Opinion ID: 1826223
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: earning ability and worth of housewife

Text: The so-called Fischer guidelines [1] include as one of the matters to be considered the earning ability of the parties. The majority, in purporting to discuss earning ability, turns the whole concept upside down. To me, it is obvious that we must consider earning power of the parties in order to make allowances to the party who has the smaller earning power. But the majority opinion refers to the higher earning ability of the husband here as a reason for giving him a larger share because his earnings have been mainly responsible for the accumulation of the parties' property during the marriage ! Such reasoning magnifies inequity instead of reducing it. Wives usually have less earning power than husbands. They get no wages for cooking, cleaning, and caring for children. If they had earning ability before marriage, it withers away from lack of employment or from being used only in part-time jobs. In the meantime, husbands gain experience, seniority, and better pay. Without the wife at home to take care of the household, the husband would be unable to obtain the earning ability he has. The fact is that the employed spouse's earning power is often the most valuable single asset of the marriage, and the other spouse contributes equally to its acquisition. Some supreme courts have recognized the worth of the work the wife does, although ours gives wives little credit. In Wisconsin it is recognized that the contribution of a full-time homemaker may be considered greater than, or at least as great as, that of a working spouse. Wilberscheid v. Wilberscheid, 77 Wis.2d 40, 252 N.W.2d 76 (1977). In the view of that court, it makes little difference that one spouse works outside the home and the other withinWisconsin considers the marital union as a partnership. We should do likewise. Coming now to the case before us, the earning ability of the husband rose from $25,750 in 1973 to $31,750 in 1975. The wife's earning ability is $7,692 per year ($641 per month). Even if we take $25,000 as the husband's earning ability and reduce it by $300 per month for alimony, he still will have $21,400 per year compared to her $7,692, or about $13,700 more income per year. The trial court awarded her property valued at $69,088 and to him property valued at $13,524, a difference of $55,564. At $13,700 per year he can make up the difference in about four years, or by the time he is 43 years of age, with no wife or dependents. I do not understand how this is inequitable or unfair to him. The majority opinion is far worse. It gives a difference of only $21,000 in the property division, which the husband can make up out of his higher earning ability in about a year and a half. That is inequitable to her.