From: slarsen@titian.helios.nd.edu (susan larsen)
Newsgroups: soc.men,soc.women,alt.dads-rights,alt.child-support
Subject: Re: How much $$ is enough?
Date: 30 Jul 92 20:53:32 GMT
Organization: University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame

In article <1992Jul30.161219.3562@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com> bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris) writes:
>In article <1992Jul28.164958.7358@unixg.ubc.ca> schultz@unixg.ubc.ca (Stewart Schultz) writes:
>
>)"Judge Van Duzer accepted the Quantilex evidence and awarded Ms. 
>)Omerod $103,000 against her former husband's share of the 
>)proceeds fom the sale of the matrimonial home."
>)
>)
>)This is the procedure proposed by the Department of Justice to
>)be used routinely in all future spousal support awards in Canada.
>)
>
>However, I have at least a little better idea of what this is about now.
>And I don't really like it.  From a social aspect, it's probably *not* going
>to help the poor woman - it's going to help the already relatively well off
>women.  I'm fairly convinced that the divorce process has problems for both
>genders - poorer women get screwed by it, and so do richer men.  The current
>move to screw the rich man more isn't going to solve the existing social
>problems.

Agreed on the assessment that poorer women and richer men get screwed 
by divorce!

It took me a few days to pinpoint exactly what bugs me about this 
Canadian court's order.  It seems to me that the state is attempting 
to force individuals, i.e. generally the deep-pocket husbands, to 
assume the responsibility and liability for a failing on the part of 
business!  The larger social problem, IMO, is the fact that 
employers tend to penalize people, primarily women, when those 
people are needed to raise a family.  Is it really necessary for 
the market to be so punitive toward family care-givers? 

More on the mark, is it not reasonable to assume that any loss of 
earnings on the part of care-giving mom has already been absorbed
by the family?  Was there not an earnings penalty suffered by the 
husband as a member of the household that saw a decrease in 
income by the wife staying home to raise the kids?  Even more 
distressing, would it not be more to a wife's advantage to quit 
her job while raising a family than to have to struggle with the 
demands of home and job?  So, perhaps this is the state's not-too-
subtle attempt to encourage women to leave the job market when 
children are born into the family.  

And, what of the families in which the wife quits her job, raises 
the kids and the couple never divorce?  Who makes up for her 
earnings loss, then?

And, as Bronis pointed out, poorer women will get nothing out of 
this new scheme to relocate dollars.  Unless the husband's job 
paid well enough for the wife to stay home, most poorer women 
will continue struggling with employment and family demands. 

It also appears to me that the court is still of the opinion that 
women must be protected from big, bad men who will force them to
quit working, making the women economic cripples that the state may 
someday have to support.  Bull.

Truly a screwy scheme.  Is there any chance that this plan could 
get overturned by a higher court?

Sue Larsen
slarsen@berlin.helios.nd.edu
From: kurts@hpnmdla.sr.hp.com (Kurt Strain)
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 15:54:04 GMT
Subject: Re: How much $$ is enough?
Organization: Milky Way Galaxy