As a rule, ex-wifes receive half the marital property. Many get spousal support. No one suggests that mothers be forced to trudge out into the snow, babes in arms. But if we judge family collapse to be a societal crisis, our laws should not sweeten the divorce pot too much for either gender. But divorce hurts everyone.
Fathers lose disposable income and routine contact with their children.
Women, too, become poorer and seldom meet Mr. Right. And the havoc divorce wreaks on kids is axiomatic. Divorce upends the worlds of perhaps a million U.S. children each year. Yet surely many of the rubbled marriages producing these family-disaster waifs are rescuable. Before granting divorces, states should mandate pro-family counseling that teaches men and women how to talk to each other.