Yeah, no shit people don't approve of this

[trinityvixen]

So this woman is out to save marriage from divorce in Oklahoma. This may be an unpopular thing to say, but I applaud her for at least having the courage of her convictions and going full-on with the crazy and not being a hypocrite. See, she really does think gays are a threat to marriage. And she sat a good long time and thought, "Gee, you know what else is a threat to marriage?"

Et voila, she has something she wants done about divorce. Not that she intends to be any less batshit, rights-denying, human-hating about this than she is about gay marriage. This woman wants you married, goddamnit, and you will stay that way, so help her GOD...

Her rules would basically make it impossible for all but childless couples and those who get married at Vegas chapels on drunken binges (are you listening, Britney Spears?) to get divorced. You couldn't divorce for "incompatibility" if you'd been married for ten years or more (because every thing that might happen to you to change your personality has only a ten-year window in which to happen which opens right after you get married and nothing good/bad/major will ever happen to you or your spouse after that window is closed). You also can't divorce for "incompatibility" if you have minor children, which means that unless you were living in sin with the partner with whom you had children until those children were 6-7-8 years of age, HA HA NO DIVORCE FOR YOU. I suppose that's one way to keep an eye on those people of ill repute who would dare to birth bastards in this day and age. (That's probably her next suggestion: finding a way to declare certain kinds of children legally illegitimate in a country with no royalty.)

You also can't object to a divorce on "incompatibility" grounds if the other person objects. Would love to be in that Divorce Court. ("Your Honor, we're clearly incompatible! He wants a divorce and I don't! Er, wait...") It's the kind of logical conundrum that would kill off our Robot Overlords.

The non-funny side to this is that a person who is not outright abusive or unfaithful could trap you in a marriage basically forever by refusing to divorce you. Two things about that: 1) No one should ever have that power over you again, which is why divorce exists at all. 2) If this whole thing were to pass, that person could hold you until such time as you hit the big Tin/Aluminium Anniversary and became ineligible. (Ooh, did this Rep. know that the traditional presents for that anniversary are so...tarnishable?) ::shudders at the thought::

No fault divorce! The three best words in the English language!

Comments

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It's no more inhuman to hold someone to one agreement than the other

The hell it isn't. If you can't tell the difference, no, if you don't see a difference between a financial institution and its investment and two people getting married, I'm done with this conversation. People aren't banks. End of of story.

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

Obviously people aren't banks. One should have a greater commitment to one's spouse than one's bank. That's kind of the point.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The greater commitment should be emotional, not financial. A contract, if such a ludicrous, outdated model were to be imposed on marriage, should be foremost emotional. As you've argued time and again, the emotional bond is irrelevant. You keep harping on the idea that you're BOUND. That your promise once is your contractual promise forever. Those are words. You can stay bound. You can say those words. But emotion doesn't fall out according to contracts. You cannot make emotional bonds binding by will or by force, though with effort you can, but only SOMETIMES, strengthen such a bond.

That bond? Still not of a type or of a cold-hearted calculating nature as the banking, contract, and legal argument you've been advocating. Nor should it be. We cannot control how we grow, not entirely, and until we can punishing growth apart from a spouse as though it were betrayal--"breach of contract" and that nonsense--is not only illogical, it is inhuman (and inhumane).

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

You don't need the state to enforce an emotional bond, and if that's what you want, then just abolish state marriage. But if the state's going to get involved, then you have to deal with the cold legal and financial stuff. You can't just throw up your hands, say, "It's an emotional bond!", and ignore the incentives our version of no fault divorce creates.

If you want to favor a marriage system where the state licenses marriage, says, "Yay, you're married!", and when one party gets a divorce says, "OK, have fun," without getting involved in issues like child support, alimony, child custody, and asset division, well...I don't think it's the most stable way to run society, but at least it's legally fair and reasonable, and I won't argue. If you favor a marriage system where people can get married and divorced on a whim but claim the legal and financial benefits of a true partnership, that's where I have a problem.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

If you favor a marriage system where people can get married and divorced on a whim but claim the legal and financial benefits of a true partnership, that's where I have a problem.

I feel like you've been coming at this all crabbed about people getting grabby in divorce. What I realize now is that you have been making a straw person of me the entire time. I have said nothing about people taking, unfairly, in divorce. You've talked about nothing but. You're obsessed with it, and it's creepy, dude.

All I said was that I find declaring a) that there is a wronged party in divorces where there is no abuse/infidelity; b) that the wronged party is always the divorced one; and c) that the party that is divorcing is the problem, not that the marriage is the problem is simplistic and inhuman. It's just wrong with human reality. Legally, yes, we need help sorting out assets. But judges don't go "You're asking for the divorce, so you're the jerkbag." They look at the entire case, the whole of the people involved in a way you've not done this entire time.

I never advocated removing the courts as they are, never said that anyone is entitled to anything. That was, in fact, my point: don't try to increase entitlement in expectations of marriage by giving one partner the right to demand financial satisfaction of the other in exchange for granting a divorce. That's coercion. You see it all the time in abusive relationships--the threat of being punished for leaving keeps victims from leaving. If you extend that punishment to divorce--try to leave, and you'll pay--you'll keep the divorce rate low, but you'll send the unhappiness rate sky high (to say nothing, probably, of the rates of infidelity/suicide/murder).

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

But judges don't go "You're asking for the divorce, so you're the jerkbag." They look at the entire case, the whole of the people involved in a way you've not done this entire time.


No, they don't.

Modern family law completely ignores fault in divorce. For a silly example, watch some episodes of Divorce Court--the parties will get up there, accuse each other of horrible misdeeds of the sexual and financial sort, and the judge will split assets evenly and award alimony in the neat formula dictated by your state's statute.

If A decides to divorce B, it doesn't matter what B proves; B will pay essentially the same amount of alimony no matter what. Whether A was leaving because B beats him/her every day or because he/she found some incredibly hot new sexual conquest, it doesn't matter in the slightest when it comes to asset division.

This is the system that you are defending, if you defend the status quo. If you're not defending this system, then we can agree and stop arguing. But I don't think you realize just how cruelly neutral family law is in the typical case.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Again, you focus on the cases that prove your point to the detriment of representing the full spectrum of divorce. Alimony settlements might need adjustment, but the fact is that it isn't so neat as you prove it. Not everyone who divorces extracts alimony from the person they are leaving, or if they do, they usually have a good reason (they weren't earning at the time of marriage due to the other partner working, children, etc.). Is it rife with abuse? No, absolutely not. Not unless you're one of those men's rights activists who see evil castrating women everywhere sucking the marrow out of their financial bones. Is there abuse? Isn't there always? The goal is to minimize abuse. Assuming fault lies on the divorcer is not a good way to minimize abuse. It's a great way to minimize it on paper--you might see fewer divorces. But you'll also feel more people yoked into marriages that don't work for fear of being punished just for wanting to get out of an unsuccessful marriage. That's like taking the person hostage. It will stop many more people who have something to lose from divorcing from doing so because they won't be able to afford more loss. I bet that will be a great marriage.