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Nicolina
02-10-2007, 07:31 PM
^Ummmm, post #145 was written by a guy. An Australian guy at that.

Deogol
02-10-2007, 07:38 PM
^Ummmm, post #145 was written by a guy. An Australian guy at that.

An unfortunate Jim Jones convert.

Apparently he agrees with women out there that she had no part in getting preggers and it is up to the man to pay for her pain - no matter what choice she makes.

Regardless, my assertion remains basically true.

Nicolina
02-10-2007, 08:09 PM
An unfortunate Jim Jones convert.

Apparently he agrees with women out there that she had no part in getting preggers and it is up to the man to pay for her pain - no matter what choice she makes.

Regardless, my assertion remains basically true.

Wasn't your assertion that "American women" believe this? I don't see any American women agreeing with the ideas in that post. So I don't know what the hell you're talking about.

All I can say is that if I had a child who didn't live with me, I would want that child to have a high standard of living, even if it meant that my ex would share that standard of living. :eek:

Unless, of course, I was a bitter, hateful, selfish shithead who could care less what happened to my own kid as long as my baby's father never asked me for anything, struggled to provide a good life for the child, and just generally suffered as much as I felt he deserved to.

Happily, I'm not.

Deogol
02-10-2007, 08:18 PM
Wasn't your assertion that "American women" believe this? I don't see any American women agreeing with the ideas in that post. So I don't know what the hell you're talking about.

All I can say is that if I had a child who didn't live with me, I would want that child to have a high standard of living, even if it meant that my ex would share that standard of living. :eek:

Unless, of course, I was a bitter, hateful, selfish shithead who could care less what happened to my own kid as long as my baby's father never asked me for anything, struggled to provide a good life for the child, and just generally suffered as much as I felt he deserved to.

Happily, I'm not.


Well, I am not talking about babies - that double standard was merely an example of why it's no good to get married anymore and in the least why men see no benefit in putting nothing else but their heart on the line.

Hell, read the earlier postings - if women don't need to get married anymore - why should men? The thread just went off on a tangent.

(I'll just remind all those folks who put their kids up for adoption they are selfish, bitter, hateful, shit heads for not taking better care of their kids.)

I am simply speaking of a lot of American women in general. You know it's the truth.

Nicolina
02-10-2007, 08:50 PM
I am simply speaking of a lot of American women in general. You know it's the truth.

I don't.

In fact, I spend substantial amounts of time, energy & other resources helping to raise kids whose fathers give them nothing.

And does their mom complain about it? No. She works her ass off to provide for her children entirely by herself.

And as for adoption, most people give up their children for adoption because they believe that their children will have better lives and a higher standard of living as a result. So your little parenthetical aside there really makes no sense whatsoever.

FTR, Deogol, I can't remember if it was you or someone else who seemed so dead-set against providing anything beyond the bare necessities for your children. But whoever it was, his attitude really horrifies me.

From a biological perspective, it is maladaptive to be so fucking stingy about providing resources for children who carry half your genes. Just saying.

From a human perspective, it's just plain fucked up.

Deogol
02-10-2007, 09:02 PM
Go on - keep talking about children when we all know the thread started about the shitty attitude American women have.

We all know that's the only leg you have to stand up on - and hell, ya gotta do what ya gotta do to keep the illusion.

Nicolina
02-10-2007, 09:36 PM
^Well, I'm glad you feel that children are a different story. That's all I have to say. Wasn't attacking you. The thread started on marriage but at some point everyone started talking about child support.

I do think that spousal support is sort of an outdated thing, a holdover from a time when women rarely worked outside the home and were almost always left destitute in the event of divorce. If there are no kids involved, I don't think a woman has much real reason to demand spousal support--unless, perhaps, she forewent her own education and worked as a stripper to put her man through med school or something! :P

Seriously, if a woman works while her husband goes to professional school, and she is left without a degree and he's making six figures and then he decides to leave her for some hot 21-year-old nursing student, I can see where she has a case to ask for some kind of spousal support.

Otherwise, when people who share no children part ways, each should be left to their own devices.:twocents:

salsa4ever
02-13-2007, 08:49 AM
The problem with this conception is that pregnancy is not a tort.



Okay my issue here is that you are mixing contract and family law. Pregnancy is still not a tort, and buying babies is not legal (that is it is not enforceable).


Again - pregnancy is not a tort. There are no obligations to a person because she is pregnant. This is again, the difference between pregnancy and children. That is, I cannot see any principle that justifies a claim simply for being pregnant. Also - you are throwing around some fairly significant sums. You do realize that most people will be judgement proof against this, right? I also question how this is different than the extremely regressive understanding that men simply get to choose which children to legitimate and illegitimate. Outside of characterizing pregnancy as a tort (which is wholly impracticable), how exactly is this different than Deogol's proposition that men should simply be able to decide which children are their's and which are the bastards?


Oh wow. You're a little naive, considering the issue we just had with child support.


Are you joking with this?


I think I've pointed out the first couple of problems. Okay - a compromise - a change has to make us BETTER off than we are now. This doesn't, if for no other reason that it is imposing tortious liability for making a chick pregnant. Keep in mind that there is no such thing as "financial abortion". It's a catch-phrase invented to try to equate the choice to pay child support with the choice to continue a pregnancy. These things are not the same, medically, legally or socially. There is an inherent difference between a pregnancy and a child. A woman does not have the (legal) option to terminate a child; nor does she have an option to not pay child support to the other parent (also keep in mind that adoption is no longer unilateral. Both parents need to surrender parental rights).

Keep in mind that family law is different than contract - that is contracts and agreements regarding some issues like pregnancy and children are not enforceable. So there is some question about whether or not one parent is capable to surrendering the right to child support for the child (under any kind of legal umbrella).

I do appreciate the genuine effort though.


Having been too busy to come back to this for a few days I reread some of my quoted passages and it does sound pretty dumb.

However the fact that preganancy is currently not a tort doesn't actually address the substantive question of whether it should be.


I think I've actually altogether missed the fundamental problems. The first is the usually unstated, but de facto existant presumption that the woman is the preferred candidate for custody if both parents want custody. Sure sometimes the man doesn't want custody. But there are many cases where it seems the child is given to the woman where the only thing she had over the man was being a woman. I think we can both agree that winning custody of the child is a massive advantage in a property settlement also; the paramountcy principle can become overbearing (not saying the child shouldn't come first... but 'paramount' is a very strong word). Another is spousal support, which should be awarded only in very particular circumstances.

Jenny
02-13-2007, 09:48 AM
Having been too busy to come back to this for a few days I reread some of my quoted passages and it does sound pretty dumb.
I still appreciated the attempt to come up with an alternate plan. But it sounds like you are trying to address the issue of reintegrating bastardization into our society (I told you I hate the term financial abortion) by dealing with issues surrounding pregnancy, not child support. That just doesn't seem sound to me, as they are fundamentally separate. I mean, the right to access to abortion is founded on bodily integrity, not financial ability. And, as I have said 10 000 times, there is a fundamental different in our society between bodily integrity and forcing people to "do things" and forcing people to pay for things. There is no way to coherently conflate having to pay with having to continue a pregnancy. So there is an inherent and (again!) fundamental difference in "reproductive rights" and "the right to refuse to pay child support." CO mentioned the former - so I'm interested in what proposals he might have to rectify what he sees as a complete dearth of reproductive rights. Not paying child support has NOTHING to do with reproduction.


However the fact that preganancy is currently not a tort doesn't actually address the substantive question of whether it should be.
No... but I think the part where I said there is no legal principle that would justify characterizing it as such does address that question. Plus there are very, very sound public policy arguments against such a characterization. So you're fighting both law and policy; you'd better have some pretty compelling characterization up your sleeves, then. But if you do... let's hear it. I'm interested.


I think I've actually altogether missed the fundamental problems. The first is the usually unstated, but de facto existant presumption that the woman is the preferred candidate for custody if both parents want custody. Sure sometimes the man doesn't want custody. But there are many cases where it seems the child is given to the woman where the only thing she had over the man was being a woman. I think we can both agree that winning custody of the child is a massive advantage in a property settlement also; the paramountcy principle can become overbearing (not saying the child shouldn't come first... but 'paramount' is a very strong word). Another is spousal support, which should be awarded only in very particular circumstances.
Well. Spousal support IS awarded only in very particular circumstances (in most places); usually where there is an unusual degree of dependence, or an unusual "debt" accrued during the marriage; even then it is levied usually for a limited period of time. So there we're okay.

I'm not sure I agree that winning custody of the child is a massive advantage in property settlement. I'd need some examples - my suspicion is that you are referring to the family home, but I assume that you know that in most places, if one is allowed to keep the family home it is as a residence. Both parties retain a property interest (in most cases in which there is only one home. I'm not concerned about Donald Trump's division of assets). So I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here and assuming that you are actually thinking of something else. Keep in mind that most people don't actually HAVE any assets to divide on divorce except the home and car.

(I did have to google paramountcy principle; here it is a constitutional principle - I was like "what does the division of federal and provincial powers have to do with this?"). If the child should come first, what is the problem with the word "paramountcy"? Why do you find this standard to be too onerous? What do you think it should be balanced against?

Finally - in reference to the contention that there are many cases in which the child is given to the woman merely because she is a woman... are there? Are you sure? Like, are you sure that in these cases the woman is not (as she is in most families) the primary care giver? The one that is first on the emergency contact list, the one who historically leaves work to pick up the sick child from school, the one who foregos overtime at the office to be at home etc.?

Katrine
02-13-2007, 01:10 PM
I read this book called "4 Blondes" by Candace Bushnell. She wrote the original "Sex and the City". In the book, this one blonde is dating a very wealthy man who only fucks her in the ass. She thinks its because he's kinky until she finds out he only fucks and all all women in the ass. This is for paternity reasons.

So, Deogol, who is still on my ignorelistbutijustcan'thelpmyself: A man has SEVERAL choices not to become a father and still get laid:
abstinence
oral
anal
homosexual
autoerotic
etc...........

In the famous words of John Stagliano, "pussies are bullshit!"

threlayer
02-13-2007, 03:45 PM
Maybe it's the old idea of: why buy the cow (or put it on a harness) when you can get it to come along home on its own?

salsa4ever
02-13-2007, 08:14 PM
Well. Spousal support IS awarded only in very particular circumstances (in most places); usually where there is an unusual degree of dependence, or an unusual "debt" accrued during the marriage; even then it is levied usually for a limited period of time. So there we're okay.



I haven't worked out how to split up your quotes yet.

Disclaimers: This applies to Australia, and I am using the stereotypical “woman” as denoting the financially weak party and “man” as the defendant as is usually the case, simply as a shorthand.

The three major topics in family law is spousal support, child support and property settlement. I’m leaving child support to last because it’s the one I have least gripes with, and as you have shown I don’t have any workable improvements to it.

1) Spousal support: I think we're quite different to your description in Australia.

The basis of spousal support is found in the (CTH) Family Law Act 1975 s 75(2). “Spouses, to the extent that they are able to do so, have an obligation to maintain each other provided that the party seeking maintenance is unable to support himself or herself”. So the crucial issue is the interpretation of “unable to support”; how has the judiciary interpreted this and is it too narrow or too wide? I’m contending the threshhold is set too low i.e. too easy to get spousal support.

In the Marriage of Nutting (1978) 30 FLR 555 (because you won’t be familiar with Australian citations and legal systems I’ll just comment on how important/unimportant the cases I cite are in accordance to our court hierachy. This one is foundational) the court establishes a principle that spouses should be facilitated to maintain their standard of living to the extent reasonable in the circumstances. There is now two conflicting lines of authority; one that Nutting created a presumption that the “better off” should be obligated to continue the spouse’s standard of living where reasonable. It doesn’t say “fair or reasonable”. “Reasonable” in these circumstances has been interpreted as a reference to the reasonable capacity of the respondant’s ability to pay, not whether it’s reasonable for him to do so at all. The cases that follow this line of reasoning have resulted in quite unfair rulings. This problem is especially prevelant where the man has a pretty high paying job (but might not be ‘rich’, merely middle class and paying lots of taxes) and the woman basically lived an affluent lifestyle off the man without children. (In the Marrriage of Brown, 1995) Should it be a matter of once a parasite, always a parasite?

The alternative line is In the Marriage of Astbury (1978) 34 FLR 173; reads the statute that “unable to support” implies that each spouse should be made to attempt to support themselves to the extent reasonable.

The problem I have is if a woman was a bum to start with, is there a compelling argument that after the dissolution of marriage she should as of right be entitled to an elevation lifestyle just because she was involved in a marriage to someone who wasn’t a bum? I mean, if she was a minimum wage waitress, or homeless, at 18 with no prospects of education and she marries and two years later at 20 she divorces, has she really lost anything by getting married to an affluent man in his thirties? To the contrary I say she gained an affluent lifestyle for 2 years.

By now you’d know I’m a big fan of imposing tort-like principles within family law. I think that spousal support should be awarded only where involvement in the marriage (which may include bearing and caring) resulted in loss to the woman. If the woman was an articled clerk (apprentice lawyer) and quit to become a wife and after 15 years the marriage breaks up and she’s now basically unemployable, and the man has been promoted to CEO while she was at home taking care of him, then yes I think there should be some spousal support paid. I don’t like how the “factors to be considered in awarding spousal support” (section 75(2) besides giving the general statement above also gives a list of factors the court should consider) don’t actually compare the woman’s before or after. For example, “capacity for employment”: if she was unemployable to start with, this doesn’t matter. The fact she is unemployable is enough. Or “responsbilities to support any other person”: say the woman has a sick mother. She had to take care of her before the marriage, with or without the help of government assistance. Is it somehow unreasonable for her to take care of her the same way she did before after dissolution of the marriage? Or take “physical or mental disability”. I don’t want to sound heartless, but again if she was on government assistance or parent’s care before, why not after? I am however undecided as to what should happen if the spouse got injured whilst in the marriage. As a matter of principle I think there should be spousal support paid in that circumstance.

From a law and economics critique it appears to me that the government is looking for an excuse to transfer their burden of taking care of the unemployed/ undereducated/ delinquent/ disabled from themselves to the divorced men.

I’m suggesting a shift from “means to pay vs. needs” and “equality” to “responsibilities” and “substantive fairness”. A shift away from the presumption that an elevated lifestyle attained through marriage should for some reason be continued after marriage as of right. If marriage has screwed up the woman in some way then support. If marriage actually benefited the woman or didn’t materially affect her well being then no support. If marginally affected, then marginal amount of support. It’s not that far fetched; s75(2) already recognizes “contribution by applicant to the respondant’s financial position”, “contribution by respondant to applicant’s financial position”, and “duration of marriage and effect on applicant’s earning. The problem is these factors are secondary.

Much of the problems arise because the “no fault” part of the “no fault divorce” has actually become almost an invioble principle of family law. It’s like one of those sacred things you can’t critique (like Jews – okay that a questionable aside). As you know, the no fault divorce was meant to eradicate the legal fictions that were taking place in order to prove the “fault” for divorce. Now that’s unquestionably a good thing. But when the system was transferred from “fault” to “no-fault” the rest of it, including spousal support, and property division, weren’t similarly overhauled. Much of the system still works as if the man (as it usually was in the fault-based system) is actually at fault. For spousal support we need to re-integrate elements of fault or at least causation to be proved before it should be ordered. This problem spills over to property settlements. But I don’t have time for that right now. I’ll be back!

As I said, this applies to Australia. We embraced the no-fault system 20 years before the Americans (I don’t know about Canadians). Maybe in other jurisdictions the requirements for spousal support are more stringent. I’d love to know. BTW, you’re very knowledgeable. Are you working off general knowledge or do you practice/study law yourself?

Jenny
02-14-2007, 11:09 AM
Disclaimers: This applies to Australia, and I am using the stereotypical “woman” as denoting the financially weak party and “man” as the defendant as is usually the case, simply as a shorthand.
Well, gosh, I'd prefer not to, if it's all the same to you. I see no compelling reason at this point in time to apply different laws to men and women or same sex relationships.


Should it be a matter of once a parasite, always a parasite?
Well, outside of the pejorative nature of that characterization, why not? If one fosters a relationship of dependency, why should one not be responsible for that relationship? As well, as a public policy issue we probably don't want financial dependency to force people to stay in relationships, or financial dominance to have unwholesome control over family relationships.

As well, if you can't tell, I object - deeply - to your characterization of a dependent spouse as a "parasite", when you know as well as I do that generally a dependent spouse (particularly if it's a woman) has a longer work day than the working spouse.


The problem I have is if a woman was a bum to start with, is there a compelling argument that after the dissolution of marriage she should as of right be entitled to an elevation lifestyle just because she was involved in a marriage to someone who wasn’t a bum? I mean, if she was a minimum wage waitress, or homeless, at 18 with no prospects of education and she marries and two years later at 20 she divorces, has she really lost anything by getting married to an affluent man in his thirties? To the contrary I say she gained an affluent lifestyle for 2 years.
Yes, I think there is a compelling argument that, upon divorce, one spouse should not be rendered homeless, even if he or she had been homeless before the marriage. In fact, I think THAT right there, that you just said IS the compelling argument. I mean you said you studied family law - you should know that efficiency within the family unit is not the most compelling principle of family law. Families are not corporations and treating them as such would be inimical to the family unit, to the dignity of the family members and to the very purpose of family law.


By now you’d know I’m a big fan of imposing tort-like principles within family law.
Well, I picked up that it is how you choose to UNDERSTAND family law, but I haven't seen a good reason to interpret family law through tort principles instead of its own principles yet. Simply saying "I want to import tort principles, and these are the ways they will work, and I think they should work that way because I think we should import tort principles" is pretty circular and not very compelling to me.


I think that spousal support should be awarded only where involvement in the marriage (which may include bearing and caring) resulted in loss to the woman.
Again - why is there no problem with fostering a relationship of dependency and then cutting it off? Families are not corporations; treating them with the principles of tortious economic loss... like, why? Why not treat them like families?


Or “responsbilities to support any other person”: say the woman has a sick mother. She had to take care of her before the marriage, with or without the help of government assistance. Is it somehow unreasonable for her to take care of her the same way she did before after dissolution of the marriage? Or take “physical or mental disability”. I don’t want to sound heartless, but again if she was on government assistance or parent’s care before, why not after?
You're assuming that families don't take on any responsibility for each other and that people should be treated like entities. Since you have posited no particular or compelling reason that people and families should be treated like this, I'm just going to skip on past these arguments.


I am however undecided as to what should happen if the spouse got injured whilst in the marriage. As a matter of principle I think there should be spousal support paid in that circumstance.
Oh my god - now THIS is completely inimical to tort principles. This makes no sense at all in the context of the rest of your argument (which is not premised on anything substantial anyway).


From a law and economics critique it appears to me that the government is looking for an excuse to transfer their burden of taking care of the unemployed/ undereducated/ delinquent/ disabled from themselves to the divorced men.
Okay this is just absurd (even from a law-econ standpoint, and a lot of shit is absurd from that standpoint). Divorced spouses paying for their ex spouses bears NO relation to simply assigning divorced men an unemployed person to support. I really do find your imagery distasteful and inaccurate.


I’m suggesting a shift from “means to pay vs. needs” and “equality” to “responsibilities” and “substantive fairness”.
You're assuming that responsibility and substantive fairness can be defined with the limits of family law the way it would be defined in tortious economic loss, and there is nothing supporting that presumption. So I could agree with you substantively and further ask why you think these concepts are inimical to each other.


A shift away from the presumption that an elevated lifestyle attained through marriage should for some reason be continued after marriage as of right.
Okay... but give me a good reason for this. I mean, you know the reasons it is in place in the first place - why change it?


But when the system was transferred from “fault” to “no-fault” the rest of it, including spousal support, and property division, weren’t similarly overhauled. Much of the system still works as if the man (as it usually was in the fault-based system) is actually at fault.
Only if you assume that spousal support is intended to be punitive, and the "no fault" system was not intended to be equalizing.


BTW, you’re very knowledgeable. Are you working off general knowledge or do you practice/study law yourself?

General knowledge. Strippers CAN read, you know.

Deogol
02-17-2007, 10:08 AM
LOL - over in Stripping the rants go on about women customers! Hell, I could just let those posts go on for me!