Opinion ID: 2575752
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Alimony Seeker Has The Burden of Demonstrating A Need for Support Alimony

Text: ¶ 11 The seeker of support alimony carries the burden of affirmatively demonstrating the need for excess funds to cushion the economic transition from marital dependency to employment. [10] The demonstrated-need standard of today is different from that of the early nineteenth century. Then (here and in England) a wife was not required to show a need for spousal support. [11] That need was legally presumed. The ecclesiastical courts could grant only divorces a mensa et thoro (from bed and board, known to us as legal separation). [12] In a legal separation, the husband had control of the wife's property and the law imposed upon him a duty to continue supporting her. A divorce a vinculo matrimonii (from the bonds of matrimony or an absolute divorce) was allowed only by special act of Parliament. [13] Because today a wife has full control of her separate property and can easily obtain an absolute divorce, the earlier rationale that ascribed to the husband a continuing duty to provide support is no longer a viable legal basis for post-divorce support alimony.