Posted on 07/15/2003 1:45:35 PM PDT by Nick Danger
This may work for low or middle-status men as well and in the worst case they can always use prostitutes, it's still cheaper than child support.
I am not sure where things are heading on the government side, but the simple law of supply and demand tells me that the shortage of marriage-minded men may give men an opportunity to dictate the price (provided they are smart enough to recognize the opportunity.) Also, we may see even more cohabitation.
But isn't the Law, the Law? Once he has offspring with someone, he's still screwed if she bails out. Maybe he gets to shop around more and has more choice, but the gov't is not on his side.
Also, we may see even more cohabitation.
I agree, but how does that help either partner, aside from avoiding taxes? He is still responsible for the offspring, in the same way. Actually, he has less rights in custody proceedings (if less were possible)
A hot older lady (early-mid 40's) with lots of her previous husband's money who will use me for cheap sex, likes guns, and takes me on cool vacations where there are golf courses.
My end of the bargain is wild booty-slapping sex, looking good on her arm, not saying anything dumb to friends she is trying to impress, helping her spend her ex's money and being both charming and delightful.
But isn't the Law, the Law? Once he has offspring with someone, he's still screwed if she bails out. Maybe he gets to shop around more and has more choice, but the gov't is not on his side.
You are mostly right, but the law of supply and demand means that men can make demands prior to getting married, such as requiring a prenuptial agreement, requiring that the prospective spouse be debt-free etc.
Also, we may see even more cohabitation.
I agree, but how does that help either partner, aside from avoiding taxes? He is still responsible for the offspring, in the same way. Actually, he has less rights in custody proceedings (if less were possible)
There still may be child support but there usually is no alimony and no division of property. Far from ideal, but better than marriage.
Other things may happen. We may see more men becoming self-employed/incorporated in order to obfuscate the financial picture. We may see men emigrate in order to escape child support (actually, I'm surprised it's not happening yet, at least not on a large scale.)
A pre-nup doesnt get you out of the child support leg irons. Remember, child support payments now are about equal to what child support plus alimony used to be 30 yrs ago, as a percentage of your salary.
Also, we may see even more cohabitation. ...There still may be child support but there usually is no alimony and no division of property. Far from ideal, but better than marriage.
But how about property aquired after cohabitation began? I'm not sure he gets to keep all that. But as I mentioned above, alimony is not the big problem (most women work or remarry, etc) as much as child support is, which can absolutely strangle a guy. If you marry and divorce before having kids, its not that bad a financial problem. .. You might see more childless couples, of course....
Other things may happen. We may see more men becoming self-employed/incorporated in order to obfuscate the financial picture. We may see men emigrate in order to escape child support (actually, I'm surprised it's not happening yet, at least not on a large scale.)
The latter, for sure, if there was somewhere the guy without a lot of money could go. More than a few men change their identity and slip off to Mexico and Canada; often with their kids, illegally.
Again, all these things mentioned are destructive to society as a whole.
IMO they will tinker around the edges and never get to the root of the problem. And then things will get really, really bad.
Nature uses a whole bunch of processes that are episodic and catastrophic: forest fires, asteroid strikes, etc., where basically everything gets reset to zero quickly, and then the building process starts over again. These phenomena are "cyclical," but the waveforms are more like a sawtooth than a sine wave. This could be one of those. I hope it's one of those. In that one we have some kind of economic/political implosion that looks like Very Hard Times to the people going through it, but it is not the end. There is another kind of process that can also look like this, but the sawtooth drop does mark the end; there is no next cycle. Disease organisms are like that... they go into runaway "success," but what is success to them is death to their host organism, whose death ends the game for them as well. If Western Civilization can't keep its geography populated, the "success" of the people who made that happen will end with the same big thud. I don't think Gay Pride Day appears in Qu'ran, and neither do female-friendly divorce courts. |
Such gigs are hard to find. A guy I know gets into them occasionally -- he's in construction, in good shape (or, he was. Age catches up with us all), etc. The relationships don't last.
The problem is that the situation is asymmetrical. Guys go for looks, girls go for status, and a guy that you are supporting is just not high-status to your friends.
By the way, I am a divorced father and I do not pay child support, thanks to the joint custody.
But all in all, life is splendid . . . simply splendid!
The bank account of your common sense is diwndling to its last few tacky pennies.
This assumes that the prenup gets enforced. The courts may decide to enforce it, or may disregard it as "against public policy". See here. Also, provisions regarding child support are prohibited (see here) and any prenup which would "provide a standard of living far below that which was enjoyed before the marriage" will also be unenforcable (see prior link). Also, it may be cancelled if one party "signed under duress" (here), where "duress" may be found to include "sign this or I won't marry you"
Bottom line: a prenup may not be enforcible against her, but certainly WILL be enforced against YOU)
I commiserate, and as far as your kids go ,you are fairly lucky, IMO.. My best friend got dumped by his ex-wife and now pays well over 40 % of his gross in child support alone. He lives in a tiny walk-up in NYC while his wife and kids have a nice big apt on the Upper East Side. He was pretty near suicidal after it first happened; he certainly is not the same person he was 10 yrs ago, in many ways. And he can barely influence his kids' upbringing, either. Very sad.
As opposed to what? My 'nice Christian Ex' spent all our savings on crap, tarot reading and vice and then called the cops on me when I complained....
The bank account of your common sense is diwndling to its last few tacky pennies.
That is the most tortured metaphor I have ever seen. It's dwindling along with my actual bank account 'cuz I initially believed in marriage and life-long bonding and got scroooooooooood by the law like so, so many other men..... Which is the point of this article, dope.
Eat yer heart out SauronofMordor.... :)
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