I passionately believe that everybody should pay child support to their children, irrespective of everything, including the circumstances of conception. People who don’t support their underage children are the vilest cockroaches I can imagine.
However, when I hear of “spousal support” or alimony to former wives and husbands, I’m appalled. What is it with the idea that one able-bodied individual should support another able-bodied adult because they used to have sex together? This is just ridiculous.
The argument that a person should be entitled to “the same standard of living” upon divorce as they had while being married is patently ludicrous. Say, a person gets accustomed to a very vigorous and regular sex life in marriage. Should the partner who decides to leave them be obligated still to have sex with the partner who is being left to maintain the same standards of sexual satisfaction in the abandoned ex-spouse?
Look what Wikipedia has to say on the subject in what concerns the US:
In Massachusetts, Mississippi, Texas and Tennessee, for example, there are 135 Appellate cases in addition to 47 sections of State Statute that shape divorce law. As a result of these Appellate Cases, for example, Massachusetts and Mississippi judges cannot order an end date to any alimony award. Most alimony awards in the states are made for life usually regardless of the length of the marriage or civil union (for marriages or civil unions over 10 years).
No end date? For life? What is this if not a blatant attempt by the government to coerce people into not getting divorced?
I think that there should never be any question of people paying a dime to anybody they used to be married to after the separation and the divorce. And I say this as a woman who was a struggling student when she got divorced from a man who was extremely highly paid (I mean, seriously, very very highly paid) at the time.
This isn’t about child support, of course. Child support is sacred. But alimony must go.
Clarissa's Blog 
Marriage, if you take all the faith and religious issues out of it, is nothing more than a civil contract. There is a penalty for breaking contracts, nothing more.
If the terms of the contract are unacceptable to you, then don’t enter into the agreement in the first place. Otherwise, compensation is in lieu of fulfillment of the contracted obligations.
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If only human sexuality could be thus simplified. 🙂
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But there is also a considerable institution bias towards being married in terms of living with a partner unmarried in terms of tax breaks etc. And as far as I am aware, one doesn’t find a clause in a marriage contract that says “If we break up, I shall pay the person a no longer love an awful lot of money they are not deserving of, do not need and are not entitled to”.
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that’s why the courts get involved – because the marriage contract is a lifetime contract which doesn’t generally have termination options contained.
Which is why we’ve seen an increase in the use of Prenuptial agreements used over the last few decades.
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So you are saying that marriage is legalized prostitution?
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Marriage is about much more than just sex.
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Yes, it’s also about liking somebody and wanting to be with them. It makes total sense to ask people to pay money for not liking you any more.
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I think there are a few cases where alimony makes sense, but they are very few, and never for life (though I am right with you on childcare). For example, should a person give up their career in favor of the spouse’s while they takes care of the kids… the interruption to the stay-at-home parent’s career could take them a while to recover from. In such cases I think alimony is warranted for a reasonable and finite period of time during which the ex-stay-at-home parent can get back on their feet financially. Now, what one considers “reasonable” probably varies widely from person-to-person… 😉
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I think alimony normally terminates when the recipient marries again. It did when my first wife remarried.
Child support is also normally structured so that the man pays the complete cost of supporting the child, not just half of it.
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“I think alimony normally terminates when the recipient marries again. It did when my first wife remarried.”
-Yes, when the former spouse is passed on to a new owner, it is now that new owner’s duty to support them.
“Child support is also normally structured so that the man pays the complete cost of supporting the child, not just half of it.”
-I think child support doesn’t depend on how much money the child requires but, rather, on a fixed percentage of the non-custodial parents’ salary.
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I would agree that alimony is bullsh*t-it is not my job 2 support you just cause we used 2 live together & have sex,if i must do that then the woman(or man)that gets support is nothing more then a well dressed PROSTITUTE!-i really like the chris rock bit about a man being used 2 sex & so a divorced wife should have 2 give it 2 him if he is required 2 pay alimony:
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I agree with the sentiment but since I never lived with you, let’s drop the “you”, OK?
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well i was just talking about any hypothetical woman,not you but,okay sure whatever.
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Or man. The number of men who think it’s OK to mooch off a former spouse is growing.
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your right,there are more and more men who are gold diggers these days.I ye ye.
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