The High Price Of Love
In England, writes Claire Dyer in the Guardian, the Labour party wants to make merely sharing love reason enough to grab half your partner's stuff:
Unmarried partners who split up are likely to win new rights to make divorce-style claims for financial support and a share of the other partner's property if Labour is re-elected.Reform of the law to provide new legal protection for the four million people living together outside marriage - one in six of all couples - is not yet formal government policy. But ministers are concerned about the lack of safeguards for the growing numbers who choose not to formalise their relationship, and the effects on their children.
The lord chancellor, Lord Falconer, has asked the Law Commission to produce proposals for legislation and a draft bill, which would apply to England and Wales. The two-year project is expected to get under way in July, with initial proposals for consultation the following spring and final recommendations and draft bill by summer 2007.
According to figures last week from the Government Actuary's Department, the numbers of married men and women are predicted to fall below 50% of the population within six years. By 2031 the number of couples living together outside marriage is expected to nearly double, from 2 million to 3.8 million.
Later this year gay partners will be able to register their unions as civil partnerships, giving them many of the rights conferred by marriage. But heterosexual couples who fail to tie the marital knot are left with virtually no legal redress when the relationship ends.
Legal redress! Scary. How about love doesn't get to be a cash cow for anybody, and leave with what you came in with and earned yourself, while in the relationship? What could be wrong with that?
For once I disagree with you utterly, Amy. This is not about love, or marriage. It's about the real contractual nitty-gritty, ie money, property and responsibility for children. If a couple buys a house together, what happens to ownership of the house if they split up? If they have kids, what legal rights do they have in case of a dispute over custody? Marriage, which started out as a religious ceremony, has evolved into a civil, legal framework for dealing with these issues. Now the British government is recognising that unmarried couples who share property or children or whatever need that same legal framework.
A good friend of mine here in the States explained a while back that she was backing out of marrying her partner for some reason or another, although they were still living with each other. In fact, they had just bought a house together. I told her the house was a far bigger commitment than a ceremony formalising their relationship. In fact, it was, in effect, the ceremony formalising their relationship.
By the way, that's the view taken by French law. The Brits are just playing catch-up.
modestproposal at March 15, 2005 7:19 AM
I get what child support is supposed to be about. When it works, I have no complaint. Alimony, however is ridiculous. I fail to see how boning an old, rich, white guy entitles a woman to half his income when he divorces her for gaining weight. She knew the arrangement going in. She had to withstand touching his wrinkled, sagging testicles in return for not working and getting to spend his money on all that crap that the girl from Sex and the City always buys (how did it become lost on a lot of women that this was written as her character flaw?). If she loses her trophy status, or fails to withstand contact with his shrunken scrotum, the deal's off.
While I disagree with alimony, I acknowledge that it exists and that both parties know this when signing the court papers. I disagree with it as a matter of philosophy, not law.
Palimony, however, is the most insidious lawyerly concoction to date. What are the qualifications for unmarried partner benefits? Does every groupie who's allowed to spend the night at Scott Stapp's house become an instant millionaire? What if an old deadbeat roommate I had years ago decided to say he was my gay partner and not drinnking buddy and that I owe him half of what I have? How do I prove to the judge that he's lying? Do I film myself banging a hooker and introduce it as evidence? What does that really prove?
Who are we rewarding here? Liars, sometimes. But mostly we're rewarding unwealthy satyriatics and nymphomaniacs who hop from house to house blowing and pegging anyone with a bed and a bank account. I like the idea of living in a meritocracy more than a slutocracy.
This will all become way too confusing. Combine this palimony (or roommate benefits) crap with the extinction of the line between same-gender marriage (I have ambivalent support to the latter) and I could theoretically face 13 or 14 old roommates suing me to support them, even though the only communal relation between us is that we shared a rented living room and split large quantities of wild turkey.
If you're ever looking for me in Britain, I'll be the one with his windows boarded up, to keep strangers and likely heirs to my infinitessimal fortune at bay.
Little ted at March 15, 2005 11:04 AM
A tad paranoid, Little ted?
Step one is giving everyone protection under the law. Step two is agitating for the appropriate laws. The point of having legal protection is so that people don't get cheated out of their due by vengeful ex-partners in the throes of a break-up. The idea that the law exists to sanction gold-digging by non-earning trophy wives is a little, how shall I put it, Jackie Collins-ish, no?
modestproposal at March 15, 2005 3:05 PM
Fear of palimony is paranoid?
What 'due' is one owed by having a roommate that one elects to sleep with?
What 'due' does one owe to one's former sexual partner?
Does this 'due' extend to every boyfriend/girlfriend that a person has over the extent of his/her life?
If so, the economics of this thing is going to get very sticky and confusing very fast. If a successful woman has twenty x-boyfriends who are deadbeats, she'll be paying for twenty peoples' lives in no time. Maybe she has two x-boyfriends who were wealthier. So now she works for zero dollars (because 100 % of her wages are garnished) and gets a check for double her salary in the mail from two guys whose names she can't remember if not for their appearance on her check. Does this make one lick of sense?
A big reason people are skeptical of entering into civil marriage is that it is largely an economic arrangement. There are potential economic penalties for mistakes or for being in a bad mood once too often. If this is extended to dating, even in a cohabitating situation, I don't see how this won't flood the courts and cripple human beings emotionally. Can you imagine going through an average of three divorces per year?
That any permanent economic 'due' is expected from cohabitators, or just daters, vindicates my paranoia.
Little ted at March 15, 2005 4:05 PM
Looks like we're going to have to expand the notion of pre-nups to include pre-sucks, pre-fucks, and according to the modest proposal one, pre-boning of old men. Of course, I think he or she meant the bonee was the young one who would have been the one being boned by Gerry Hattrick. Oh my, I say on further reflection, sure, it could have been a strap-on deal kinkly requested by this Gerry. I stand corrected. But unboned. I claim dibs on the bonificating in my own modest clubhouse.
allan at March 15, 2005 6:26 PM
Hm. . . this law doesn't sounds too bad. Someone's got to look out for the welfare of the kids. But there is defintely the risk of being abused. Should this bill pass they need to seriously qualify it and yes, as said before, extend prenups. Love shouldn't cost a thing after all.
Barneys Girl at March 15, 2005 10:41 PM
Alimony is not just for gold diggers waiting for old rich guys to die. Personally, I'm glad I don't get alimony, because I prefer to feel independent. But why if a married couple has agreed that the woman stays home to care for the children, and the man sleeps with someone else and then leaves her, why shouldn't she be able to continue that same lifestyle, if both parents agree that it benefit the children? If the woman doesn't work at all, then I think she would need to receive alimony as well as child support.
Pat Saperstein at March 17, 2005 2:14 PM
I'm all for responsibility to the children - and quite frankly, the state already sees that that's doled out. But the idea that being in a relationship with somebody necessarily entitles you to get a bunch of their stuff -- creepy and wrong.
Amy Alkon at March 17, 2005 2:33 PM
Because that 'lifestyle' is contingent on an arrangement that no longer exists, no matter who is at fault.
Little ted at March 17, 2005 3:55 PM
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