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There are really no guidelines on custody division now. Guidelines deal with "support" after custody is decided upon. I have yet to find any state which lays out guidelines on who custody should be awarded to. Some of them list things that should be considered in determining custody. But the custody determination is still left up to the judge.

That is where the system falls short as far as I can tell...it's that too much discretion is left solely to one individual. Even for a father who does get hit with an unfairly high order, it often falls back to a judge who knows the guy was laid off and thinks he should be able to immediately jump back into a new job earning the exact same rate of pay. That is an individual decision...that is not guideline.

I agree that custody guidelines, state to state, are murky, and leave to much to whatever a given judge wants. So, were there binding custody/support guidelines, written by you, what would they say?

"I have yet to find any state which lays out guidelines on who custody should be awarded to."

Michigan has a 12 point written guide that is required to be used to determine "best interest of the children" vis-a-vis custody determination.

Remarkably, they still routinely grant custody to women.

I guess we can only conclude that this is evidence that women are by far the better parents, since as we all know, the state would never practice bias or tokenism.