Court Opinion

ID: 9844246
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:59:43.925492+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:30.967216
License: Public Domain

Schroedek, J.,
dissenting: Throughout the history of our country, and western civilization as we know it, it has been the policy of duly constituted governments to encourage the preservation of the marriage relationship between husband and wife. The family has been recognized as the fundamental unit in a democratic society, and its preservation is in the interest of freedom loving people.
*185The approval of an alimony award in the total sum of $29,400 to the wife on the facts in this case, where the parties are in equal fault, tends only to encourage divorce and make it profitable for the wife. The mere fact that alimony can now be changed as future conditions may require, so long as it does not have the effect of increasing or accelerating the liability beyond that originally prescribed, is a poor excuse for making an alimony award unreasonably high in the first instance.
Where parties seek a divorce they are not preserving a home, they are breaking it up. People should be forced to realize this, and no party to a divorce action should be encouraged by a law which tends to protect one at fault to retain the same comforts of the home to which he or she was accustomed during the marriage as a result of the joint efforts of both the husband and wife.
The wife in this case is 41 years of age and is educated and trained in cosmetology. She is capable of earning sufficient income for a comfortable livelihood. Frailties of human nature being what they are, courts should not administer laws in such a way that they encourage a wife in a divorce action to remain idle pending the final determination of the divorce action, or to remain idle at the expense of the husband because the sum of alimony awarded is so large that it tends to encourage such conduct. At the turn of the century the woman’s place was said to be in the home, but today it is commonplace for a married woman to work regularly at gainful employment. And after working at gainful employment, she is eligible for unemployment compensation just the same as men.
The case of Darr v. Darr, 194 Kan. 593, 400 P. 2d 721, is so similar to the instant case that it suggests the alimony award herein is unduly excessive. There a $17,400 alimony judgment was reduced $5,000 and made payable at the rate of $150 per month instead of $200 per month. Accordingly, in my opinion, the alimony award should be reduced by $15,000 and made payable at the rate of $150 per month.