rolling your eyes, leaving the lid off the toothpaste, and putting the toilet paper on the spool backward (or not at all). 
     

  I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

  I have given some thought to this question and since I WAS asked, I'm going to tell you more of what I think. 

  I think that the law surrounding marriage as a practical matter needs to be strengthened.  I believe that property rights between all couples should be equally protected, not just the few with pre-nup agreements.  And btw, I don't believe that a pre-nup guarantees a fair division of property in the case of a divorce. 

  I think that property rights within a marriage should be strengthened so that one partner cannot obligate the other with debt.  If they both agree to the debt, then let it be joint debt, but it's still entirely possible for one person to have credit cards, buy houses, open businesses, and engage in all manner of financial behavior without the other partner's knowledge or agreement.  And then if (as so often happens) debt, disaster, and the IRS come calling - both partners are equally obligated to pay. 

  I think that many people will choose to marry and not only intend to make it last a lifetime but will in fact be together for the rest of their lives.  However, I would like it to be at least considered that marriage is a renewable license.  Say every 7 years.  You must reapply and there should be more to the process than merely paying a license fee.  There needs to be a full disclosure of assets, a demonstration of provision for children, and either a completed certificate from a marriage counselor or dispensation from the same showing that both partners have met basic skill levels necessary to continue to drive the relationship into the future. 

  I think we need to revisit the idea of the "no-fault" divorce.  Most laws today assume that when a couple divorces they just had insurmountable problems as a couple and that neither party is more or less to blame.  There is no testimony allowed in the courtroom about broken promises, nights spent alone, financial mismanagement, abusive behavior, or a host of other issues which no reasonable person would be expected to tolerate in any other relationship.  When a marriage ends, the legal assumption that both were equally to blame for the failure often serves to heap blame on a partner who refused to tolerate bad behavior as though that intolerance of intolerable circumstances were a character flaw on her (or his) part. 

  Several months ago I saw an article about "the most costly Hollywood divorces" and it listed a number of settlements where the famous partner "paid" millions of dollars to the less famous partner as though the money were his or hers alone and the receiving partner were somehow gaining through the transaction.  In every single example the "paying" partner was left with assets that were 4, 5, or 6 times the amount "paid" to the partner being divorced.

  The point of that author was that these payers should have had a better pre-nup to protect themselves from an unfair division of assets.  The way I saw it, the receiving partner was one day a person with a comfortable home and access to 50% of the assets of the marriage and the day after might or might not have a home and now  had access to 20% of the assets if they were lucky.  Seems to me like it was a lot more expensive for that partner than the one doing the "paying".

  And of course, in this article as it often is in real life, it was wives and children who got the lesser amount while the husband/father retained 70-90% of the wealth.  Call me a cynical greedy grasping bitch (as was one of the wives quoted in that article) but I'd like to see laws that do a little better job of settling property division so that wives and children aren't struggling to eat while the husband/father's standard of living goes up exponentially at their expense. 

  Because that same inequity of division occurrs at every level of society, and the women of middle class backgrounds aren't getting millions, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars when their marriage ends.  Divorce is one of the chief causes of poverty for women and children in this country, and that's a problem. 

  The laws, rules, attitudes, opinions, and perspectives I see on marriage are vestiges of another time, place and culture.  What we have today doesn't work for a great many people and our courts collude to punish women and children when a marriage ends regardless of circumstances that lead to the end of the marriage. 

  In order for marriage to continue as a respectable institution, we need to make some changes in the laws regarding marriage.  (And you'll note please that the problems I've outlined today have nothing to do with the debate about whether non-traditional family arrangements should be included in the definition of  marriage.  That's a blog for another day, and I have an opinion about that too.)

  

  • 10:54 am
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