Justification for the following?

Question

Allow me to propose a situation, in which there is a man and a woman who are married. Several years pass, and its become obvious that they absolutely hate the sight of each other, and want a divorce. At this point, the assets of the marriage are divided.

During the marriage, the husband worked 8 hours a day, 5 days a week while the wife decided on a more traditional role, and played housewife. No children were born during this period.

Why is it that the wife would be given approximately half the total assets of the marriage when it was the husband who put in the majority of the effort to obtain them? (I'm glazing over the fact that both contest the sharing of the assets, and the divorce court has decided on an equal split.) This is not to say that the woman did not help in maintaining her husband while he worked, but was her efforts worth half of what was earned?

Opinions?

I thought I should add the following before I get lynched; THIS IS NOTHING MORE THAN A HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION. Holy cow, apparently people are projecting me into this scenario...

Answer 1

When it comes to situations like this where the woman stays at home and the husband brings home the proverbial bread (or visa versa because there are house husbands with working women its just less common) the woman is in charge of keeping the house clean, the laundry washed, meals prepaired and any other general house work that needs to be done. Believe it or not, this is a full time job. In sociaty today most families have to have both adults in the family working just to make ends meat and the woman usually has to do this full time job on top of her money makeing full time job. When a family can afford to have only one member of the family working the paycheck brought home by the other person covers her "salery" for doing the work at home. She becomes dependant on that one paycheck and as time goes on and she is out of the workforce for that amount of time. The change in life style affects her negatively in several ways. 1: She has been out of the work force that long and since she has not worked in that many years she will not have enough experiance to get a job that pays well and as we age it becomes even more difficult to find a job to take a person like this in. 2: People become used to a certain life style as provided in the relationship. Just because the man "pays" for the house does not mean that she did not contribute to the home and the woman would have to start over all on her own. Now in some situations where the person at home has not done the things that I mentioned above where if it can be proven, they should not get half of what was put into the relationship based on our beliefs but that is where the court comes in and tells us that being in a relationship for that long everything was an equal partnership because what is being argued over is the money. I can not say that I agree or disagree with the situation you have provided but I do have some understanding of why it is done the way it is. Even if she sais that she did not contribute and does not want half of the assets the court is going to say that she deserves it because she was with the man, lived as his wife and provided aspects of the relationship that would not have been there with out her, she deserves her share of the life built by not one but two people. If this is you or your friend going through this, I wish you the best of luck. Matters of the heart are hard enough before you add money into the issue and once added it just makes things that much more difficult.

Answer 2

Here's why it pays to know the law BEFORE one gets all goo goo eyed then marries. Marriages are treated, financially, almost like ONE PERSON unless a case can be made for otherwise. Of course, by the time divorce comes up, the higher earner is probably going to say the other person sat around eating bonbons during the marriage while they worked their a** off. This happens often (but not always). The question becomes: why did you let your marriage go on like this? At some point, you probably agreed to it. And if you agreed to it... well, who is anybody to tell two people how to run their marriage?

When someone supports their spouse through graduate school, or through work in an intense business, is it worth half of their earnings? I think most often, yes. Regardless of gender. Homemaking is a very important thing (somebody sign me up for a wife who isn't female... sometimes I wish I were a lesbian then I could have a great woman for a wife). I think an executive who makes 7-8 figures and who has a spouse who truly supports him or her, is sharing their life, has an obligation to share the earnings of the job as well. Equally. This is what "for richer or for poorer" means. If the marriage starts to fail, well, there's nothing wrong with stepping back and reconsidering. Although if the marriage was long term, or the support during the "startup period" (like med school, for instance) was significant, the supporting spouse should probably continue to reap some benefit from your continued earnings.

Marriage is a very intimate partnership, requiring high levels of trust. I think those who lobby for making divorce more difficult are self rightous. Why not make getting married and getting divorced EQUALLY difficult? Then people would have to learn about marriage, and what they're signing up for at least.

By the way, by using the term "played housewife," it is already obvious that you really understand little about marriage or the importance of a true partnership. You've already projected yourself into the scenario--in spite of it being hypothetical--by demonstrating your level of respect for homemakers. That's what's upsetting people.

Answer 3

It's really a lot simpler than that.

The courts cannot and will not EVER know the full extent of any spouse's contribution to any given marriage. They were not there. GIVEN that they cannot know truly who did what, who suffered, who worked how hard, what was assumed, what was taken for granted, what was agreed upon, they MUST therefore try to be as fair and equitable as they possibly can. For that reason, even if it makes no actual sense to divide the assets if you KNOW the details of the marriage, the courts generally divide those assets equally simply because most of the time they DO NOT and CAN NOT know those details, and so this is a fair as they can be in the circumstances.

Answer 4

I believe that if she was a conscientious wife, she did work hard at helping her husband maintain the ability to work long hours and earn money. Now obviously, this didn't happen if the house was a mess and there was never anything to eat and his shirts weren't ironed or the laundry done. But, if she kept things up and was generally a "good" wife, she is entitled to half of the assets. I'm assuming too that it was a joint decision that she did not work. Do you feel that she should leave the marriage with nothing to start a new life when she gave her unpaid "services" for the several years?

Answer 5

Basically the law holds the view that while the individual who worked outside the home received compensation for their time & effort that the individual who was the homemaker did not. Also there is a consequence of being outside of the labor market for an extended period of time that will directly affect the ability of that individual to care for themselves financially.

In the less legal, more social, view while the "man" in this case may have worked to obtain these goods, the "woman" maintained them. If he were to pay her in back wages for the laundry, cleaning, sexual tasks, home supplies (who was buying the cleaning supplies, lotions, towels, sheets, etc?), personal care (who took care of him when he was sick & couldn't go to work? and who bought the medicine?) and home maintenance, in addition to some sort of severance package then I'm pretty sure that it would come up to a pretty penny... almost about half his wages and/or assets I would think. Housework is not play... that's why it's not called houseplay. Also, the husband was clearly aware of what was occurring as I don't think she hid the fact that she wished to be a homemaker from him. If he wanted someone who would work outside of the home, then several years after marriage may not have been the time to decide that. Also no mention was made of plans to have children... while none were born, was there an assumption that after birth, she would continue her work in the home with the addition of this new title & responsibilities with no increase in compensation? All of these are factors that play into the awarding of assets in a divorce with some of the parameters you mention.

Answer 6

Work is part of a marriage, but not the marriage. The marriage was a partnership in which the two partners decided to, before or after the ceremony, conduct the marriage in a way they each agreed on. When the partnership ends they each have a claim to half of what they put together over the years.

Answer 7

I think she should get 40% because staying at home doing chores is far easire than working 8 hours. Especially if you do not like the job. (since they were only 2, dishes shouldn't have been a big problem)

But if the man and the woman both work the same amount of time (hours/week) then more of the assets should go to whoever makes the most money. What isn't fair though, is if you make more $$ than your wife and she still gets half.

Answer 8

I know of situations where the husband had a low paying part time job and the wife worked in a higher paying professional capacity. She would come home from work and do all the housework and bathe the kids and make the meals. He was entitled to half of the assets not to mention half of her pension. When asked if he wanted to share custody of the children he declined. This is simply how the law works.

Answer 9

First, "PLAY" housewife?

No wonder your wife hates you.

Housework is work, and it's not 8/5, it's 16/7.

When they married, that's what they agreed to: she would maintain the home so he could focus on the money.

Look at it this way, by your way of thinking, no wife would ever be willing to give up the opportunity to make her own money.

She slaved for him, and he didn't pay her for it.

That's what enabled him to both focus on his job, and have all that free time free.

Because she was working over-time and double-time doing everything else.

He should not be able to get out of the consequences of the agreement he made.

This society is really sick for believing that money is the sole value, and only things done for money are worthwhile. Your line of reasoning is just one of the consequences of that sickness.

Answer 10

Personaly, I would never choose to be a 'house wife'. I married the man, not the house. I married the man, not his laundry, cooking or cleaning needs. I married the man, not his pay check or his want to have his basic survival needs catered to as if he were my little son.

I would never decide to go into a marriage where my husband pays me to cater to him and run the house as if it were his hotel. I would never make the decision to forgo my dreams, goals and life experience in favor of his. To me, that's just ludicrous. A woman who enters this type of marriage knows exactly what she's doing - there's a spoken and unspoken arrangement between both of them. She chooses to depend on his money as if he were her father. As far as I'm concerned, every woman has the wherewithall to make her own money. This 'house wife' nonesense is just that...nonesense.

They both made a pretentious (as in pretend) agreement before marrying. Did it ever occur to anyone that this is percisely why many get divorced? It was not an egalitarian relationship - it was a parental one. She flip flops from being little girl to mommy to slavin it out like cinderella. He flip flops from being catered to like a cherished son with intervals of being the daddy figure.

As far as this pity nonsense about how she "gave up her career therefor has been out of the market"..I say balderdash. She had a choice and she decided to be a 'housewife'. That is her fault as nobody forced her to make that choice. She made it, so she can take responsibility for it. If he wouldn't marry her unless she became a housewife - then she had a choice to say "goodbye" right then.

When the inevitable divorce comes should she get half? Well at least some severance pay - he was afterall, her employer.