[quote]Dr. Pangloss wrote:
…
While relationships may not be a business deal, state-sanctioned marriage is. That’s what you get by going down to City Hall and applying for a marriage license. You’ve agreed to let the State insert itself into an eventual break-up in exchange for tax breaks, social recognition of the union, etc.
…
[/quote]
This point is spot on. As a Christian I believe that marriage is a relationship established by God. State marriage is not the same thing. In fact, at the risk of starting yet another tangent, I believe that the state should not be in the business of defining marriage in any form or fashion. If we as a people want to give tax breaks to any combination of co-inhabitants, then great. If Christians like myself want to have marriage as we believe it is defined then we should just do so outside of any government definition. We just go with the state definition because it is the cultural norm and gives us tax breaks. As I did. So yes, I am a hypocrite.
[quote]Pearsy92 wrote:
So first you claimed you supported Sowell on the issue, who does not support a woman getting half, but rather a woman getting compensated for lost labour, commensurate to what she could earn each year she was married in a job attainable for someone with her qualifications and experience.
Now you are saying a woman should receive half.
[/quote]
You are so fucking lost it isn’t even funny. Come back when you read posts or aren’t acting like an intellectually dishonest asshole.
This entire post is completely made up garbage, and anyone who can read knows this.
Please find one time where I said anyone should “get half”? You can’t and you know it.
So you were intentionally misrepresenting my stance. Awesome. [/quote]
No, I was addressing your reply to angry chicken, I edited it because as someone who does not feel the need to rage and swear and insult in threads, I thought looking at my post I should add in the in some cases part because as a rational human I can acknowledge that you are presenting a nuanced argument and I wanted to make sure you knew I was not insinuating that women should always get half because you were not.
So you were intentionally misrepresenting my stance. Awesome. [/quote]
No, I was addressing your reply to angry chicken, I edited it because as someone who does not feel the need to rage and swear and insult in threads, I thought looking at my post I should add in the in some cases part because as a rational human I can acknowledge that you are presenting a nuanced argument and I wanted to make sure you knew I was not insinuating that women should always get half because you were not.
[/quote]
Look, here was my assertion:
A stay at home spouse is in fact investing in the career of the working spouse.
Agree or refute?
If you run on and on with anything other than “agree” or “refute” I’m not responding to this thread again.
If you want to talk about this as a contract, consider the following situation. You sign an agreement with a supplier to supply you with some good or service on an ongoing basis. However, after a couple years of this, the supplier no longer wishes to provide that service and thus goes to court to end the contract. The judge rules that the supplier no longer has to provide you the service, but you have to keep paying for it. Forever.
Moreover, before the contract simply stipulated that if you didn’t pay the provider he would simply stop providing the service. However, since the provider already isn’t providing the service, the judge now rules that if you stop paying for the service, you will go to jail. Even if you don’t have any money.
My biggest problem with the way divorce is worked out is the inconsistency in how a stay at home wife’s contribution is evaluated. When the assets are being divided, the assumption is made that whatever contributions the stay at home wife made are as valuable as the contributions made by the working husband. So the husband brought home money while the wife provided support, a home, etc.
Once we start talking about income, it’s expected that the husband should continue contributing money to the wife. However, we can be pretty sure that the divorced wife isn’t providing support, a home, etc. Either those contributions made by the wife were immaterial during the marriage and thus she should be entitled to none of the assets or they were valuable and the husband should be given consideration of the fact that he is now be deprived of those contributions that the wife was providing.
Now, hopefully the husband was contributing something other than money (pickles don’t open themselves). However, if we assume that total contributions from both sides was equal (a necessary assumption if we want to justify an equal split of the assets), then we arrive at the conclusion that the monetary contribution of the husband is equivalent to the extra non-monetary contributions of the wife above and beyond the non-monetary contributions of the husband.
Thus, if the husband is deprived of the non-monetary contribution surplus that he previously received from his wife, it is precisely fair to provide no alimony. So either assets split equally or alimony is provided. Both is inherently unfair to the primary breadwinner.
Children deserve an entire separate article, but this post is long enough.
So you were intentionally misrepresenting my stance. Awesome. [/quote]
No, I was addressing your reply to angry chicken, I edited it because as someone who does not feel the need to rage and swear and insult in threads, I thought looking at my post I should add in the in some cases part because as a rational human I can acknowledge that you are presenting a nuanced argument and I wanted to make sure you knew I was not insinuating that women should always get half because you were not.
[/quote]
Look, here was my assertion:
A stay at home spouse is in fact investing in the career of the working spouse.
Agree or refute?
If you run on and on with anything other than “agree” or “refute” I’m not responding to this thread again.
[/quote]
OK, here is my best attempt at a direct reply, to a complicated topic.
[quote] Look, here was my assertion:
A stay at home spouse is in fact investing in the career of the working spouse.
Agree or refute? [/quote]
My problem is with the idea of free union of consenting adults and force. While some wives may play a huge role in a mans success and others many play none or even have a deleterious affect on their career, this I am not disputing, I am rather disputing whether or not you should be forced to compensate them when they married you rather than have a career and they chose to be supportive or not without an asterisk saying if this ends i get to take you to the cleaners.
If I was a successful businessman and me and my wife divorced I would probably choose to set her up and have her comfortable and in a position where she could then plan a future for herself. I am not against being kind or generous.
I am merely against the notion you can be forced to compensate someone when they chose to do it.
In no other social contract can I sue if something does not work out and demand compensation for my efforts and the fact I could of gone on to have another career.
I am arguing the principle, not whether or not some housewives are tremendously supportive and key to a man having a successful life.
As for the kid issue, now that is different, there are existing laws already in effect that mean the father must pay for his child or pay the consequences. Coincidentally absentee mothers are almost never held to the same standards or punitive measures of the law for not supporting their child financially.
Now if we want equality I think addressing these issues is something that needs to be done.
OK, here is my best attempt at a direct reply, [/quote]
Jesus Christ, I’m done. I have more entertaining things to do than watch you refuse to give a single word answer for reasons we both know why you refuse to do so.
Good luck running a successful business. My god have pity on the accountants and lawyers you employ.
In the absence of marriage laws, a husband could dump his wife at will and she could lose decades of investment in their relationship. Marriage laws seek to recoup some of that investment for her through alimony when divorce occurs.
[/quote]
But a huge problem with this arises when the woman is the one doing the dumping.
No Fault divorce laws and regulations skew the intent.
80% of divorces now are initiated by the woman.
It ain’t what it used to be.[/quote]
another huge issue I was hoping to address, but this is like corner 2. We can’t even get out of the starting gate…
OK, here is my best attempt at a direct reply, [/quote]
Jesus Christ, I’m done. I have more entertaining things to do than watch you refuse to give a single word answer for reasons we both know why you refuse to do so.
Good luck running a successful business. My god have pity on the accountants and lawyers you employ. [/quote]
Important issues can not be boiled down to yes or no.
You asked:
[quote] Look, here was my assertion:
A stay at home spouse is in fact investing in the career of the working spouse.
Agree or refute?
[/quote]
I don’t agree or disagree, not all wives have the same impact or offer the same level of support. Trying to make laws pertaining to divorce laws on generalised notions of what one party contributed is not something I support.
I also as I said, don’t think a woman who chose to invest in her husband on a non paid non business relationship union of marriage should be able to get compensation for something she could of done (get a career) but chose not to do.
Whether she is a massive influence on why you became a success or no influence at all is irrelevant to the principle of the debate, should a man be forced to compensate her for making her own choice to marry him instead of choosing not to and having a career?
I believe the answer to that question is no, he should not be forced to.
So you were intentionally misrepresenting my stance. Awesome. [/quote]
No, I was addressing your reply to angry chicken, I edited it because as someone who does not feel the need to rage and swear and insult in threads, I thought looking at my post I should add in the in some cases part because as a rational human I can acknowledge that you are presenting a nuanced argument and I wanted to make sure you knew I was not insinuating that women should always get half because you were not.
[/quote]
Look, here was my assertion:
A stay at home spouse is in fact investing in the career of the working spouse.
Agree or refute?
If you run on and on with anything other than “agree” or “refute” I’m not responding to this thread again.
[/quote]
Refute.
Any woman who’s husband earns enough money that allows her to remain in the home with out working is providing a stress free lifestyle to the wife. That is a gift that allows her to live several years on average longer than him. In the age of dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, clothes dryers, refrigerators and microwaves, simple house work is fucking easy.
I know, I pay a cleaning lady every two weeks. She does everything from laundry (washing, drying, folding and putting away) to the bathrooms for $200 and she does it in under 4 hours. That’s EIGHT HOURS A MONTH.
Cooking. The only meal at home is dinner. I order out or bring home food several times a week. I PERSONALLY GRILL my meat (I bought a cow’s worth of grass fed beef for $4.00/lb.). So call it one or two meals a week @ a half hour prep time. We’ll go with two. That’s 4.3 HOURS A MONTH.
Sex. I’m not gonna count hours per month engaging in sex for two reasons. 1) I am a sexual GOD. Women have offered to pay ME to continue to fuck them. 2) see reason #1.
So we have a monthly contribution of 12.3 HOURS A MONTH. I work over 300 HOURS A MONTH. I bring home about 250-300K per year.
On what planet does a wife who “works” 12.3 hours a month married to a husband who works 300 hours a month deserve FUCKING HALF? It’s not even close.
A woman’s contribution to the home, ESPECIALLY IF SHE’S MARRIED TO A WEALTHY MAN, is negligible. Kobe Bryant’s wife wasn’t doing the fucking dishes! She damn sure didn’t make any layups… They had a nanny that helped with the child care (that Kobe paid for). What did she do that deserved SEVENTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS?
This thread, and a couple others over time, have given me much to think about in terms of whether I ever want to get married. Right now I would say no given the huge risks and difficulties it can cause for very little perceived benefit. I mean, I see some benefit to marriage, but it seems like you could receive a lot of the same benefits by just finding someone you want to spend your life with and just not getting married to them but living together and still having kids together.
My intuition tells me I don’t think a lot of women (especially younger ones) are willing to accept that life. Society still says that’s the “dream” and all. Can’t say I blame them given the potential benefits and cons for them, and the significant portion of the male population that still wants to be married. Probably not too hard to find a good guy that is willing to marry.
So you were intentionally misrepresenting my stance. Awesome. [/quote]
No, I was addressing your reply to angry chicken, I edited it because as someone who does not feel the need to rage and swear and insult in threads, I thought looking at my post I should add in the in some cases part because as a rational human I can acknowledge that you are presenting a nuanced argument and I wanted to make sure you knew I was not insinuating that women should always get half because you were not.
[/quote]
Look, here was my assertion:
A stay at home spouse is in fact investing in the career of the working spouse.
Agree or refute?
If you run on and on with anything other than “agree” or “refute” I’m not responding to this thread again.
[/quote]
Refute.[/quote]
But then you go on to list ways in which you pay other people to do things for you. You pay someone to clean for you, you don’t do it yourself. You pay someone to cook for you more often than you prep meals yourself.
Seems to me you want to refute this simple statement, not because you don’t actually se it as true, but because you think that once you admit it’s true I’m going to somehow trap you into agreeing egregious divorce agreements are acceptable.
I assure you I’m not going to do any such thing, but to deny the basic economics of the situation is to deny me to be able to continue the conversation.
This is irrelevant. And hard to backup seeing as you go on to explain how you pay people to do all these stress free things for you.
Nah, going first is God’s gift to men for having listened to all that fucking nagging for so long.
Without children the situation becomes significantly different. We’ve established that, and my stance on the subject, while the same, becomes “qualified” with additional statements.
No, the investment by a stay at home spouse in a childish marriage is significantly different than a marriage with children.
Again, and we’ve established this, I’ve not said anything about half, and if I did imply, it was unintentional and I say my bad. Shit.
[quote]A woman’s contribution to the home, ESPECIALLY IF SHE’S MARRIED TO A WEALTHY MAN, is negligible. Kobe Bryant’s wife wasn’t doing the fucking dishes! She damn sure didn’t make any layups… They had a nanny that helped with the child care (that Kobe paid for). What did she do that deserved SEVENTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS?
[/quote]
Let’s talk in terms of “typical” please. The Kobe’s of the world are so few and far between it is pointless in terms of discussion.
[quote]staystrong wrote:
This thread, and a couple others over time, have given me much to think about in terms of whether I ever want to get married. Right now I would say no given the huge risks and difficulties it can cause for very little perceived benefit. I mean, I see some benefit to marriage, but it seems like you could receive a lot of the same benefits by just finding someone you want to spend your life with and just not getting married to them but living together and still having kids together.
My intuition tells me I don’t think a lot of women (especially younger ones) are willing to accept that life. Society still says that’s the “dream” and all. Can’t say I blame them given the potential benefits and cons for them, and the significant portion of the male population that still wants to be married. Probably not too hard to find a good guy that is willing to marry.[/quote]
oh wait… hold on…
You mean people choose to get married?
You mean people know the out come of divorce?
So you were intentionally misrepresenting my stance. Awesome. [/quote]
No, I was addressing your reply to angry chicken, I edited it because as someone who does not feel the need to rage and swear and insult in threads, I thought looking at my post I should add in the in some cases part because as a rational human I can acknowledge that you are presenting a nuanced argument and I wanted to make sure you knew I was not insinuating that women should always get half because you were not.
[/quote]
Look, here was my assertion:
A stay at home spouse is in fact investing in the career of the working spouse.
Agree or refute?
If you run on and on with anything other than “agree” or “refute” I’m not responding to this thread again.
[/quote]
Refute.[/quote]
But then you go on to list ways in which you pay other people to do things for you. You pay someone to clean for you, you don’t do it yourself. You pay someone to cook for you more often than you prep meals yourself.
Seems to me you want to refute this simple statement, not because you don’t actually se it as true, but because you think that once you admit it’s true I’m going to somehow trap you into agreeing egregious divorce agreements are acceptable.
I assure you I’m not going to do any such thing, but to deny the basic economics of the situation is to deny me to be able to continue the conversation.
[/quote]I’m not trying to be obtuse, I really am not. If a woman is married to a somewhat wealthy man, it is doubtful that she is lifting a finger around the house. Even if she IS, the hours she invests is a small FRACTION of the hours that a MAN invests. If I had a wife, I assure you, I would not fire my housekeeper… Nor would I stop eating Thai food so that she would cook. I certainly wouldn’t stop grilling my own steak! (you think I’d trust a WOMAN on my grill? Sheeeeeit…)
I am not trying to deny you the ability to continue the conversation either. I fucking LOVE having conversations with you, Beans! But when you bring children into the equation it still don’t change things. I am a single father. I have SOLE custody of my 17 year old and JOINT custody of my six year old. And I work 300 hours a month. I do spend time with my kids and I do pay for child care during the summer and when I have the little boy. Taking care of kids is a JOINT ENDEAVOR - it’s not like the woman is the ONLY person doing shit for the kids… Does a woman on average do more? Sometimes, sure. Does she have to stay home and care for them? NOPE, if she does IT’S HER CHOICE. Does she have to sacrifice her career? NOPE, if she does, it’s her choice. Does it affect her career? I will concede that pregnancy and birth CAN affect a woman’s career if she has to take significant time off due to a difficult pregnancy or what have you. It CAN… [quote]
This is irrelevant. And hard to backup seeing as you go on to explain how you pay people to do all these stress free things for you.
[/quote]I was using it as an example of the HOURS a woman would work at home[quote]
Nah, going first is God’s gift to men for having listened to all that fucking nagging for so long. [/quote]LMAO[quote]
Without children the situation becomes significantly different. We’ve established that, and my stance on the subject, while the same, becomes “qualified” with additional statements.
No, the investment by a stay at home spouse in a childless marriage is significantly different than a marriage with children.
[/quote]Agreed. I’ll give you your children for the sake of furthering the conversation.[quote]
Again, and we’ve established this, I’ve not said anything about half, and if I did imply, it was unintentional and I say my bad. Shit. [/quote]I wasn’t going after YOU, buddy - just the industry standard. Sorry if I miss-communicated that. I agree you haven’t said anything about half, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on a “just compensation”. [quote]
[quote]A woman’s contribution to the home, ESPECIALLY IF SHE’S MARRIED TO A WEALTHY MAN, is negligible. Kobe Bryant’s wife wasn’t doing the fucking dishes! She damn sure didn’t make any layups… They had a nanny that helped with the child care (that Kobe paid for). What did she do that deserved SEVENTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS?
[/quote]
Let’s talk in terms of “typical” please. The Kobe’s of the world are so few and far between it is pointless in terms of discussion.
[/quote]
We can take it off the table for now, but I’d like to revisit it once we are in the mid-game. Your move.
[quote]staystrong wrote:
This thread, and a couple others over time, have given me much to think about in terms of whether I ever want to get married. Right now I would say no given the huge risks and difficulties it can cause for very little perceived benefit. I mean, I see some benefit to marriage, but it seems like you could receive a lot of the same benefits by just finding someone you want to spend your life with and just not getting married to them but living together and still having kids together.
My intuition tells me I don’t think a lot of women (especially younger ones) are willing to accept that life. Society still says that’s the “dream” and all. Can’t say I blame them given the potential benefits and cons for them, and the significant portion of the male population that still wants to be married. Probably not too hard to find a good guy that is willing to marry.[/quote]
oh wait… hold on…
You mean people choose to get married?
You mean people know the out come of divorce?
[/quote]
Sometimes it feels like most people view marriage not as a choice but as something that everyone “normal” does, like it’s bizarre that they would consider it a choice in the first place. You love someone, you have to marry them right? What other option could there possibly be?
I’d venture to say most people don’t truly understand the outcome of a divorce until they go through it. Hell, even though I’ve watched as my dad has gone through two of them and while I can remember much of the details I guarantee there is a significant portion he hid from me in order to protect me. Before watching the last divorce I would have predicted the outcome much differently, given my understanding at the time of the law and my naive belief of right and wrong.
People can absolutely educate themselves about the typical outcome of divorce, but I don’t believe the majority of people have that education. That’s their choice.
But when you bring children into the equation it still don’t change things. I am a single father. I have SOLE custody of my 17 year old and JOINT custody of my six year old. And I work 300 hours a month. I do spend time with my kids and I do pay for child care during the summer and when I have the little boy. Taking care of kids is a JOINT ENDEAVOR - it’s not like the woman is the ONLY person doing shit for the kids… Does a woman on average do more? Sometimes, sure. Does she have to stay home and care for them? NOPE, if she does IT’S HER CHOICE. Does she have to sacrifice her career? NOPE, if she does, it’s her choice. Does it affect her career? I will concede that pregnancy and birth CAN affect a woman’s career if she has to take significant time off due to a difficult pregnancy or what have you. It CAN… [quote]