https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/27/us/no-fault-divorce-explained-history-wellness-cec/index.html
Though no-fault divorce was first legalized more than 50 years ago, it has long been sneered at in conservative circles, who see it as a danger to the sanctity of marriage and the concept of the American family.
If you believe that women are closer to being property than to being full and equal partners in a relationship, you don't want them being able to exit a marriage without a fight.
Some of these idiots actually say that a woman shouldn't be able to divorce without the husband's permission. Crazy and gross.
The irony being that spouse murder rates notably dropped after the majority of the US legalized no-fault divorces. If a woman can't escape a toxic marriage legally, she's more likely to just murder you instead (and before anyone jumps in to patronize, I realize how terrible it used to be for many women and we should fight against any toxic, regressive policies like this).
My understanding is murder dropped on both sides, but it was a bigger drop in the deaths of the wives. Women are more able to get away from abusive husbands with a no fault divorce - they don't have to go to court and prove the abuse. Abusive relationships often escalate over time, and can end in death if the abused doesn't get out.
I believe you're right, it's been awhile since I read an article that discussed the topic. Bottom line: Advocates of rescinding no fault divorces can shut the hell up and keep their draconian ideas to themselves.
Yeah, I wish they would, but they don't. It's the same people who want to abolish abortions and prevent kids from knowing about homosexuality. None of it is based on any actual data or problems, it's all based on their particular cherry-picked interpretation of the bible.
And if they succeed they will have blood in their hands. Not that that ever bothered them before.
I have an amazing anecdote about a friend who was working hospice who had an ancient lady tell her about how she (the old lady) killed her first husband for being an abusive dick.
She laughed the whole time.
It was later proven true.
That's NOT what being Pro Life means SOCIALIST! Who cares about PEOPLE when there's FETUSES to worry about?
It's so perfectly appropriate that that abusive piece of shit Steven Crowder opposes no-fault divorce. He's just such a vivid example of the sort of emotionally stunted manchild who opposes it and of why they oppose it, and thus of why it has to continue to exist.
Let's be real here. It's not that conservatives, conservative men specifically, want to get rid of no-fault divorce. In Crowder's case, his wife has pretty compelling evidence that Steven emotionally abused his wife.
Conservatives would use no fault divorce to separate from "mouthy" women in a heartbeat if the threat of it would keep them in line.
They hate that a law exists that can be used against them.
They believe they should not be bound by the law of a no fault divorce but would have zero problem using it if it served their interests.
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Well that was hard to watch. Already didn’t like this dickhead but now I reeeally don’t like ‘im
If this was the "wifely duties" one, the dog needed some meds which a pregnant woman can't touch. Affects the fetus. He wanted her to put on gloves so she could do it. What a POS. If that stuff could affect my kid I wouldn't want it anywhere near my wife.
That is the gloves thing? I wondered.
Yeah, what a lazy selfish POS. Their first kid I'm guessing? He probably is the type to 'not do diapers' too.
why do conservatives want x?
Because they're cunts. That is the answer. It doesn't matter what the question is, the answer is that conservatives are cunts. It explains the entirety of their behavior.
Well, but that doesn't explain anything. Of course you can always go deeper with "why" questions and at some point you have to be satisfied, but asking "why are they being cunts?" is not going too far. Being a cunt usually has no benefit and is not desirable, so using it as an explanation for human behavior is not sufficient.
The answer should include the supposed reason why conservatives think being a cunt would be advantageous to them, i.e. why they're choosing this over other beneficial behavior.
but asking “why are they being cunts?” is not going too far.
I don't agree with you on this. The phrase "being a cunt" implies that you have some choice in the matter; you normally are not a cunt, but you choose to be one for some reason. I don't think that applies for conservatives. They aren't choosing to be cunts any more than a dog chooses to be a dog. They are cunts. Therefore, they gravitate towards conservatism. Conservatism is the ideology of cunts.
There have been previous conservatives that stopped being cunts, disproving your claim by simple counterexample. It's definitely a choice (as much as anything that we do is "chosen"), it's not some inherent property of their being.
I suppose I was being a bit obtuse there. To be clear, I don't believe that conservatives are wholly incapable of change. Just, you know, mostly incapable of it. Some people will surprise you here and there, for sure. In the main, though, they are small-minded, angry, mean-spirited people prone to homophobia, sexism, racism, xenophobia, and classism. Basically, every possible shit thing that a person can be is represented in their outlook on life. It's the kind of outlook that requires you to be a shithead to hold it. Hence, conservatives are cunts.
No one is saying conservatives aren't cunts. All I'm saying is that it's not sufficient explanation for their behavior, people don't just wake up and say "golly, today I really want to be a complete cunt". No, for them, they're the heroes of their stories, the only ones "doing good", yet for everyone else they only come across as cunts. All I'm saying is that an explanation has to include their internal reasoning for why they think they're the hero of their story.
Who are these conservatives that stopped being cunts? You can't be a conservative and not a cunt. It's baked into the ideology.
I'd beg to differ and say a lot more of them are assholes. Many of them are pretty self-aware, they just don't care. You know that song Sweet Dreams?
Some of them want to use you Some of them want to get used by you Some of them want to abuse you Some of them want to be abused
A lot of conservatives just see struggling people as an opportunity. They think, in order to maintain wealth I need to make life harder on other people. They see black people getting locked up for marijuana possession and think, oh... that person will be on probation and be desperate for a job that I can pay minimum wage and treat them like garbage. They see forcing women to have babies that they can't afford as people in poverty that they can take advantage of. If you think they do what they do cause they are merely stupid, then your more than likely going to end up a victim in their game.
I'm satisfied with the answer "because conservatives are cunts". If you're looking for a deeper answer, you won't find it. Just accept it and treat these people accordingly.
But there is a deeper answer, there always is.
In this case, we have much worse socialization today. There's no sense of community anymore, no natural places to go to meet people, families are smaller, it's much easier to pick up and move somewhere else ending up in an unfamiliar environment with no friends, and so on and so on.
If you have bad socialisation, you end up with bad social skills, so you end up being rejected everywhere you go, so you end up wanting to control people so they have to stay with you, so you don't end up alone.
Thus the fantasy of getting a woman to agree to marriage and not being able to leave is appealing and secures these people voters.
Conservatives being cunts is not a modern phenomena. You are assuming modern changes caused an ancient consistency.
Like saying that recent video game trends are the origins of skin cancer.
But there is a deeper answer, there always is.
It's just a comment on the internet
There is a deeper point yea, but sometimes the deeper points just come back full circle to "they're cunts".
Sometimes there isn't though. Sometimes cunts are just born naturally and that's just the way people are.
We can get into family systems and their environments, stages of development, and apply any and every psych theory we can; blame it on the lead, the microplastics etc. and they're still cunts at the end of the day.
Being a cunt usually has no benefit
hard disagree. being a cunt often has strong immediate benefit.
Its too easy? Fuck you. I want to be able to text a number and boom my divorce is filed. Republicans once again proving their the party of piss babies and iron fists. Maybe if you all weren't so completely revolting in your souls you'd find someone that wishes to intertwin with it.
Technically if you don't have any disputed assets or kids to traumatize, you can pretty much get divorced online these days. There a bunch of online legal services websites out there who will send you boilerplate to fill out and then file it for you for under $1000.
Yes. That's how no-fault divorce works. The point is, they don't want that at all, for anyone, regardless of assets or children. They want wives to be the property of men, unable to get a divorce.
Those services are scams. At least in my state, the court's website includes a boilerplate form to fill out free of charge.
Having said that, even if there is no dispute, if you have sizable co-mingled assets/liabilities (such as a house and mortgage, effectively comingled retirement savings, etc), you should probably still get professional help even if you agree in principle how to divide them.
My first divorce was far easier than that. We decided to divorce, no kids or property or fighting, and did it for $0.
I feel like most things conservatives want can easily be explained by their consistent desire to harm women.
Conservatives delight in the misery of the vulnerable. You can see it in the things they find funny, the sadistic movies they enjoy and their genuine happiness in killing animals.
Because they are terrible people that need to hold someone hostage in order not to be single? Probably something along those lines...
These people who want to keep "traditional family values" alive don't want you to use in-vitro fertilization methods either. Don't believe me? Read this article from the Knights of Columbus. This is the mentality we're up against.
They also don't want to make the economic conditions happen that allowed for the 'traditional family', where there's one bread winner. It's just not possible in this day and age for the average worker to support a wife and kids.
I wonder if the brains of conservatives are structurally different from everyone else's. Like I get that boomers have their lead poisoning, but younger cons are just as terrible and just as stupid while growing up with better education and endless info against their values.
They have higher fear and disgust reactions. That's why they sound fearful and disgusted at nonthreatening things.
There might be "better education", but you also have to remember that we have much worse socialization today. There's no sense of community anymore, no natural places to go to meet people, families are smaller, it's much easier to pick up and move somewhere else ending up in an unfamiliar environment with no friends, and so on and so on.
If you have bad socialisation, you end up with bad social skills, so you end up being rejected everywhere you go, so you end up wanting to control people so they have to stay with you, so you don't end up alone.
There's a million people who grew up in the same environments who didn't to turn out to be misogynistic racist bigots though.
Being the first and second child within one family is oftentimes a greater "environmental" difference than being the first child in one family vs the first child in another family. Or getting into one school class with lots of assholes who become friends, versus getting into another class with lots of very nice people who become friends.
What I want to say with this is, even within a unit that we usually call "same environment", the environmental differences can be massive.
Yes. Lack of emotional intelligence, lack of cognitive intelligence (unless they're grifting), and a willingness to engage in sociopathic behavior. You should absolutely be able to see structural differences in people that willfully engage in conservatism.
I would suppose the brain, like a muscle, can be trained to be stronger (more computing power) and simultaneously can wither if neglected. Rather than the brain structure being an innate political preference indicator from birth it is (attempted to be) nurtured into a culturally efficient information processing organ. Which is why the battle lines in children's education around set conservative orthodoxies (such as religions) vs critical thinking, or obedience/conformity vs self actualisation, or hierarchical society vs egalitarianism are so heated. It is a battle for the soul of the country. Which, of course is continued throughout the rest of your life too overtly through partisan messaging and covertly through message format/style.
I think part of it may be that, but there's definitely big money behind pushing and disseminating these beliefs. You've got foreign government-funded groups whose whole purpose is to push these talking points out to large swaths of the US population, to create conflict, on both the Left and the Right. Our own corporate elite has been doing this to the US population for years via our tv and news media, but now with the internet and social media, world governments are getting in on the act and everyone is trying to push us one way or the other.
Maybe just maybe the sanctity of the American family is as an abuse cycle in its most potent form.
And there is no fixing that.
And the besainted Kurt Vonnegut said, “A husband, a wife and some kids is not a family. It's a terribly vulnerable survival unit."
Without no-fault divorce, one party has to admit to some kind of "harm" to the other, like "emotional neglect" or some such thing. It was pretty common, when both people wanted to divorce, for them to agree to essentially lie to the court to meet that requirement. And then, there would often be a required separation period of a year or more before the divorce could be finalized.
That's all in a relatively civil "at fault" divorce. If either party wants to be an ass about it, then it gets way uglier.
When my great-grandparents got a divorce, they had to get my great-grandfather's sister-in-law to lie in a bed with him under the covers and take a photo of it to prove infidelity. What a ridiculous system.
As usual conservatives don't think of the consequences of their actions. Marriage rates are already declining. Eliminating no-fault divorce won't make people stay together. It will make them decide getting married isn't worth it in the first place.
Hopefully this helps the "institution" of marriage just die off even sooner, at least as a government-recognized status. It should just be civil unions across the board is what's officially recognized, let marriages just be a Church ceremony and take government out of it altogether.
Marriage predates any modern religion, and likely predates organized religion entirely. Marriage is a civil institution. Marriage belongs to all of us, not just churches, not just the religious. Don't let them take it.
I legitimately don't understand why you would want to hold someone hostage if they don't want to be with you. Ignore the whole human rights issue... Unless you are an actual sadistic sociopath why would you want to subject yourself to another person's misery like that, instead of going out and seeking mutual happiness?
For some, women and children are things, not people.
My terrible grandfather was like that. Abusive to everyone in the household, stole my grandmother's income, and when winter rolled around he'd disappear until spring to who knows where leaving my grandmother and kids to fend for themselves. He literally tried to kill one of my uncles just because he could (tried to run him over with a tractor).
Not just that, but marriage to them is a prize they won, not something they did as a partner. And once they won their prize, they can do anything they want with it.
Unless you are an actual sadistic sociopath
You answered your own question. To conservatives, a spouse is merely another piece along your way to the "traditional family". And that is explicitly your (the royal you) way. How dare that piece have the audacity to remove itself from your carefully laid plans. Doesn't it know you have a wholesome image to maintain? Though it's nothing a little "discipline" won't fix.
Some of it stems from religious zealotry (marriage is sacred and permanent).
Some of it is a misguided attempt at rectify the 'single parent' problem, believing that two unhappy parents is better than one parent divorced.
Essentially if you make divorce harder, more couples will be forced to work through their disagreements and reconcile.
It's not about holding someone hostage. A lot of breadwinners would let their spouse walk if they didn't take half of the breadwinner's savings with them.
The rest of it is all fluff...the core of this issue is money.
The core of the issue also can include child custody, but I agree with you in that money is also a huge core issue.
Some people don't see happiness as valuable.
Some people only value the harm they inflict on others.
Imagine wanting to get out of a bad situation and needing to prove to a court that it's bad enough.
Court: "Not bad enough, you can't leave."
I have no problem with no-fault divorce (on the contrary, it’s a great thing). What I do have a problem with is 50-50 split laws that create the possibility that assets will be automatically equally split in a divorce, which is stupid and enables gold-digging. I would think conservatives would be against that too, which I could actually support. This though…this is just abusive and motivated by either misogyny and/or Christian religious values (although I’m sure some other religions could get behind it too [hard stare at Islam]).
What I do have a problem with is 50-50 split laws that create the possibility that assets will be automatically equally split in a divorce, which is stupid and enables gold-digging.
I have never heard anyone complain about a 50-50 split laws.
You clearly have a strong opinion about it. If you're willing to share, do you believe that "gold-digging" is such a prevalent problem that the default 50-50 split needs to change? What are you proposing as an alternative? If you're worried about "gold-digging" how do prenuptial agreements not mitigate this already?
My mom slept around for 20+ years of marriage, was emotionally abusive to her kids, and never did much if it didn't further her public image. From the outside she looked great, but now she is on the never talks to me again list. My dad was the primary breadwinner by a large margin, cooked dinner every night, coached multiple of our sports teams, taught us to drive, volunteered at our school several times per year, and was so calm I can only remember one time where he lost his temper. He basically raised us as a single father and never wanted to divorce because he was determined to break the cycle. He sounds fake when I type it out.
The settlement after two years of lawyering, and only one of the kids being not an adult at 17 years old, was ridiculous. He took on all of the debt, took care of all the kids, paid all 3 kids child support until we were 21, paid my mom alimony of over $2k, she took half the shit out of our house, and gave her a free basically new car. Oh and he paid for her apartment for a year. This was after talking the judge down for months.
We were firmly middle class, like $150k gross in the 2010's when this played out. I had to pay for our groceries a few times because of this fucked up system. It basically fucks the good parent into the ground for a sense of equality.
It basically fucks the good parent into the ground for a sense of equality.
First, let me say that I feel for you and your father in trying to do what he felt was right and honorable.
50-50 split isn't where one person takes all the debt, then the assets are split 50-50. What you're describing sounds like your father would have benefited from 50-50 split. He clearly didn't get half.
It was about 70/30 in my mom's favor. The big problem with no fault is it massively favors the mom.
I don't feel strongly either way here, but want to point out that something doesn't need to be a big, prevalent problem before you advocate for change. If it's a problem for someone, somewhere, and you can solve the problem without introducing new problems for others, that should be enough.
As for the 50-50 split, I intuitively think it would make sense to have some kind of clause regarding what each part brings in to a marriage. If one part brings in a house, while the other just got their first job, it doesn't make sense to me that the default upon a divorce should be that they get equal parts of the house. Of course, implementing a good solution in practice can be anything but simple.
If one part brings in a house, while the other just got their first job, it doesn’t make sense to me that the default upon a divorce should be that they get equal parts of the house.
It already doesn't work like that in most places in the USA. If the house is still in the name of the person that owned it to begin with, generally that person keeps the house after the divorce. Do some googling on "premartial assets".
I'm by no means well versed in US divorce law. My primary point was that I can imagine situations where something other than a default 50-50 split would make sense, and that crafting a good solution in practice is probably difficult. An alternative situation to the one mentioned above could be:
Two people have wildly different incomes, they take up a loan and buy a house together, where one of the two makes the 75 % of the down-payments. If they get a divorce, should the value of the house / loan be split 50 / 50? I think it's a question that can be open for discussion, even if "gold digging" isn't a prominent issue.
I’m not at risk of it, in case you’re wondering if I have a personal stake. But I’ve always found the notion of a person taking 50% of another’s accomplishments simply because they managed to get them to fall in love with them tantamount to rape. I have very strong opinions about rape too, by the way.
Prenuptial agreements are nice, but the truth of the matter is that 50/50 should not be the default and people shouldn’t have to take preliminary measures to protect themselves. It’s not about the prevalence of the problem; rape isn’t actually that prevalent if you look at the full scope of human sexual interaction. Nonetheless, that it occurs at all is abhorrent. That alone justifies action and legal protection. The alternatives are extrajudicial negotiation via lawyers and court judgments if that fails. Plenty of states have this system; only nine have 50/50 laws. Thankfully, it seems most people can see their stupidity. I’d rather see resources split equitably according to needs and what people deserve than a completely in-arbitrary split that’s sole purpose is to spare court time and resources.
And if you don’t think my comparison to rape apt, I can assure you I don’t mean to equate the two in every aspect, obviously. But it’s been said by many others that this is the principal way in which women take advantage of men, and I do consider it severely psychologically damaging, even if the outcomes aren’t the same (e.g. PTSD). Legally stealing a person’s earned income isn’t just about money; it’s a slice at their very life’s work, and that is about far lore than the material goods it’s associated with.
This seems kinda ignorant about how married families work. So much that I don't even know where I'd begin setting things straight. My wife spent years not working, not advancing her career, not contributing to the financial bottom line further than doing all the work necessary to make the household function so that I could focus on my own career growth and money. Even now, I make twice what she does even though she is probably the more generally competent of us, because she effectively had no career growth for about fifteen years.
Once the kids from her first marriage were old enough she became a loan officer at a bank. That went out the window when we started having kids of our own and she had to start again from the bottom rung of the ladder in a whole different industry. You're damn skippy she's entitled to half my earnings if we get a divorce. I couldn't have hired someone to do everything she's done for half my salary. Plus it's not like I'd want my kids living in poverty when they were staying with her.
I feel like in your head your are thinking some self-made millionaire tricked into marrying a high school dropout because the pussy is amazing and now she has a half million bucks and her vagina can retire. Maybe that happens but my story is way more common. Plus if the pussy is that good, who's to say it isn't worth $500k? Only Fans incomes suggests that certain pussy is definitely worth that.
My point is just think about what the woman risks and sacrifices before deciding 50/50 is unfair.
Let’s leave aside the fact that all of that assumes a spouse who actually genuinely supports their working partner and doesn’t instead just live off their labor, which I think you may not realize happens more than you might think.
Raising kids and running a household isn’t easy, and nowhere in my comment did I say or even imply it was, so I’m not sure where you get off saying I don’t understand how marriage works. I understand that some couples decide to divide the labor of housekeeping and breadwinning such that one person has to sacrifice their career while the other sacrifices a significant degree of their relationship with their children (but I think you forgot to take that last part into account, if I’m being honest). It’s not ideal, but life is imperfect and we all make sacrifices to achieve our goals.
But what’s the equivalent of alimony for the breadwinner, hm? Do they get their time away from their family back in the event of a divorce? No, of course not. But money—that’s easy to transfer, right? And I’m not against it, not entirely. It makes sense. But only to a point. I don’t care how good a parent you are, your skills, time, and effort are not worth millions of dollars, and let’s not pretend the primary caregivers don’t also get things out of their choice that can’t be quantified in money, so it’s not even like they deserve to be paid in full for their work. These 50/50 laws have no limit, no cap on how much they allot to the homemaker/parent, and that doesn’t make any sense.
I agree the primary caregiver should get something; they do sacrifice, after all. But I don’t think an arbitrary 50/50 split is always justified. That’s all I’m saying. Are you seriously suggesting that such a rubric makes sense in all, let alone just most divorce scenarios? If you are, then I think you’re being even more daft than you’ve accused me of being. It always makes more sense to actually look at a situation and make your judgment based on the particulars rather than apply some context-blind rule.
First, I'm fifty. I have five kids. I know the sacrifices and demands on both partners very, very well. You aren't dropping any knowledge here that doesn't already go into my thinking. And yes, I still think 50/50 is fine. Perfect? No, but arbitrary rules never are and non-arbitrary rules always run into bias. How much money someone deserves becomes a question of who can hire the better lawyer, which isn't a better system than 50/50.
Getting back time lost is a ridiculous suggestion. It can't be done. Time with a fifteen year old is completely different from time with a four year old. So I don't see any reason to try to litigate or compare to the impossible. My wife moved with me to DC and her mom died of cancer. Who's giving her back time with her mom? There is no "fair." Everyone lost opportunities to make other choices and none of that can be undone without a time machine.
It goes back again to the fact that I couldn't decide to do it all without her and just pay for everything she gave me.
The only situation that I can identify with how you describe is military wives, and that's a whole other fucked up thing. Yeah that for sure happens in the military, but god damn that's a whole other shitstorm I could write five thousand words on.
I'm very concerned for you with what you're saying here.
The narrative your creating equating 50/50 split in divorce to rape, ignoring any recognition that marriage is a relationship of equals, and believing that one spouse "sacrifices to achieve [their] goals" sounds like its describing some kind of victim complex.
But it’s been said by many others that this is the principal way in which women take advantage of men,
HUGE CITATION NEEDED here. Don't be shy. Name the "many others". My guess is your sources may also point to the cause you hold this male victim complex.
Are you unaware of the historical context where for a good chunk of modern human history, prior to 50-50 split, women were held in loveless and abusive marriages because if they left they would leave with nothing, and as traditional raisers of children they had few, if any marketable skills to earn a living if they were to divorce?
I’d rather see resources split equitably according to needs and what people deserve than a completely in-arbitrary split that’s sole purpose is to spare court time and resources.
50/50 split is literally the definition of the word "equitable" where each spouse is treated the same. What criteria is your "what people deserve" based on? Are you suggesting that if one spouse makes more money during the marriage then that spouse should take more money away in the divorce?
But what’s the equivalent of alimony for the breadwinner, hm?
You're aware that alimony has nothing to do with 50/50 split of marital assets in divorce, yes?
I agree the primary caregiver should get something; they do sacrifice, after all.
How charitable of you. Whatever you think they should get, you don't believe its half of the marriage assets apparently.
and let’s not pretend the primary caregivers don’t also get things out of their choice that can’t be quantified in money, so it’s not even like they deserve to be paid in full for their work.
A marriage isn't supposed to be a transactional relationship. A divorce isn't about rewarding one spouse or the other. Its an act of separating a pair of people that were sharing life and finances (and sometimes children) so they can go their separate ways. They build the marriage together and share everything. When they split they each take half and go on with their lives.
They want to trap you for life. Allowing them to be horrible people and not allowing you to leave.
What is no-fault divorce?
Good for women.
Why do conservatives want to get rid of it?
See above.
The Republicans are always looking backwards and asking themselves how they can drag the country there.
I was going to bring up the story of Andrew Jackson's wife, but apperently the story was much more complex then part of the country had no fault, and the other part didn't.
https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/2017/05/05/real-story-andrew-and-rachel-jackson/101194482/
Instead I shall bring up the fact that Andrew Jackson had a parrot that swore a fuckton. Like it was at Jacksons funeral and it swore so fucking much it had to be taken out of the church. I aspire to be like that parrot.