Monday, March 05, 2012

Divorce: A growing movement to update alimony laws

MIAMI — In the waning days of this year’s legislative session, Florida lawmakers and advocacy groups are pushing to overhaul the state’s alimony law in a bid to better reflect today’s marriages and make the system less burdensome for the alimony payer.

Florida joins a grass-roots movement in a growing number of states that seeks to rewrite alimony laws by curbing lifelong alimony and alleviating the financial distress that some payers — still mostly men — say they face. The activists say the laws in several states, including Florida, unfairly favor women and do not take into account the fact that a majority of women work and nearly a third have college degrees.

The Florida House recently approved legislation that would make lifelong alimony more difficult to award and less onerous for the payer and, in the case of a remarriage, would place a new spouse’s income off-limits in awarding payments. Attention turns to the Senate, where the companion bill is less far-reaching. Florida had already changed some provisions in alimony law two years ago.

Traditionally, alimony was designed to prevent divorced women who did not work and were less educated from falling into poverty. According to this view, the woman’s job was to raise children and run the household. Today, with both spouses often working, that situation is far less common. The question now is: What is fair alimony in the 21st century?
Read the rest here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I would argue that punitive alimony laws in the US are created with an element of vengeance, regardless of who "causes" the divorce. Current law generally results in the man being the fall guy and being strapped for life with payments he often cannot make. Not only do ex-wives usually get an automatic 50%, they then also get monthly checks. Except for rich men, divorced men often end up remaining poor the rest of their lives and can also no longer afford to remarry, a option that is still left open to women. I have heard MANY men talk about this. The sad result is that men are waking up to these misandrous laws and are just refusing to ever get married. As it stands now, American men have everything to lose by getting married, and women have everything to gain.