The conservative principle involved has to do with upholding the right to the fruit of a person’s labor and talents from arbitrary court confiscations.
Speaking for myself, it has nothing to do with males closing ranks.
If Madonna were to marry one of her aerobic trainers who a few years later divorces her after learning (surprise) that she has slept with the Los Angeles Lakers between his back, I do not agree that is proper for a court to award him half of her vast fortune.
Perhaps you would expect me to side with him because he is a male; I don’t.
While I think what Madonna did in my example was reprehensible morally, nevertheless her vast fortune has resulted almost entirely from her talent (if one can call it that) and her labor.
I think the aerobic instructor/husband should receive a healthy settlement, as he is the wronged party, but a fair amount for that bears no relation to a large percentage of her entire fortune.
Or let’s say Britney Spears marries one of her back-up dancers. Perhaps he even fathers a child or two of hers. After a few years, the back-up dancer discovers that Britney has been having sex with all of the husbands of the Real Housewives of L.A., and he divorces her.
Even though the back-up dancer/husband has been wronged by the cheatin’ Britney, in my view it would be arbitrary and unfair for a court to award half of Britney’s fortune, which has been achieved almost exclusively through her “talents” and efforts, to the wronged spouse, although he is deserving of a meaningful amount in a divorce settlement.
No, the basic principle is contract law and breech of contract. Since there is no practicable way to enforce specific performance of the marriage contract, the partnership must be dissolved.
BTW, the 50-50 split wouldn't have involved his pre-marital assets in the first place. Only the assets or increase in value that were acquired during the marriage would be in the pot to be divvied up.
I'm assuming the pre-nup spelled out what those assets were, that would not be in the marital pot.
Before no fault divorce, she might well have gotten more than half and possible all the marital assets due to the flagrancy of the breach of contract.
The beauty of faulted divorce is that it quelled infidelity because adultery could bankrupt the transgressor. Plus it discouraged "homewreckers" because a)the wronged spouse could refuse to divorce, denying the wrecker the spoils or b) a person had to be very very wealthy to afford the loss of assets a divorce would entail, so it was only common in the rarified upper, upper crust.
Men thought no fault would make serial monogamy cheap and easy, but the fact is, if the spouse gets half the assets plus child support, she defacto gets more than half and the man is bankupt or nearly so.
Moral bankruptcy leads to fiscal bankruptcy for men under both systems, but as it currently stands women fare better almost all of the time, even when she is the transgressor.
This is why feminists are against a return to faulted divorce, so they can continue to have their cake and eat it too.
Fair enough. As a female who once got sued for alimony, I can certainly grasp that concept. (And I didn't even do the Lakers or anyone else!)
But let's look at another way and instead of this being a marriage, let's look at it as an equal business partnership. Let's say that Tiger and his wife agreed to be equal partners in a venture called "The Tiger Woods Show". Both of them agreed to have different roles to contribute to the Show -- she raised the kids and handled the home front and he went out played golf and got company endorsements. Now, no one forced Tiger into this partnership against his will, he chose it, and Tiger didn't complain about his wife not directly earning money before this, nor did Tiger seek to end the partnership because "she wasn't directly earning money". Money was a non-issue because there was more than enough of it not to make a difference.
So if this were purely a business partnership, any business partnership, what would Mrs. Woods be entitled to when the business partnership ended? If I were the judge, I'd say half the assets, bought or earned during the life of the partnership, with no claims on his future earnings other than child support (which is for their kids, not for her).
IMHO, marriage is an equal partnership, regardless of how the bread-winning and child-rearing is divided up. You are either a team/partnership or you aren't. And if you are a team, then you deserve half of whatever the team produces whether you stay together and share it or end it and divide it.
A lot of guys confuse their choosing evil women with a general status of all women being evil. I think that the same may hold true for women also.
I agree. But I also think that the perceived/actual male/female roles in marriage complicate things.
Men and women are not the same -- it doesn't mean that they aren't equal. Men don't carry babies for nine months and it's far more rare (Madonna, not withstanding) for men to take a backseat to a woman's career than the other way around. That doesn't make her a slacker. Also, just because some infantile guys are like Tiger who can't keep their peepee in their pants, doesn't mean that all men are like that.
I'm mostly irritated by this whole thing because my doctor brought the conversation up the other day, showing sympathy for Tiger and his wayward pants. Like I said to him, if Tiger was your business partner and "poor Tiger" had a gambling habit that destroyed your business practice, I doubt that you'd be so sympathetic. He agreed.