Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and his wife have staged a very public covenant marriage ceremony, hoping to encourage other couples in Arkansas to make the same choice. Here’s an article from the Chicago Tribune. Here’s another article on it from the Sarasota Herald Tribune.
Author: Lee Borden
The Other Social Security Crisis
In the midst of the current debate about President’s Bush’s proposal to change Social Security, here’s an article pointing out another issue nobody’s talking about. Entitled Motherhood: the Real Social Security Crisis, this op-ed piece in the Pasadena Star News cites historical documents that “make it clear that the council that constructed Social Security in the late 1930s purposefully chose to discourage women from working outside the home, to reward married men by giving them a bonus if they had a “dependent’ wife, to encourage men to work by linking benefit levels to years worked and income earned, and to send a message to women that they needed to stay married, since their economic security was tied to their status as a dependent of a wage-earning husband.”
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Employee Assistance and Divorce in Canada
Marital and relationship tension account for 23 percent of all issues Canadian employees present to their employee assistance providers. This according to the latest statistics from the WarrenShepell Employee Assistance Program, based in Toronto. Here’s the article on the study from Canadian Newswire. And here’s the summary of the study on WarrenShepell’s web site.
Here are some of the findings from the study:
Divorce Increasing in Asia
The divorce rate is rising across Asia. During the same period that divorce rates have remained more or less stable in the Western world, divorce has increased by a third in Singapore and doubled in Thailand and mainland China. The divorce rate has tripled in Taiwan. Here’s the article about all this in the Khaleej Times.
The article assumes that the change is due to a surge in the relative power of women, and it’s forcing men into a new set of roles and expectations:
While Japanese women will see divorce as a first step to a new and improved life, Japanese men are struggling with the wholly new duties of doing the laundry or cooking, things that have traditionally been done for them all their life — first by their mothers and then by their wives. In this sense, more and more Japanese men are becoming Americanised!
Is divorce too easy?
Yawn. Here we go again. Another conservative commentator who has no experience with divorce pontificates about how the real problem is that divorce is too easy. Here’s the latest from somebody called Nathan Tabor. My favorite statement in his piece is that “Bitter child custody fights are often part of the cost of no-fault divorce.” Huh?
Update on Catholic Annulments in the U.S.
Responding to yesterday’s post about the Vatican’s pronouncement on annulments, and specifically the question whether Americans are overusing the process of annulment, a good friend let me know about two articles that explore the issue. First, there’s Annulments in America: Keeping Bad News in Context from CanonLaw.info. Then there’s this one called Annulments in America: Rebutting a rebuttal.
My quick conclusion is that they take opposite sides in this tender and intriguing argument. I haven’t read either of them.
Senators Call for Cutting Child Support Services
Two Senators, one a republican and the other a democrat, have called for prohibiting states from taking part of child support payments to fund child support services. Here’s the article about their bill in the New Kerala.
The Senators, Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Herb Kohl, D-Wis., say their proposal would put an extra $4 billion in child support collections in the hands of parents over the next five years. “It simply does not make sense to tell a family that is on welfare or trying to get off of welfare that the State is entitled to the first cut of a child support payment,” said the Senators.
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Vatican Tightening Screws on Annulment
The Vatican has issued revised guidelines for Catholics who wish to obtain an annulment, an essential step for Catholics who have divorced and want to remarry with the blessing of the Church. Here’s an article on the new pronouncements from The Scotsman. Here’s another from the Washington Post. And another from The Guardian.
Catholics can obtain an annulment on the grounds of impotence, refusal of the other spouse to have children, or psychological immaturity at the time of the marriage. It’s this last reason that annulment critics charge is being overused, permitting almost anyone who obtains a divorce to get an annulment. This practice seems particularly prevalant in the US, which accounts for about 2/3 of annulments worldwide.
Retroactive Increase in Child Support
The Alberta Court of Appeal has issued a landmark opinion that will change the complexion of child support adjustment. Here’s the article on the decision from the National Post.
The Court of Appeal ruled that when a child support payer’s income goes up, his or her obligation to pay child support normally kicks in at that time, not months or years later when the child support recipient files for a modification. The ruling means that many child support payers may owe large arrearages retroactively.
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Divorce Reform in Scotland
The Scottish Executive will publish today a proposed revision of the family law in Scotland. Here’s the article from the BBC. Here’s another article from Grampian TV.
The bill will propose reducing the required waiting period from two years to one year if they both agree and from five years to two if one of them opposes divorce. It will propose allowing unmarried fathers who register the birth of their child with full parental rights. And it will propose offering more family mediation to help reduce conflict in divorce.
No Fault Divorce in New York?
Chief Judge Judith Kaye has called for New York to implement no fault divorce. Here’s an article on the story from the New York Times (free registration required). Kaye leads the New York Court of Appeals, its highest court, and therefore its judiciary. She called for the change in her annual “State of the Judiciary” speech.
New York is one of the few remaining states that requires divorcing couples to demonstrate that one of them is “at fault” — a requirement that often exacerbates the tension between divorcing spouses. The law is held in place, according to the Times, “by years of opposition from some women’s rights groups, the Catholic Church, legislators, and others who believe that easier divorces and quick settlements might harm one spouse – often women – who have historically earned less money or have not worked outside the home.”
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Covenant Marriage Movement – New Tactics
Three states – Arizona, Arkansas, and Louisiana — have passed some form of “covenant marriage,” in which a bride and groom agree when they say “I do” that it will take something beyond the normal civil standard of incompatibility for them to dissolve their marriage.
Response from the brides and grooms to these statutes has been unenthusiastic. Few people have actually opted, even in the three states permitting covenant marriages, to bind themselves to the more rigid standards against divorce. The percentage of couples opting to embrace the new requirements is between 1 and 2 percent.
What are the Odds?
A husband and wife in Jordan were both unhappy with their marriage, so they both turned to the Internet to find comfort. The husband Bakr called himself Adnan, and the wife Sanaa called her self Jamila. Here’s the article from the Inquirer (not to be confused with the National Enquirer, which has a, shall we say, different approach to the news of the day).
You can tell the rest of the story without my help, right? In their new personalities (Bakr the devout Muslim who loved to read and Jamila the cultured, unmarried woman), they fell madly in love with each other and agreed to meet near a bus depot.
When Bakr/Adnan realized who his new consort was to be, he screamed three times “I divorce you.” You gotta wonder, don’t you? Don’t these two deserve to be together?
Venue for Post-Divorce Litigation
The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals has provided a textbook illustration applying the Alabama statute dealing with venue, in Hodge v. Steinwinder, Case No. 2031060 (Ala. Civ. App. February 4, 2005). The parties had been divorced in Coffee County in 1993. After the divorce, the mother and children moved twice, first to Montgomery County in March 1998 and then to Jefferson County in August 2001. The mother filed to reevaluate child support and to enforce a child support arrearage in April 2001. The Montgomery County Circuit Court entered judgment awarding the Mother child support arrearage and more than doubling the amount of monthly child support.
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Leave Joint Custody Alone
The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals has ordered an equal time parenting arrangement to stay in place, overruling the trial court’s award of sole custody. The case is Watters v. Watters, Case No. 2030530, (Ala. Civ. App. Feb. 4, 2005).
The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the ruling from Mobile Circuit Court that a previously agreed upon and court ordered plan for equal time parenting should be changed to sole custody for the mother because of a material change in circumstances. The Court of Appeals rejected the trial court’s finding of a material change in circumstances and made its own finding that no such change had occurred.
In its ruling, the Court of Appeals mentioned evidence from the trial that the child behaved better during those times he was with his father, that the child was tardy less for school when his father brought him, and that the father was more involved in PTA and other school-related activities. The Court of Appeals also mentioned evidence that the father had initiated and participated more actively in speech therapy when the child developed a problem with his speaking.
The Court of Appeals made no mention of the ore tenus rule (which holds that the when the trial court hears testimony in a nonjury case, its judgement based on that evidence is presumed correct absent a showing that it is plainly and palpably wrong or manifestly unjust).
Pregnancy Can’t Bar Divorce
The Washington state legislature is considering legislation that would clarify that women who are pregnant can get a divorce. Here’s the article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The bill became necessary in response to some judges in Washington state who had interpreted state law to mean they could deny divorce when the wife was pregnant.
In Alabama, despite the advice that some lawyers give to the contrary, our courts routinely permit divorce when the wife is pregnant. The court will simply reserve for all issues involving the paternity, custody, support, and visitation of the unborn child. I’ve never had any court try to say that divorce couldn’t be granted to parents because they are expecting a child.
This being true, I do often encourage couples with a child on the way to wait until the child is born, healthy, and has a Social Security number to get divorced. The alternative is to pay me twice – once now, and then again when the child is here.
Muslim Alimony
The High Court of Allahabad has awarded alimony to a Muslim wife. Doesn’t sound like news to you? Didn’t to me, either, but this is apparently groundbreaking. Here’s the article from Rediff India. If you’re wondering as I was about what the signficance of the High Court of Allahabad, you can check out the history and function of the court.
In the court’s ruling, it said that Hindu law was clear that alimony was permissable and that to deny alimony on the basis of religious law alone would amount to religious discrimination. The Indian Constitution forbids discrimination on the basis of caste, creed or religion.
Islamic Divorce by Text Message
You may remember reading in July about a notorious case, in which a Muslim man in Malaysia was allowed to divorce his wife by sending her a text message. This practice, involving the husband’s telling the wife “I divorce you” three times, goes by the name “Triple Talaq” and is apparently a corruption of Islamic law. Here’s a brief article about it on alt.muslim.com. To properly understand the phenomenon in context, make sure you read the comments.
The news coverage is sketchy and hard to find, but apparently the government of Malaysia is reviewing and may have revoked the July decision.
How Likely is Divorce?
Can you really tell whether you and your new love are likely to stay married? Wouldn’t it be great if you knew?
A researcher at Washington University says he has devised a quiz that couples can take to see how sturdy their relationship will be over time. Here’s the story on RedNova .
Dr. John Gottman’s theory is that the key to longevity in love isn’t sex or money or power; it’s friendship — friendship measured by intimate knowledge of the other person’s hopes, dreams, and fears. Gottman calls this cluster of knowledge a “love map.”
You can read more about his work, and the workshops he and his institute offer, at the Gottman Institute site.
Gay Marriage Ban in Alabama
Yes, Alabama is in a fiscal crisis, and our teachers are outrunning their students on the way to the exits. Yes, our prisons are so overcrowded we’re likely to face ruinous fines if we don’t take immediate action. And yes, our state has been found in a recent study to be among the two worst administered in the nation. So our legislature is in session now and we’re going to get to work, right? You bet. Let’s ban gay marriage. Oh brother. In a state where it’s already illegal. The only reason for doing this is to perpetuate hate and intolerance and to pander to (too many) ignorant voters.
Okay, stepping down off my soapbox now.