Why do you want to force someone to stay with you?
August 9, 2023 1:29 PM Subscribe
The Next Front in the GOP’s War on Women: No-Fault Divorce. Steven Crowder is part of a growing right-wing chorus calling for an end to modern divorce laws.
Republicans across the country are now reconsidering no-fault divorce. Like the crusades against abortion and contraception, making it more difficult to leave an unhappy marriage is about control.
Previously: Lack of No-Fault Divorce in UK
Previously: Little slice of U.S. history: 19th century divorce with a sadly prophetic comment from Talez.
Republicans across the country are now reconsidering no-fault divorce. Like the crusades against abortion and contraception, making it more difficult to leave an unhappy marriage is about control.
Previously: Lack of No-Fault Divorce in UK
Previously: Little slice of U.S. history: 19th century divorce with a sadly prophetic comment from Talez.
Steven Crowder's entire philosophy was encapsulated in a quote I saw ages ago, something along the lines of "She can just divorce me, because she wants to?"
That's all I need to know about him, really.
posted by hippybear at 1:37 PM on August 9, 2023 [85 favorites]
That's all I need to know about him, really.
posted by hippybear at 1:37 PM on August 9, 2023 [85 favorites]
That's all I need to know about him, really.
It's a deep rabbit hole. One not really worth exploring, he's just a tremendous piece of shit in any way you could imagine a person being.
posted by Dark Messiah at 1:41 PM on August 9, 2023 [32 favorites]
It's a deep rabbit hole. One not really worth exploring, he's just a tremendous piece of shit in any way you could imagine a person being.
posted by Dark Messiah at 1:41 PM on August 9, 2023 [32 favorites]
California was the first state to eliminate it, in 1969
Thanks, Reagan!
posted by Going To Maine at 1:43 PM on August 9, 2023 [8 favorites]
Thanks, Reagan!
posted by Going To Maine at 1:43 PM on August 9, 2023 [8 favorites]
Crowder could not get any traction unless/until the right-wing had already formed and solidified its nazi arm. Even five or ten years ago, "My wife divorced me and that makes me so mad that I want to stop women from being able to get a divorce ever" would be so embarrassing and wing-nutty a statement that no one would make it to a national audience, and now there is a public for it.
It's a real change of affect - like, there's a whole suite of ways in which you would have been considered an absolute loser in 2015 which are now completely part of performing right-wing manhood. I don't have more than that right now, but there's really something there about how masculinity is performed.
Again, I'm not saying that no men anywhere prior to 2015 complained in public about their wives leaving them; I'm saying that if you were performing normal cis straight masculinity, you would want to minimize your divorcedness because it made you look like a weak loser. It's this whole mobilization of being a big baby - like, having the tantrum itself is considered a kind of rebellion because they've got this whole narrative about how the wokes control everything, so it's a manly-man kind of thing to piss and moan about how you're scared of trans people and scared of cities and your wife would only stay with you if required by law, etc.
~~
Really demoralizing how this is all predicated on the idea that men and women all always hate and resent each other and can never be happy, so one gender has to be subjugated into misery. No such thing as a happy marriage, better keep the women locked up. In 2015, saying that would be telling on yourself, but not now.
posted by Frowner at 1:45 PM on August 9, 2023 [196 favorites]
It's a real change of affect - like, there's a whole suite of ways in which you would have been considered an absolute loser in 2015 which are now completely part of performing right-wing manhood. I don't have more than that right now, but there's really something there about how masculinity is performed.
Again, I'm not saying that no men anywhere prior to 2015 complained in public about their wives leaving them; I'm saying that if you were performing normal cis straight masculinity, you would want to minimize your divorcedness because it made you look like a weak loser. It's this whole mobilization of being a big baby - like, having the tantrum itself is considered a kind of rebellion because they've got this whole narrative about how the wokes control everything, so it's a manly-man kind of thing to piss and moan about how you're scared of trans people and scared of cities and your wife would only stay with you if required by law, etc.
~~
Really demoralizing how this is all predicated on the idea that men and women all always hate and resent each other and can never be happy, so one gender has to be subjugated into misery. No such thing as a happy marriage, better keep the women locked up. In 2015, saying that would be telling on yourself, but not now.
posted by Frowner at 1:45 PM on August 9, 2023 [196 favorites]
As a kid who grew up in a fundie environment (but not the worst - so don't think super weird snake handling shit)...
But at our private school I remember my mom being upset about "no fault" divorce, and what's weird is the kid's mom was the one going to this school I don't think she judged her for it, but she thought it was just another sign of "moral breakdown" (you know the one that began in 1963 when Madeline Murray O'Haire "took prayer out of schools") (completely ignoring 1964 civil rights act and other reforms). Anyways.
Yeah, this has been a long running them in conservative belief, even if not the most reactionary elements of it.
Who the fuck would want to keep someone trapped into a marriage, unless you're a fucking piece of shit who wants to control someone (as evidenced by his spoiled shitty entitled videos previously).
Sick of reactionaries trying to destroy the little vestiges we have carved for ourselves.
posted by symbioid at 1:45 PM on August 9, 2023 [16 favorites]
But at our private school I remember my mom being upset about "no fault" divorce, and what's weird is the kid's mom was the one going to this school I don't think she judged her for it, but she thought it was just another sign of "moral breakdown" (you know the one that began in 1963 when Madeline Murray O'Haire "took prayer out of schools") (completely ignoring 1964 civil rights act and other reforms). Anyways.
Yeah, this has been a long running them in conservative belief, even if not the most reactionary elements of it.
Who the fuck would want to keep someone trapped into a marriage, unless you're a fucking piece of shit who wants to control someone (as evidenced by his spoiled shitty entitled videos previously).
Sick of reactionaries trying to destroy the little vestiges we have carved for ourselves.
posted by symbioid at 1:45 PM on August 9, 2023 [16 favorites]
On the other side, I'm looking forward to seeing a lot more dead abusive husbands, but not looking forward to seeing women defending themselves thrown in jail.
posted by symbioid at 1:46 PM on August 9, 2023 [20 favorites]
posted by symbioid at 1:46 PM on August 9, 2023 [20 favorites]
The conservative movement hates women and wants to control them, example #31,556. They really want to go back to the days when only men could have property, bank accounts, bodily autonomy, or the vote.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 1:50 PM on August 9, 2023 [38 favorites]
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 1:50 PM on August 9, 2023 [38 favorites]
unless you're a fucking piece of shit who wants to control someone
The Men's Rights movement goes even further -- if she does get granted a divorce, there's a movement to get laws passed to force legally-enforceable "coparenting agreements" where if she gets custody, and he doesn't like how the kid's being raised, he can drag her into court to force her to raise the kid his way. It's all about punishing her, from top to bottom.
posted by AzraelBrown at 1:50 PM on August 9, 2023 [27 favorites]
The Men's Rights movement goes even further -- if she does get granted a divorce, there's a movement to get laws passed to force legally-enforceable "coparenting agreements" where if she gets custody, and he doesn't like how the kid's being raised, he can drag her into court to force her to raise the kid his way. It's all about punishing her, from top to bottom.
posted by AzraelBrown at 1:50 PM on August 9, 2023 [27 favorites]
The move to "no fault" divorce regimes was not particularly a feminist one.
You could always file for divorce as the victim of physical or mental cruelty, constructive or actual abandonment, or adultery. (Those are the "faults.") What you couldn't do is commence a divorce as the perpetrator of those breaches of the marriage contract, or because honoring the marriage contract until death no longer suited you.
More often than not, it was men who were denied divorces under no fault regimes. They left their wives, but were financially bound to them and unable to remarry, because their wives could simply refuse to file the divorce petition. And it's not like, back then, a respectable person (the not-divorced man or his girlfriend) could openly carry on an adulterous relationship so this was a very challenging situation to be in.
posted by MattD at 1:58 PM on August 9, 2023 [26 favorites]
You could always file for divorce as the victim of physical or mental cruelty, constructive or actual abandonment, or adultery. (Those are the "faults.") What you couldn't do is commence a divorce as the perpetrator of those breaches of the marriage contract, or because honoring the marriage contract until death no longer suited you.
More often than not, it was men who were denied divorces under no fault regimes. They left their wives, but were financially bound to them and unable to remarry, because their wives could simply refuse to file the divorce petition. And it's not like, back then, a respectable person (the not-divorced man or his girlfriend) could openly carry on an adulterous relationship so this was a very challenging situation to be in.
posted by MattD at 1:58 PM on August 9, 2023 [26 favorites]
Yeah, this has been a long running theme in conservative belief...
I mean, the cult-like protestant religion I grew up with straight-up forbids divorce, and will excommunicate you for it. If you no longer get along with your spouse you are supposed to stay separated-but-technically-married until one person dies. My sister has now been separated longer than she was ever married, not sure how that doesn't "make a mockery of the institution of marriage" but they apparently don't see it that way.
I think this is going to be a hard sell for libertarian types, though, even those who have rationalized picking on pregnant women.
posted by anhedonic at 2:04 PM on August 9, 2023 [6 favorites]
I mean, the cult-like protestant religion I grew up with straight-up forbids divorce, and will excommunicate you for it. If you no longer get along with your spouse you are supposed to stay separated-but-technically-married until one person dies. My sister has now been separated longer than she was ever married, not sure how that doesn't "make a mockery of the institution of marriage" but they apparently don't see it that way.
I think this is going to be a hard sell for libertarian types, though, even those who have rationalized picking on pregnant women.
posted by anhedonic at 2:04 PM on August 9, 2023 [6 favorites]
The article mentioned the video posted of him berating his pregnant wife. It didn't mention he was the one to get a divorce lawyer first, before she even left him, and had locked her out of the joint bank account. That part's per her family as quoted in the Jezebel link below. He wants every man to be able to do that to their wives.
Jezebel article about the video
posted by tlwright at 2:10 PM on August 9, 2023 [20 favorites]
Jezebel article about the video
posted by tlwright at 2:10 PM on August 9, 2023 [20 favorites]
Again, I'm not saying that no men anywhere prior to 2015 complained in public about their wives leaving them; I'm saying that if you were performing normal cis straight masculinity, you would want to minimize your divorcedness because it made you look like a weak loser. It's this whole mobilization of being a big baby - like, having the tantrum itself is considered a kind of rebellion because they've got this whole narrative about how the wokes control everything, so it's a manly-man kind of thing to piss and moan about how you're scared of trans people and scared of cities and your wife would only stay with you if required by law, etc.
I'm not convinced by this. "She blindsided me with divorce papers and left me with nothing" (usually meaning: "she got about half the collective assets"), sometimes plus "and she took the kids," has been a refrain I've heard my entire life. It's one of the lynchpins of the toxic side of the "men's rights" movement; it's something that gets foregrounded in essays, in online posts, and in conversations. It's not something that gets hidden or has intimations of being a "weak loser." It's "I did everything right but the system is biased against me."
posted by Dip Flash at 2:12 PM on August 9, 2023 [25 favorites]
I'm not convinced by this. "She blindsided me with divorce papers and left me with nothing" (usually meaning: "she got about half the collective assets"), sometimes plus "and she took the kids," has been a refrain I've heard my entire life. It's one of the lynchpins of the toxic side of the "men's rights" movement; it's something that gets foregrounded in essays, in online posts, and in conversations. It's not something that gets hidden or has intimations of being a "weak loser." It's "I did everything right but the system is biased against me."
posted by Dip Flash at 2:12 PM on August 9, 2023 [25 favorites]
On the other side, I'm looking forward to seeing a lot more dead abusive husbands, but not looking forward to seeing women defending themselves thrown in jail.
I don’t think that’s how these stories usually end, statistically speaking. Someone should correct me if I’m wrong…
posted by eirias at 2:21 PM on August 9, 2023 [13 favorites]
I don’t think that’s how these stories usually end, statistically speaking. Someone should correct me if I’m wrong…
posted by eirias at 2:21 PM on August 9, 2023 [13 favorites]
Before this there was a push for “covenant marriage.” Turns out once it became a possibility nobody was actually interested in choosing it.
posted by Selena777 at 2:26 PM on August 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 2:26 PM on August 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
As a kid who grew up in a fundie environment... at our private school I remember my mom being upset about "no fault" divorce
Yep. In many ways, this is an eruption of fundamentalist religious ideas into the mainstream.
posted by clawsoon at 2:30 PM on August 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
Yep. In many ways, this is an eruption of fundamentalist religious ideas into the mainstream.
posted by clawsoon at 2:30 PM on August 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
It's only been within my lifetime that a woman could open a bank account or acquire a credit card without her husband's official permission. The whole female=chattel thing is not that long dead and as with many of these cultural issues seems to be able to be revived easily.
posted by hippybear at 2:36 PM on August 9, 2023 [79 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 2:36 PM on August 9, 2023 [79 favorites]
It's only been within my lifetime that a woman could open a bank account or acquire a credit card without her husband's official permission.
From 2009 to 2010, I worked for a credit card issuer. For such a short time in that role, the number of elderly women I encountered who had no access to credit beyond their dead husband's credit card was extremely shocking.
Normally you're supposed to close the account when you find out the account holder is deceased, but I couldn't bring myself to do such a thing -- especially when the account was in good standing and always had been. They didn't qualify for their own account because their credit score was nonexistent.
The only calls worse than that were the few cases where women called because paper statements got enabled on their account, and their abusive husband found out they had their own card.
That job sucked in every possible way. I will never forget those interactions; elucidating for someone who lived a relatively soft life such as mine.
posted by Dark Messiah at 2:42 PM on August 9, 2023 [111 favorites]
From 2009 to 2010, I worked for a credit card issuer. For such a short time in that role, the number of elderly women I encountered who had no access to credit beyond their dead husband's credit card was extremely shocking.
Normally you're supposed to close the account when you find out the account holder is deceased, but I couldn't bring myself to do such a thing -- especially when the account was in good standing and always had been. They didn't qualify for their own account because their credit score was nonexistent.
The only calls worse than that were the few cases where women called because paper statements got enabled on their account, and their abusive husband found out they had their own card.
That job sucked in every possible way. I will never forget those interactions; elucidating for someone who lived a relatively soft life such as mine.
posted by Dark Messiah at 2:42 PM on August 9, 2023 [111 favorites]
Alex Jones has been hanging out with Steven Crowder lately, and broadcasting from his studio. I know this from the Knowledge Fight podcast. The image of those two together - Jones, usually drunk, with a billion-dollar legal judgment hanging over his head, and Crowder, with his fresh divorce - is just so utterly, profoundly pathetic that you could almost feel sorry for them if they weren't both irredeemably horrible people who have brought tremendous harm to others.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 2:56 PM on August 9, 2023 [40 favorites]
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 2:56 PM on August 9, 2023 [40 favorites]
The Men's Rights movement goes even further -- if she does get granted a divorce, there's a movement to get laws passed to force legally-enforceable "coparenting agreements" where if she gets custody, and he doesn't like how the kid's being raised, he can drag her into court to force her to raise the kid his way. It's all about punishing her, from top to bottom.
It's like a unicorn situation for asshole MRA dudes - don't even attempt to get custody, complain about not getting custody, then complain about the woman raising the kids you abandoned, now with the full force of the law! Disgusting.
posted by jason_steakums at 2:59 PM on August 9, 2023 [20 favorites]
It's like a unicorn situation for asshole MRA dudes - don't even attempt to get custody, complain about not getting custody, then complain about the woman raising the kids you abandoned, now with the full force of the law! Disgusting.
posted by jason_steakums at 2:59 PM on August 9, 2023 [20 favorites]
Mod note: A few deleted. Please be mindful of the impact of your comments and practice mindfulness when addressing other users.
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 3:01 PM on August 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 3:01 PM on August 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
You know, men are complaining women aren’t interested in getting married anymore and are too picky because they can support themselves, etc . . . What do they think is going to happen if they make it harder to get out of marriages?
I mean I know the long game will be something like not giving us a choice but short term, do they not see the problem?
posted by [insert clever name here] at 3:18 PM on August 9, 2023 [29 favorites]
I mean I know the long game will be something like not giving us a choice but short term, do they not see the problem?
posted by [insert clever name here] at 3:18 PM on August 9, 2023 [29 favorites]
I'll always remember reading the 1-star review of Lundy Bancroft's book, "Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men" where a man complained that his wife had read the book and then sought to divorce him because the book "gave her the idea that I was abusive".
(I tried going through the 1-star reviews to find it and gave up. I don't recommend doing this unless you want to see a wave of venting from angry and controlling men.)
posted by AlSweigart at 3:18 PM on August 9, 2023 [32 favorites]
(I tried going through the 1-star reviews to find it and gave up. I don't recommend doing this unless you want to see a wave of venting from angry and controlling men.)
posted by AlSweigart at 3:18 PM on August 9, 2023 [32 favorites]
Some More News has a great hit piece about Steven Crowder, though it’s not about the divorce, just his lonely origin story.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 3:22 PM on August 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by [insert clever name here] at 3:22 PM on August 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
> I'm looking forward to seeing a lot more dead abusive husbands
Like all revenge fantasies, this one isn't realistic. From the article: "Researchers who tracked the emergence of no-fault divorce laws state by state over that period found that reform led to dramatic drops in the rates of female suicide and domestic violence, as well as decreases in spousal homicide of women."
> don't even attempt to get custody, complain about not getting custody, then complain about the woman raising the kids you abandoned, now with the full force of the law!
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." -- Frank Wilhoit
posted by AlSweigart at 3:23 PM on August 9, 2023 [46 favorites]
Like all revenge fantasies, this one isn't realistic. From the article: "Researchers who tracked the emergence of no-fault divorce laws state by state over that period found that reform led to dramatic drops in the rates of female suicide and domestic violence, as well as decreases in spousal homicide of women."
> don't even attempt to get custody, complain about not getting custody, then complain about the woman raising the kids you abandoned, now with the full force of the law!
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." -- Frank Wilhoit
posted by AlSweigart at 3:23 PM on August 9, 2023 [46 favorites]
Given the usual cries about bringing sharia law to the US by xenophobic right wing asshats, this proposed change to our laws sounds just like sharia law as expressed in Saudi Arabian law:
While a husband can unilaterally divorce his wife, a woman can only petition a court to dissolve their marriage contract on limited grounds, and must “establish [the] harm” that makes the continuation of marriage “impossible” within those grounds.
posted by njohnson23 at 3:25 PM on August 9, 2023 [15 favorites]
While a husband can unilaterally divorce his wife, a woman can only petition a court to dissolve their marriage contract on limited grounds, and must “establish [the] harm” that makes the continuation of marriage “impossible” within those grounds.
posted by njohnson23 at 3:25 PM on August 9, 2023 [15 favorites]
Probably related:
It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — "turn the other cheek" — [and] to have someone come up after to say, "Where did you get those liberal talking points?" And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, "I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ," the response would not be, "I apologize." The response would be, "Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak."posted by clawsoon at 3:26 PM on August 9, 2023 [48 favorites]
Feeling like I need to put my head between my knees and breathe into a paper bag.
It's so frustrating when women support this kind of bs. Sigh, it's like, if your religion says something is bad, you have carte blanche, divine permission, to never think about things like consequences, harm reduction, possible legitimacy of other beliefs, or what would happen if it was you in that situation. Because bad things don't happen to good people and/or that'd just be your god-given cross to bear.
It must be so much easier to not think.
posted by Baethan at 3:44 PM on August 9, 2023 [16 favorites]
It's so frustrating when women support this kind of bs. Sigh, it's like, if your religion says something is bad, you have carte blanche, divine permission, to never think about things like consequences, harm reduction, possible legitimacy of other beliefs, or what would happen if it was you in that situation. Because bad things don't happen to good people and/or that'd just be your god-given cross to bear.
It must be so much easier to not think.
posted by Baethan at 3:44 PM on August 9, 2023 [16 favorites]
"Like all revenge fantasies, this one isn't realistic. From the article: "Researchers who tracked the emergence of no-fault divorce laws state by state over that period found that reform led to dramatic drops in the rates of female suicide and domestic violence, as well as decreases in spousal homicide of women.""
I"m not sure how your comment invalidated my point? I said "dead husbands" "Dramatic drops in female suicide and DV and women being murdered" this doesn't comment on men? I guess my point was by doing this the women who were more easiliy able to exit an abusive situation that maybe hadn't gotten "to that point" yet (you know how that is. It starts with excuses, etc...) Making an environment that demands "proof' he's abusive leads to more control and women in abusive situations. My point is this will likely increase the chances of husbands being killed more because women are now trapped.
Again, don't take it as some actual claim that even has any statistical backing - in short: Yes, "revenge fantasy".
/end derail.
posted by symbioid at 3:44 PM on August 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
I"m not sure how your comment invalidated my point? I said "dead husbands" "Dramatic drops in female suicide and DV and women being murdered" this doesn't comment on men? I guess my point was by doing this the women who were more easiliy able to exit an abusive situation that maybe hadn't gotten "to that point" yet (you know how that is. It starts with excuses, etc...) Making an environment that demands "proof' he's abusive leads to more control and women in abusive situations. My point is this will likely increase the chances of husbands being killed more because women are now trapped.
Again, don't take it as some actual claim that even has any statistical backing - in short: Yes, "revenge fantasy".
/end derail.
posted by symbioid at 3:44 PM on August 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
I came in here to say something about the covenant marriage stuff, which was a big deal in the 90s, and I see someone has already mentioned it. The right-wingers have been selling this stuff for decades and trying to get people to buy it. At least now nobody will believe the dipshit centrist types when they say "only the weirdos like Crowder are really against no-fault divorce" because they said that for years about abortion rights and look where we are ...
posted by gentlyepigrams at 4:08 PM on August 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by gentlyepigrams at 4:08 PM on August 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
A small counter-anecdote from my own life: my grandfather was in a hasty wartime marriage. After the kids came of age, the marriage was dissolved in divorce. But...
He was a freemason, and his masonic lodge mattered a lot to him. For getting divorced, he had to leave the masons. It wasn't an acrymonious thing, unlike the marriage itself. It was a simple standard that if the marriage is so awful that you feel it's right to end it, you should be willing to pay the price of leaving the masons. (And it was that awful. My grandmother, well, de mortuis...)
And the reason for the standard was that the masons were expected to hold their own reputation high, by not tolerating it if one of theirs traded his wife in for a younger model.
I mean, hey, if they want us to regress 80 years, maybe I should read out some of the fine print that I know about.
posted by ocschwar at 4:09 PM on August 9, 2023 [9 favorites]
He was a freemason, and his masonic lodge mattered a lot to him. For getting divorced, he had to leave the masons. It wasn't an acrymonious thing, unlike the marriage itself. It was a simple standard that if the marriage is so awful that you feel it's right to end it, you should be willing to pay the price of leaving the masons. (And it was that awful. My grandmother, well, de mortuis...)
And the reason for the standard was that the masons were expected to hold their own reputation high, by not tolerating it if one of theirs traded his wife in for a younger model.
I mean, hey, if they want us to regress 80 years, maybe I should read out some of the fine print that I know about.
posted by ocschwar at 4:09 PM on August 9, 2023 [9 favorites]
Again, don't take it as some actual claim that even has any statistical backing - in short: Yes, "revenge fantasy".
Revenge fantasies feel like they are a hairs breath away from a suggestion when you’re on the receiving end.
Kind of like how when worried about being the victim of gun violence, the unfortunate common piece of advice is to carry a gun. As if that solves the problem.
It might be entertaining to think about unless you actually need a real solution that works; one that isn’t likely to be turned on you by of the perpetrator of the crime.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 4:12 PM on August 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
Revenge fantasies feel like they are a hairs breath away from a suggestion when you’re on the receiving end.
Kind of like how when worried about being the victim of gun violence, the unfortunate common piece of advice is to carry a gun. As if that solves the problem.
It might be entertaining to think about unless you actually need a real solution that works; one that isn’t likely to be turned on you by of the perpetrator of the crime.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 4:12 PM on August 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
... it's like, if your religion says something is bad, you have carte blanche, divine permission, to never think about things like consequences, harm reduction, possible legitimacy of other beliefs, ...
I get angry and frustrated by people that use 'religion' as an excuse for trying to outlaw everything they don't like, as long as it aligns with their specific worldview but are happy to ignore any and all belief systems when they are inconvenient.
In a secular society, marriage is a legal arrangement, not a religious one. That's not to say that there can't be a religious component to a wedding, but even religious leaders only have the authority to marry people because the law gives them that authority. Believe that divorce is forbidden by whatever religion you subscribe to all you like, but that belief has no place in considering what the laws should be.
posted by dg at 4:14 PM on August 9, 2023 [27 favorites]
I get angry and frustrated by people that use 'religion' as an excuse for trying to outlaw everything they don't like, as long as it aligns with their specific worldview but are happy to ignore any and all belief systems when they are inconvenient.
In a secular society, marriage is a legal arrangement, not a religious one. That's not to say that there can't be a religious component to a wedding, but even religious leaders only have the authority to marry people because the law gives them that authority. Believe that divorce is forbidden by whatever religion you subscribe to all you like, but that belief has no place in considering what the laws should be.
posted by dg at 4:14 PM on August 9, 2023 [27 favorites]
I used to go to sleep with the local NPR station on and drift off to the BBC World Service when it came on for four hours after midnight. Not no more. The news is so unrelentingly unbearably awful. I blame, for the most part, Poodle of Putin and his master. I just hate what the world's turned into.
posted by y2karl at 4:20 PM on August 9, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 4:20 PM on August 9, 2023 [12 favorites]
I remember a time when I thought calling these guys the American Taliban was an exaggeration.
posted by jamjam at 4:30 PM on August 9, 2023 [18 favorites]
posted by jamjam at 4:30 PM on August 9, 2023 [18 favorites]
Every conservative commentator seems to be trying their hardest to turn into the villain from Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame. "Be mine or you will burn..."
posted by clawsoon at 4:35 PM on August 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 4:35 PM on August 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
Divorce doesn’t make someone a loser, but to use the state to hold a person in a marriage against their will surely does. So I am not buying it. I think this is designed to fail as stated.
Unstated, the real goal is to make sure that women are kept out of the economy and from using the courts when needed. To build a wall of noise so when (not if) women are denied the protections of the state, a majority will shrug it off and not pay attention until it is too late. To make sure that the standards to which we hold the men in office drop lower until they occupy all the positions.
These bullshit arguments, taken collectively, are the jabs that make our arms feel like lead when the time comes to hit back. So hitting hard now is a good idea.
posted by drowsy at 4:39 PM on August 9, 2023 [10 favorites]
Unstated, the real goal is to make sure that women are kept out of the economy and from using the courts when needed. To build a wall of noise so when (not if) women are denied the protections of the state, a majority will shrug it off and not pay attention until it is too late. To make sure that the standards to which we hold the men in office drop lower until they occupy all the positions.
These bullshit arguments, taken collectively, are the jabs that make our arms feel like lead when the time comes to hit back. So hitting hard now is a good idea.
posted by drowsy at 4:39 PM on August 9, 2023 [10 favorites]
I think this is going to be a hard sell for libertarian types, though, even those who have rationalized picking on pregnant women.
Ha, no. "Freedom to contract" is a libertarian easy sell.
If you can't sell yourself into bondage are you truly free?
posted by NotAYakk at 4:42 PM on August 9, 2023 [29 favorites]
Ha, no. "Freedom to contract" is a libertarian easy sell.
If you can't sell yourself into bondage are you truly free?
posted by NotAYakk at 4:42 PM on August 9, 2023 [29 favorites]
Not to undercut the threat to divorce and women’s rights, but Rolling Stone is not doing a good job by bigging up Crowder. He’s a noxious weed, and he speaks for and to other noxious weeds, but he’s also very much no longer a major voice, having fallen from 1st tier media (Fox News) and 2nd tier media (The Daily Wire) by not being able to keep his mouth shut when necessary. He also plays poorly with others, notably burning bridges whenever he can. He’s still got an audience, but nowhere near what it was, and Rolling Stone profiling him just helps him.
If there’s a ray of hope in this, you can see it in the interactions between Jones and Crowder mentioned above. Both of them are trying their hardest to use the other to reestablish their position that it would be hilarious if they weren’t so awful. The way the Right Griftosphere can’t keep its attention on its ideological goals when there’s a chance to make money may blunt their efforts enough for better things to happen, the way TFG’s hovering up donations for his many legal cases is starving many state Republican organizations. It’s awful, but their greed might break them.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:45 PM on August 9, 2023 [16 favorites]
If there’s a ray of hope in this, you can see it in the interactions between Jones and Crowder mentioned above. Both of them are trying their hardest to use the other to reestablish their position that it would be hilarious if they weren’t so awful. The way the Right Griftosphere can’t keep its attention on its ideological goals when there’s a chance to make money may blunt their efforts enough for better things to happen, the way TFG’s hovering up donations for his many legal cases is starving many state Republican organizations. It’s awful, but their greed might break them.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:45 PM on August 9, 2023 [16 favorites]
These dudes are begging for no fault mariticide
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:50 PM on August 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:50 PM on August 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
On revenge fantasies:
It might be entertaining to think about unless you actually need a real solution that works; one that isn’t likely to be turned on you by of the perpetrator of the crime.
Yes, this. And I wonder if another danger to revenge fantasies isn't mass misdirection. I'm going to posit that these things don't tend to be proposed by people who might actually find themselves in need of a real solution, but instead by allies looking for a way to feel better. I worry that cheap fantasies siphon the resolve of people whose voices we need. We need a vaccine against democratic backsliding and this is ivermectin.
posted by eirias at 4:53 PM on August 9, 2023 [10 favorites]
It might be entertaining to think about unless you actually need a real solution that works; one that isn’t likely to be turned on you by of the perpetrator of the crime.
Yes, this. And I wonder if another danger to revenge fantasies isn't mass misdirection. I'm going to posit that these things don't tend to be proposed by people who might actually find themselves in need of a real solution, but instead by allies looking for a way to feel better. I worry that cheap fantasies siphon the resolve of people whose voices we need. We need a vaccine against democratic backsliding and this is ivermectin.
posted by eirias at 4:53 PM on August 9, 2023 [10 favorites]
>More often than not, it was men who were denied divorces under no fault regimes. They left their wives, but were financially bound to them and unable to remarry, because their wives could simply refuse to file the divorce petition. And it's not like, back then, a respectable person (the not-divorced man or his girlfriend) could openly carry on an adulterous relationship so this was a very challenging situation to be in.
"In Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress (NBER Working Paper No. 10175), co-authors Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers evaluate three measures of family well being -- suicide rates, domestic violence, and murder -- to determine the effects of reforms nationwide that created unilateral divorce laws.
The authors find very real effects on the well being of families. For example, there was a large decline in the number of women committing suicide following the introduction of unilateral divorce, but no similar decline for men. States that passed unilateral divorce laws saw total female suicide decline by around 20 percent in the long run. The authors also find a large decline in domestic violence for both men and women following adoption of unilateral divorce. Finally, the evidence suggests that unilateral divorce led to a decline in females murdered by their partners, while the data reveal no discernible effects for homicide against men." - National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2004, emphasis added.
Men did not have it worse before no-fault. Women did. Full stop.
posted by Frayed Knot at 5:25 PM on August 9, 2023 [114 favorites]
"In Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress (NBER Working Paper No. 10175), co-authors Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers evaluate three measures of family well being -- suicide rates, domestic violence, and murder -- to determine the effects of reforms nationwide that created unilateral divorce laws.
The authors find very real effects on the well being of families. For example, there was a large decline in the number of women committing suicide following the introduction of unilateral divorce, but no similar decline for men. States that passed unilateral divorce laws saw total female suicide decline by around 20 percent in the long run. The authors also find a large decline in domestic violence for both men and women following adoption of unilateral divorce. Finally, the evidence suggests that unilateral divorce led to a decline in females murdered by their partners, while the data reveal no discernible effects for homicide against men." - National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2004, emphasis added.
Men did not have it worse before no-fault. Women did. Full stop.
posted by Frayed Knot at 5:25 PM on August 9, 2023 [114 favorites]
I don’t think it’s particularly feminist for men to be trapped in marriages they don’t want to be in, either. It is better for everyone when people can get out of marriages that are effectively over and when there is an orderly process to deal with stuff like dividing property and figuring out custody arrangements. This seems to me not to be a zero sum game.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:51 PM on August 9, 2023 [20 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:51 PM on August 9, 2023 [20 favorites]
Relatedly, the "States where abortion is legal, banned or under threat" tracker updated today at The Washington Post (archived link). Upshot, "Nearly one in three women ages 15 to 44 live in states where abortion is banned or mostly banned."
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:55 PM on August 9, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:55 PM on August 9, 2023 [8 favorites]
clawsoon: “‘Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak.’”Cf. The Undertow, Scenes from a Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet.
posted by ob1quixote at 6:07 PM on August 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
Man, 95% of the Dateline episodes (yes I listen to the podcasts, don't judge) end with me saying, "well this would have been easier if you had just gotten a divorce." I really do think this policy will lead to more harm.
posted by Toddles at 6:19 PM on August 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Toddles at 6:19 PM on August 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
"well this would have been easier if you had just gotten a divorce."
If the goal was to just not be married anymore, totally agree. But before I had kids who somehow teleport into the room when gory pictures & awful details are on tv, it seemed like there were endless calculated murders because for them, it was better and/or easier than getting a divorce
(which is to say, yeah, making divorce harder can only increase the temptation to just...make your spouse not be, right?)
posted by Baethan at 6:49 PM on August 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
If the goal was to just not be married anymore, totally agree. But before I had kids who somehow teleport into the room when gory pictures & awful details are on tv, it seemed like there were endless calculated murders because for them, it was better and/or easier than getting a divorce
(which is to say, yeah, making divorce harder can only increase the temptation to just...make your spouse not be, right?)
posted by Baethan at 6:49 PM on August 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
The right to divorce is unpopular with men who derive gratification from abusing women, or who otherwise wish to behave in ways such that no one would voluntarily stay partnered with them. They have a keen interest in depriving women of options.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:53 PM on August 9, 2023 [20 favorites]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:53 PM on August 9, 2023 [20 favorites]
Being only partially sarcastic here, but let's bring back victim blaming*.
*Nuanced to include only public figures who advocate for this policy.
Obviously, it's your fault she felt she had a need to divorce you. Clearly you were asking for it. What else can you expect if you are a jerk of a spouse who doesn't help around the house? Have you tried just being nicer? If that's too much to ask have you considered just not committing domestic violence? It must be G-d's will that she divorced you. Smile.
posted by oceano at 6:55 PM on August 9, 2023 [8 favorites]
*Nuanced to include only public figures who advocate for this policy.
Obviously, it's your fault she felt she had a need to divorce you. Clearly you were asking for it. What else can you expect if you are a jerk of a spouse who doesn't help around the house? Have you tried just being nicer? If that's too much to ask have you considered just not committing domestic violence? It must be G-d's will that she divorced you. Smile.
posted by oceano at 6:55 PM on August 9, 2023 [8 favorites]
The last state to enact no-fault divorce in the US did so in 2010. This is in no way distant history. There are still minors who were born under that regime.
Which god-fearing, bright red, Bible-Belt state was last to change, you ask? Why, it was liberal, arugula-eating, elitist New York. Thanks, Catholic Church!
That's why it took my parents five years to get a divorce finalized in Manhattan. My mom sued my dad for divorce but had to prove wrongdoing on his part. That meant that he could a) try to prove her wrong in an ill-conceived attempt to pretend like nothing was wrong and we could just keep going like nothing happened, and b) counter-sue to prove that actually, she was the problem.
Five years of court dates and of borrowing money to pay legal fees. Five years of gathering "evidence," everything from broken household items to planting recording devices in bedrooms, and of both parents using us kids as pawns in the proceedings. Five years of turmoil and strain, and the involvement of children's services, and occasionally the NYPD. Our family was broken into a million little pieces by the end of it and never recovered.
I avoided my father for three years until 9/11, when I called him from an office phone on 7th Ave. I was worried he had died, as as he was a construction worker who built skyscrapers, often in the Financial District, including the twin towers themselves. It was the only time that day that I managed to lose my shit and cry.
I've been estranged from my brother since 2020 and can't foresee a time when that will change.
I've been together with my partner for 17 years but will not get married, despite the legal and financial complications that entails, because I will not put myself into a situation that entails even the remote possibility of setting foot in a divorce court.
The trauma of that time broke our brains. It's a miracle that none of us ended up dead because of it. Never again.
Anyone who actually gives a shit about the well-being of families, or human beings, should support no-fault divorce. And fuck the fragile, pathetic ego of any person who wants to use marriage to enact dominion over someone else.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 7:08 PM on August 9, 2023 [114 favorites]
Which god-fearing, bright red, Bible-Belt state was last to change, you ask? Why, it was liberal, arugula-eating, elitist New York. Thanks, Catholic Church!
That's why it took my parents five years to get a divorce finalized in Manhattan. My mom sued my dad for divorce but had to prove wrongdoing on his part. That meant that he could a) try to prove her wrong in an ill-conceived attempt to pretend like nothing was wrong and we could just keep going like nothing happened, and b) counter-sue to prove that actually, she was the problem.
Five years of court dates and of borrowing money to pay legal fees. Five years of gathering "evidence," everything from broken household items to planting recording devices in bedrooms, and of both parents using us kids as pawns in the proceedings. Five years of turmoil and strain, and the involvement of children's services, and occasionally the NYPD. Our family was broken into a million little pieces by the end of it and never recovered.
I avoided my father for three years until 9/11, when I called him from an office phone on 7th Ave. I was worried he had died, as as he was a construction worker who built skyscrapers, often in the Financial District, including the twin towers themselves. It was the only time that day that I managed to lose my shit and cry.
I've been estranged from my brother since 2020 and can't foresee a time when that will change.
I've been together with my partner for 17 years but will not get married, despite the legal and financial complications that entails, because I will not put myself into a situation that entails even the remote possibility of setting foot in a divorce court.
The trauma of that time broke our brains. It's a miracle that none of us ended up dead because of it. Never again.
Anyone who actually gives a shit about the well-being of families, or human beings, should support no-fault divorce. And fuck the fragile, pathetic ego of any person who wants to use marriage to enact dominion over someone else.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 7:08 PM on August 9, 2023 [114 favorites]
My parents both got divorced (from previous partners) in Texas before no-fault was an option. I was never told the details but I'm sure that both divorces were rough. I'm so glad I didn't have to do that when I split from my ex here in the 1990s. It was relatively civil and he didn't contest but there was a piece of business that I literally could not finish until he died a few years ago. (He had to sign for me to get my money; he refused until I did [x]; I didn't want to go to the effort to take him to court. Civil does not mean your ex isn't controlling.)
One of my sisters-in-law also had to divorce her husband a few years ago. It was a long marriage with three kids in the traditional mold, where he was supposed to work and she was supposed to care for the house and family. ExBiL did not live up to his side of the bargain. The divorce was bitter enough that there was a TRO involved, which is hard to get in Texas. I shudder to think what that would have been like if she'd had to prove fault. She could have done it, I think, but it was nasty enough without that. And it was hard enough on my niblings without the kind of BS that evidenceofabsence described. ExBiL would totally have been that asshole.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 7:32 PM on August 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
One of my sisters-in-law also had to divorce her husband a few years ago. It was a long marriage with three kids in the traditional mold, where he was supposed to work and she was supposed to care for the house and family. ExBiL did not live up to his side of the bargain. The divorce was bitter enough that there was a TRO involved, which is hard to get in Texas. I shudder to think what that would have been like if she'd had to prove fault. She could have done it, I think, but it was nasty enough without that. And it was hard enough on my niblings without the kind of BS that evidenceofabsence described. ExBiL would totally have been that asshole.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 7:32 PM on August 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
Rolling Stone is not doing a good job by bigging up Crowder
Right. Crowder is a loser who is having trouble on Rumble ferchristsakes. I'm scared of this push, but not really from him.
Like what cities or jurisdictions are pushing this policy? Is it always from the state level?
posted by eustatic at 7:47 PM on August 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
Right. Crowder is a loser who is having trouble on Rumble ferchristsakes. I'm scared of this push, but not really from him.
Like what cities or jurisdictions are pushing this policy? Is it always from the state level?
posted by eustatic at 7:47 PM on August 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
Ok nevermind, lol should have seen that one coming.
we already have the worst DV rates from the oil industry / male centered employment
posted by eustatic at 7:51 PM on August 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
we already have the worst DV rates from the oil industry / male centered employment
posted by eustatic at 7:51 PM on August 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
It is better for everyone when people can get out of marriages that are effectively over and when there is an orderly process to deal with stuff like dividing property and figuring out custody arrangements. This seems to me not to be a zero sum game.
Divorcing Mefite who just took a Family Law class has entered the chat.
So the answer here is *yes and no* from both personal experience and what I've learned.
My sense is that states which *only* allow no-fault divorce are not particularly great for women, and most particularly, nor is the move which many states are adopting where alimony and property division are also no-fault. Because this is the dynamic which lets men behave badly, and then divorce and come out with the exact same outcome as the long-suffering female spouse, because 'fair division' nonsense. And these equal division rules fundamentally do not account for the loss of childbearing years, which previous divorce rules at least attempted to account for.
The 'orderly process to deal with stuff like dividing property' only applies if you think that dividing everything down the middle or letting people take most of their separate property, depending on the state, is the best way to resolve things. Personally, I don't. I think that abusive spouses should have to pay more to the family that they've abused, and that people who are going to deal with their trauma for decades should receive compensation for that, rather than being given a temporary alimony pat on the head and then told 'back to work, chicken, I don't care if you've been out of the workforce for twenty years.'
The problem is however that courts aren't staffing properly, and so they drag on. There's no reason a fault-based divorce *has* to take years. Courts are understaffed everywhere in the country and no-fault divorce IMO at least is more about docket control than about actually helping women. Crowder is an ass, but I think there are serious arguments that the current no-fault world we are living in is really exploitative particularly in marriages that have traditionally gendered divisions of labor. For example: in no fault divorce world, divorcing someone after they've finished raising the children for you *isn't* a giant asshole move entitling that person to massive compensation for the years you've kept them out of the labor force and the wages they could have been earning.
posted by corb at 8:26 PM on August 9, 2023 [33 favorites]
Divorcing Mefite who just took a Family Law class has entered the chat.
So the answer here is *yes and no* from both personal experience and what I've learned.
My sense is that states which *only* allow no-fault divorce are not particularly great for women, and most particularly, nor is the move which many states are adopting where alimony and property division are also no-fault. Because this is the dynamic which lets men behave badly, and then divorce and come out with the exact same outcome as the long-suffering female spouse, because 'fair division' nonsense. And these equal division rules fundamentally do not account for the loss of childbearing years, which previous divorce rules at least attempted to account for.
The 'orderly process to deal with stuff like dividing property' only applies if you think that dividing everything down the middle or letting people take most of their separate property, depending on the state, is the best way to resolve things. Personally, I don't. I think that abusive spouses should have to pay more to the family that they've abused, and that people who are going to deal with their trauma for decades should receive compensation for that, rather than being given a temporary alimony pat on the head and then told 'back to work, chicken, I don't care if you've been out of the workforce for twenty years.'
The problem is however that courts aren't staffing properly, and so they drag on. There's no reason a fault-based divorce *has* to take years. Courts are understaffed everywhere in the country and no-fault divorce IMO at least is more about docket control than about actually helping women. Crowder is an ass, but I think there are serious arguments that the current no-fault world we are living in is really exploitative particularly in marriages that have traditionally gendered divisions of labor. For example: in no fault divorce world, divorcing someone after they've finished raising the children for you *isn't* a giant asshole move entitling that person to massive compensation for the years you've kept them out of the labor force and the wages they could have been earning.
posted by corb at 8:26 PM on August 9, 2023 [33 favorites]
the move which many states are adopting where alimony and property division are also no-fault. Because this is the dynamic which lets men behave badly, and then divorce and come out with the exact same outcome as the long-suffering female spouse, because 'fair division' nonsense.
I think this happened to my sister with two of her marriages/divorces. She married a guy who came into the relationship with a shit-ton of debt and then in the divorce she was somehow responsible for half of that debt. That she let this happen a second time is beyond me.
posted by hippybear at 8:41 PM on August 9, 2023 [8 favorites]
I think this happened to my sister with two of her marriages/divorces. She married a guy who came into the relationship with a shit-ton of debt and then in the divorce she was somehow responsible for half of that debt. That she let this happen a second time is beyond me.
posted by hippybear at 8:41 PM on August 9, 2023 [8 favorites]
*What else do you imagine political power is?
And I mean that sincerely - left or right, the secret sauce of political power is to force you to abide with the dominant political philosophy.
posted by metametamind at 8:46 PM on August 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
And I mean that sincerely - left or right, the secret sauce of political power is to force you to abide with the dominant political philosophy.
posted by metametamind at 8:46 PM on August 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
My mom lost access to credit cards where my dad was the primary account holder after he passed in 2022 from a major national issuer. (My mom was the one that actually made sure the bills got paid every month).
posted by CostcoCultist at 10:24 PM on August 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by CostcoCultist at 10:24 PM on August 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
Making it harder to divorce means:
spouses who are being physically abused won't be able to get away from their violent spouse;
families where one parent is physically, emotionally, verbally or sexually abusing a child won't be able to get the child away from the abusive parent;
more people will die from domestic violence (and most of those people will be women);
more people will murder their spouse because they can't get a divorce.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 3:03 AM on August 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
spouses who are being physically abused won't be able to get away from their violent spouse;
families where one parent is physically, emotionally, verbally or sexually abusing a child won't be able to get the child away from the abusive parent;
more people will die from domestic violence (and most of those people will be women);
more people will murder their spouse because they can't get a divorce.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 3:03 AM on August 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
Aren't these the same people who believe in "right to work" employment?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:31 AM on August 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:31 AM on August 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
Divorcing Mefite
Not my business but (a) poop and (b) it gets better.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:54 AM on August 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
Not my business but (a) poop and (b) it gets better.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:54 AM on August 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
My dad practiced family law in the 70s in Alaska and Massachusetts. I remember him telling me that couples in an amicable divorce would flip a coin to see who threw the frying pan at whom. He also handled non amicable divorces, of course, but in at fault divorce only means that even when it's just "this isn't working," someone needs to be accused of infidelity or abuse.
posted by Hactar at 5:30 AM on August 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Hactar at 5:30 AM on August 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
I've been practicing family law exclusively (in Ontario) for eleven years and this year I made the decision to get out and do something else - my family law career should be wrapped up within the next couple of months - and this is what I can say about it: family law is what happens when society mostly decides to ignore the problems of unhappy marriages and single parenting, all at once.
A few points:
- Everything about decision-making and parenting time for each side can escalate to being the worst fight you've ever seen, and it doesn't take one side being an asshole to do that. Most of the worst custody battles I have seen don't have a clear-cut bad guy; it's usually one parent (usually the wife) asserting they were the primary caregiver and therefore they should have the kids the majority of the time, and the other (usually the husband) seeing their time with their kids chopped up to shit and terrified of becoming an outsider looking in. Yes, there are financial incentives baked into the system that make being a primary residential parent much more viable than being an equal-time parent, which in turn is much more viable than being a secondary residential parent - but from experience, outside of the assholes (and there are always assholes), it's mostly both parents attaching psychological importance to spending as much time as possible with their kids now that a large part of their family life is being removed, voluntarily or not.
- Every complaint you have ever heard anybody make about paying child support, regardless of whether that person is an asshole (they usually are) is grounded in a very real truth, which is that the costs of being a single parent are absolutely not half the costs of being a married parent, because costs duplicate: if you're the non-primary-resident parent and you want your kids to have overnights with you so you can be an involved parent (there is a ton of psych research which shows that overnights strengthen parent-child bonds and generally increase outcomes for kids, btw), that means there's two parents paying for housing to support both themselves and their kids, so congrats now there's two parents instead of one trying to maintain a full-family household. See also driving expenses for transporting kids, costs for taking kids on vacations, buying them presents, et cetera. And the non-resident parent, who absolutely has to bear these costs, is also subsidizing the resident parent at the same time. But the support recipient parent feels they're not being fairly subsidized more often than not, because child support usually isn't enough to make up the extra expenses being a single parent entails over being a married one! Child support is a system where somehow we've managed to make both parents poorer while also not making the kids better off - it is genuinely insane, but it's what we've got because society refuses to acknowledge the true costs of raising kids.
- Spousal support (IE, payments from one spouse to another for need-based or compensatory-based reasons - in the USA it sometimes is called alimony, but here we call it spousal support because "alimony" gets used as a catchall for all types of support depending on the jurisdiction) is a beast and causes fights, even if it mostly is a necessity to ensure that secondary earners in the marriage aren't immediately economically handicapped by the end of it. Primary breadwinners/support payors always feel shortchanged because they'll acknowledge, readily, that they didn't do as much re childraising and homemaking as their spouses did, but usually they have a laundry list of the stuff they did do and outside of the assholes (there are always assholes), it usually ends up being a pretty long list of basically everything that can be done outside of work hours: homework, making lunches, taking kids to activities, bathing them/getting them ready for bed, making lunches the next day, cleaning on the weekend, et cetera. And because now, the case for spousal support (and decision-making/parenting time) is involved, that means both sides are incentivized to minimize the other's parental contributions, so it can get very bad very fast with both sides essentially accusing the other of lying while not explicitly saying it, because "he's/she's a liar" looks bad in a court document.
- For the record: men don't like paying spousal support (duh) but as a rule they are generally accepting of the proposition that they'll have to pay something, the disagreement comes down to numbers. Women, when they are support payors (and that is much rarer, obviously) are absolutely not accepting of paying spousal support as a general rule - I have had cases where the wife was earning six or seven times as much as the husband, situations where stay-at-home-dads had part-time jobs at best but were the homemakers in the family, and the absolute refusal of the wives to even consider spousal support in these situations was intense and costly for both sides. I chalk this up to societal expectations and conditioning more than anything, but it is absolutely 100% there.
- And all of this is before you start dealing with bad actors. I would say about 20% of family law files have someone who can probably be designated as "the bad one" and about half of those are ones where one parent is clearly, obviously, not-even-trying-to-hide-it acting in bad faith. I have mostly managed to avoid representing these people, because most of the time you can tell when you've got an asshole and I fire clients if I think they're assholes (which has cost me quite a bit of money over the years but I sleep better). But sometimes you think "eh, they're just really troubled and traumatized by the separation" or "eh, they're just reacting badly to the other side being awful as well, it's a 50/50 thing" and you end up later on realizing no, you had the asshole all along as more details come out. Bad actors make everything about family law worse, because the system puts things that ideally should not be conflict-based into a conflict-based system, which empowers assholes to be assholes. Sometimes I think we should empower judges more to make the whole thing end quicker so it's easier on everybody - but on the other hand, then I think of some of the truly shit-for-brains judges I have been before and think "...nah."
There are no good answers in family law. But, to tie it back to the original topic, getting rid of no-fault-divorce is an even worse one.
posted by mightygodking at 7:40 AM on August 10, 2023 [68 favorites]
A few points:
- Everything about decision-making and parenting time for each side can escalate to being the worst fight you've ever seen, and it doesn't take one side being an asshole to do that. Most of the worst custody battles I have seen don't have a clear-cut bad guy; it's usually one parent (usually the wife) asserting they were the primary caregiver and therefore they should have the kids the majority of the time, and the other (usually the husband) seeing their time with their kids chopped up to shit and terrified of becoming an outsider looking in. Yes, there are financial incentives baked into the system that make being a primary residential parent much more viable than being an equal-time parent, which in turn is much more viable than being a secondary residential parent - but from experience, outside of the assholes (and there are always assholes), it's mostly both parents attaching psychological importance to spending as much time as possible with their kids now that a large part of their family life is being removed, voluntarily or not.
- Every complaint you have ever heard anybody make about paying child support, regardless of whether that person is an asshole (they usually are) is grounded in a very real truth, which is that the costs of being a single parent are absolutely not half the costs of being a married parent, because costs duplicate: if you're the non-primary-resident parent and you want your kids to have overnights with you so you can be an involved parent (there is a ton of psych research which shows that overnights strengthen parent-child bonds and generally increase outcomes for kids, btw), that means there's two parents paying for housing to support both themselves and their kids, so congrats now there's two parents instead of one trying to maintain a full-family household. See also driving expenses for transporting kids, costs for taking kids on vacations, buying them presents, et cetera. And the non-resident parent, who absolutely has to bear these costs, is also subsidizing the resident parent at the same time. But the support recipient parent feels they're not being fairly subsidized more often than not, because child support usually isn't enough to make up the extra expenses being a single parent entails over being a married one! Child support is a system where somehow we've managed to make both parents poorer while also not making the kids better off - it is genuinely insane, but it's what we've got because society refuses to acknowledge the true costs of raising kids.
- Spousal support (IE, payments from one spouse to another for need-based or compensatory-based reasons - in the USA it sometimes is called alimony, but here we call it spousal support because "alimony" gets used as a catchall for all types of support depending on the jurisdiction) is a beast and causes fights, even if it mostly is a necessity to ensure that secondary earners in the marriage aren't immediately economically handicapped by the end of it. Primary breadwinners/support payors always feel shortchanged because they'll acknowledge, readily, that they didn't do as much re childraising and homemaking as their spouses did, but usually they have a laundry list of the stuff they did do and outside of the assholes (there are always assholes), it usually ends up being a pretty long list of basically everything that can be done outside of work hours: homework, making lunches, taking kids to activities, bathing them/getting them ready for bed, making lunches the next day, cleaning on the weekend, et cetera. And because now, the case for spousal support (and decision-making/parenting time) is involved, that means both sides are incentivized to minimize the other's parental contributions, so it can get very bad very fast with both sides essentially accusing the other of lying while not explicitly saying it, because "he's/she's a liar" looks bad in a court document.
- For the record: men don't like paying spousal support (duh) but as a rule they are generally accepting of the proposition that they'll have to pay something, the disagreement comes down to numbers. Women, when they are support payors (and that is much rarer, obviously) are absolutely not accepting of paying spousal support as a general rule - I have had cases where the wife was earning six or seven times as much as the husband, situations where stay-at-home-dads had part-time jobs at best but were the homemakers in the family, and the absolute refusal of the wives to even consider spousal support in these situations was intense and costly for both sides. I chalk this up to societal expectations and conditioning more than anything, but it is absolutely 100% there.
- And all of this is before you start dealing with bad actors. I would say about 20% of family law files have someone who can probably be designated as "the bad one" and about half of those are ones where one parent is clearly, obviously, not-even-trying-to-hide-it acting in bad faith. I have mostly managed to avoid representing these people, because most of the time you can tell when you've got an asshole and I fire clients if I think they're assholes (which has cost me quite a bit of money over the years but I sleep better). But sometimes you think "eh, they're just really troubled and traumatized by the separation" or "eh, they're just reacting badly to the other side being awful as well, it's a 50/50 thing" and you end up later on realizing no, you had the asshole all along as more details come out. Bad actors make everything about family law worse, because the system puts things that ideally should not be conflict-based into a conflict-based system, which empowers assholes to be assholes. Sometimes I think we should empower judges more to make the whole thing end quicker so it's easier on everybody - but on the other hand, then I think of some of the truly shit-for-brains judges I have been before and think "...nah."
There are no good answers in family law. But, to tie it back to the original topic, getting rid of no-fault-divorce is an even worse one.
posted by mightygodking at 7:40 AM on August 10, 2023 [68 favorites]
Really demoralizing how this is all predicated on the idea that men and women all always hate and resent each other and can never be happy, so one gender has to be subjugated into misery. No such thing as a happy marriage, better keep the women locked up.
I think the mindset isn't that "men and women always resent each other," it's more like, "men and women have very specific roles to play in a marriage, and those nasty feminists are telling women that they don't have to play by those roles. If women just knew their place they wouldn't WANT to get a divorce, they need to be brought back into line and learn to stay in their place."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:41 AM on August 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
I think the mindset isn't that "men and women always resent each other," it's more like, "men and women have very specific roles to play in a marriage, and those nasty feminists are telling women that they don't have to play by those roles. If women just knew their place they wouldn't WANT to get a divorce, they need to be brought back into line and learn to stay in their place."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:41 AM on August 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
I think there are serious arguments that the current no-fault world we are living in is really exploitative particularly in marriages that have traditionally gendered divisions of labor. For example: in no fault divorce world, divorcing someone after they've finished raising the children for you *isn't* a giant asshole move entitling that person to massive compensation for the years you've kept them out of the labor force and the wages they could have been earning.
My sincere condolences for what you're going through.
If there's a legal framework that reliably indemnified us all from assholes, I haven't seen it. As so excellently noted by mightygodking.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:47 AM on August 10, 2023
My sincere condolences for what you're going through.
If there's a legal framework that reliably indemnified us all from assholes, I haven't seen it. As so excellently noted by mightygodking.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:47 AM on August 10, 2023
EmpressCallipygos I suspect its a bit of both. To a large extent those traditional roles appear to be built on the assumption that men and women are natural enemies who must be bludgeoned into being together.
The conservative ideal seems to be one of loveless shotgun marriages forced on unwilling people due to pregnancy that can't be terminated and a society which condemns children "born out of wedlock". I can't be the only one who finds the phrase wedlock to be really icky and creepy, right?
Look at all that BoomerHumor(TM) which is nothing but endless variations on the theme of married people hating each other. I think they really do expect marriage to suck for everyone and see marriage as a sort of unpleasant obligation a person undertakes for the betterment of society at the price of their own personal happiness.
posted by sotonohito at 8:23 AM on August 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
The conservative ideal seems to be one of loveless shotgun marriages forced on unwilling people due to pregnancy that can't be terminated and a society which condemns children "born out of wedlock". I can't be the only one who finds the phrase wedlock to be really icky and creepy, right?
Look at all that BoomerHumor(TM) which is nothing but endless variations on the theme of married people hating each other. I think they really do expect marriage to suck for everyone and see marriage as a sort of unpleasant obligation a person undertakes for the betterment of society at the price of their own personal happiness.
posted by sotonohito at 8:23 AM on August 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
Child support is a system where somehow we've managed to make both parents poorer while also not making the kids better off - it is genuinely insane
Not seeing a solution to this, other than removing the divorce option the way the GOP wants. Divorce implies two households, so increased costs to the family. The emotional costs of staying together seem to make this worth the financial expense.
posted by SPrintF at 8:50 AM on August 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Not seeing a solution to this, other than removing the divorce option the way the GOP wants. Divorce implies two households, so increased costs to the family. The emotional costs of staying together seem to make this worth the financial expense.
posted by SPrintF at 8:50 AM on August 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
We had a partial solution in the form of the child tax credit.
[sigh]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:58 AM on August 10, 2023 [15 favorites]
[sigh]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:58 AM on August 10, 2023 [15 favorites]
Look at all that BoomerHumor(TM) which is nothing but endless variations on the theme of married people hating each other. I think they really do expect marriage to suck for everyone and see marriage as a sort of unpleasant obligation a person undertakes for the betterment of society at the price of their own personal happiness.
Um, there's certainly a lot of last-century marriage "humour" that's totally cringy now. (hint - it was tired and lazy humour back then, too). Would you be shocked to hear that some of us Boomers have (or had) successful, equal, loving partnerships without requiring subjugation or conforming to old stereotypes?
posted by Artful Codger at 9:41 AM on August 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
Um, there's certainly a lot of last-century marriage "humour" that's totally cringy now. (hint - it was tired and lazy humour back then, too). Would you be shocked to hear that some of us Boomers have (or had) successful, equal, loving partnerships without requiring subjugation or conforming to old stereotypes?
posted by Artful Codger at 9:41 AM on August 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
I don't think young conservative men who have lived their entire lives under no-fault divorce understand that prior to no-fault divorce, a lot of them would die suspiciously early.
Annie Young's line in Chicago? "You know, some guys just can't hold their arsenic!"
That was a thing before no-fault divorce. No-fault divorce is literally the alternative to mariticide.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:50 AM on August 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Annie Young's line in Chicago? "You know, some guys just can't hold their arsenic!"
That was a thing before no-fault divorce. No-fault divorce is literally the alternative to mariticide.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:50 AM on August 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
I don't think young conservative men who have lived their entire lives under no-fault divorce understand that prior to no-fault divorce, a lot of them would die suspiciously early.
Women killing their husbands in mass numbers really was never a Thing, though. This argument reminds me of the guy I used to work with who claimed that wife beating was all a fiction because any beaten wife would immediately poison the husband. It just doesn't work that way, outlier cases aside.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:00 AM on August 10, 2023 [15 favorites]
Women killing their husbands in mass numbers really was never a Thing, though. This argument reminds me of the guy I used to work with who claimed that wife beating was all a fiction because any beaten wife would immediately poison the husband. It just doesn't work that way, outlier cases aside.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:00 AM on August 10, 2023 [15 favorites]
Related to @corb, is the fault/no-fault divorce in each state a binary thing? ie: if a state has no-fault divorces, does that mean that they do not have fault divorce? I can see where both types would be important to have, and I had thought that even states that have no-fault divorce still have the option to have a 'fault' divorce.
posted by hydra77 at 10:03 AM on August 10, 2023
posted by hydra77 at 10:03 AM on August 10, 2023
Look at all that BoomerHumor(TM) which is nothing but endless variations on the theme of married people hating each other. I think they really do expect marriage to suck for everyone and see marriage as a sort of unpleasant obligation a person undertakes for the betterment of society at the price of their own personal happiness.
Hence the phrase "ball and chain."
posted by brundlefly at 10:11 AM on August 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
Hence the phrase "ball and chain."
posted by brundlefly at 10:11 AM on August 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
An interesting side effect of the law only allowing a divorce when one party was held to be at fault was the conniving done by couples who wanted to divorce. They had to set up a scenario to prove that one of them had done wrong, because the judge would not accept their say so. The accepted way this was done required one of them to find a friend of the opposite gender, book into a hotel with that friend for an overnight stay, and the following morning return home with the hotel bill and give it to their soon-to-be ex-spouse, who would bring the hotel bill to court as evidence that infidelity had taken place.
Once judges began to start questioning the steady stream of hotel bills being brought into court and refusing to accept them for fear that the couple had connived, there was also a thriving business in private investigators, whose were hired to follow the "cheating spouse" and take photographic evidence that they did indeed check into a hotel with someone other than their husband or wife.
And naturally enough, although many jealous people did regularly hire private detectives to follow their spouses to really check if they were "betraying" them, the vast majority of the investigations involved a spouse with a straight face telling the detective they "suspected" their soon to be ex-partner would be cheating on them, on Wednesday night, March 23rd, 1952 at the motel Del Rey in Chicago.
Unless you set the whole thing up on a stated date and time you could end up paying a fortune to a private detective who would then fail to be in the right time and place to take a photograph, and you would have to keep paying them to fail to get the evidence. As a result both the detective and the couple knew the infidelity was by pre-arrangement. The only thing added was the private investigator's fees. The literature of the time was full of jokes about a bored couple sitting up fully dressed and playing card games in the hotel room all night; tragic stories about the couple who had only intended to play cards but fell into each others arms, only to discover their partner had changed their mind; and the romantic trope of the platonic friend and the "cheating" spouse discovering during that intimate night together that they had secretly been in love with each other all along.
Hard as it may be to believe, there were plenty of couples who refused to commit adultery before the divorce went through, who sat up together in a hotel room all night, not making out at all and saved it for marriage. They were actually willing to wait until they could legally tie the knot, so as to avoid breaking the Ten Commandments. My father anticipated his marriage vows by just one night, and then only because his future wife insisted, as she was unwilling to go through with marriage until they first were sure if they were sexually compatible or not... He came home at dawn on the day of his wedding to be bitterly reproached by his own father, who said, “You just couldn't wait, could you!” People really DID save it for marriage. They had all observed disasters in their own community that had resulted from not waiting, ranging from discovering the partner was already married to someone else, infanticide, appallingly bad forced marriages, suicide, death by botched abortion, prison, social ostracism, and worse.
The side effect of the difficulties presented in getting a divorce, meant that people started regularly accepting very bad behaviour. If a guy was known to have been divorced for cruelty and his wife had shown up in court with photographs of herself with a black eye, he could easily tell everyone that when she fell off the ladder watering the hanging flowers on the porch they had immediately taken photographs so as to use it to get the divorce, and he hadn't touched her at all, and be believed. It wasn't like a couple could stage a scene in public where he grabbed her and pretended to choke her, because the witnesses would usually downplay the violence due to the easy acceptance of spousal abuse. And yet if they were both good church goers they might not be willing to use a fake affair to get evidence for a divorce because the stigma of adultery could cause the "cheating" partner to be thrown out of their church.
Cruelty or abandonment were the only other possibilities. But how could you continue to be a decent person and provide for your spouse and prove abandonment? You had to really abandon them for a lengthy period of time to prove that. If she went home and lived with her parents for six months and he paid for a housekeeper, the judge would probably throw the petition out and simply order her to go home. And if he kept paying her bills while she lived with her parents or friends that was a sign that they were still bonded. There were cases where a couple had been living independently and separately for five years, who had their case thrown out because the judge thought he detected some warmth in the eye contact between them when they met in court. “He was trying not to smile at her...”
Despairing of a divorce, plenty of couples just gave up and remained legally married, and either separated to set up "living in sin" with new partners, or continued cohabiting, while keeping a lover on the side. The stories were legion about kids slowly realising that Daddy's frequent "business trips" just were the nights he slept over at his mistress's apartment, and that Mom and Dad had not shared a bedroom in the kids' living memory. Worse yet, many people would assume that a "business trip" was the opportunity that the trapped person took to have sex, and thus if a women took overnight business trips, plenty of people assumed that she definitely did so to commit adultery, because why would a woman go on a real business trip?
So you had a huge host of people behaving very badly indeed, and assuming every one else was behaving very badly indeed, and turning a blind eye to everyone committing shenanigans to circumvent the law. Once the sanctity of marriage was being flouted so carelessly and with so little general condemnation, the moral authorities realised that divorce laws that pushed people to behave this way were not helping maintain the moral order at all. It was their horrified realisation that children brought up in a home where their parents were maintaining a façade of being married were growing up to have no respect for marriage at all. And indeed they didn't. The next generation went straight to living in sin and led us to common-law marriage becoming ubiquitous.
But all this history of divorce law is not something that that matters at all to the people trying to change the marriage laws. They'd be unperturbed if they got the laws changed and couples went back to conniving or having open marriages. What they want is for it to be impossible for their wives to get any control of their lives. They like the model where, if she really wants to leave she can simply flee, and then not be able to retrieve anything she left behind, or get any share of the marital assets. I think there is an economic power motive at the root of this. After all didn't someone above mention that it was Crowder who first started the divorce proceedings? What they want is to maintain control of the home and the property, even if they can't prevent the woman from leaving without locking her up. They want the leverage that she will stay, just to prevent herself from becoming homeless. Pretty sure that if his wife left him he'd feel no guilt about having a live in girlfriend, one who had no right to any of his assets when they split up because he couldn't be common-law married to her while still being legally married to a woman living in a domestic violence shelter. And I don't think he'd feel any qualms about maintaining residence in a house that was in the legal wife's name either.
So what will happen if they get this legal change made? I am going to guess that, just as younger generations are having less sex now than they did before the sexual revolution, if divorce is made difficult, fewer people will be willing to get married any more. There's too much risk. Marriage was the expected future back in the days when people needed to be married to have a comfortable life. If you wanted to ever have legal sex you had to be married. Men needed a wife to keep house, and women needed a man to provide an income. The alternative for most people was living in a boarding house sharing a lavatory with strangers, or living with your parents for your entire life and risking morals charges if they had any sex life at all.
Nowadays women can't simply assume they will get married and not have to work. Usually both are working and they are only managing to keep house by getting a roomba, ordering a dinner delivery, and having no leisure time. Increasing numbers of women are doing without a live in romantic partner of any kind, married or not. It's not worth it to cohabit if you have to work all the hours God sends and then come home to do housework. Far better to get a cat if you want to bond with someone; it will mean fewer dishes to wash. It's much easier to negotiate about those dishes with a room mate if you can't afford your own place. They are a lot less likely to presume you don't mind than a husband or a boyfriend is.
Preventing divorce is a recipe for decreasing the birthrate in the USA still farther than it already has. Now, I am all for decreasing the birthrate, despite the fact that it will tank the economy, because I believe the few babies we have, the higher the chance our great-great-grandchildren have of surviving climate change. Punitive laws of this choice never occurred to me as a way to do it. If there are a lot of incels now, fuming because they can't get a girlfriend, there are going to be a lot more if divorce laws become more stringent. The pool of women who are willing to get married is going to go down. I don't think they are going to turn into women who are happy to just date. Instead the pool of women who are willing to date while they look for a permanent relationship is going to go down when permanent relationships are taken off the table. The end result will be a lot more single people. And I am pretty sure that's not what Crowder and his ilk are hoping for.
posted by Jane the Brown at 10:12 AM on August 10, 2023 [29 favorites]
Once judges began to start questioning the steady stream of hotel bills being brought into court and refusing to accept them for fear that the couple had connived, there was also a thriving business in private investigators, whose were hired to follow the "cheating spouse" and take photographic evidence that they did indeed check into a hotel with someone other than their husband or wife.
And naturally enough, although many jealous people did regularly hire private detectives to follow their spouses to really check if they were "betraying" them, the vast majority of the investigations involved a spouse with a straight face telling the detective they "suspected" their soon to be ex-partner would be cheating on them, on Wednesday night, March 23rd, 1952 at the motel Del Rey in Chicago.
Unless you set the whole thing up on a stated date and time you could end up paying a fortune to a private detective who would then fail to be in the right time and place to take a photograph, and you would have to keep paying them to fail to get the evidence. As a result both the detective and the couple knew the infidelity was by pre-arrangement. The only thing added was the private investigator's fees. The literature of the time was full of jokes about a bored couple sitting up fully dressed and playing card games in the hotel room all night; tragic stories about the couple who had only intended to play cards but fell into each others arms, only to discover their partner had changed their mind; and the romantic trope of the platonic friend and the "cheating" spouse discovering during that intimate night together that they had secretly been in love with each other all along.
Hard as it may be to believe, there were plenty of couples who refused to commit adultery before the divorce went through, who sat up together in a hotel room all night, not making out at all and saved it for marriage. They were actually willing to wait until they could legally tie the knot, so as to avoid breaking the Ten Commandments. My father anticipated his marriage vows by just one night, and then only because his future wife insisted, as she was unwilling to go through with marriage until they first were sure if they were sexually compatible or not... He came home at dawn on the day of his wedding to be bitterly reproached by his own father, who said, “You just couldn't wait, could you!” People really DID save it for marriage. They had all observed disasters in their own community that had resulted from not waiting, ranging from discovering the partner was already married to someone else, infanticide, appallingly bad forced marriages, suicide, death by botched abortion, prison, social ostracism, and worse.
The side effect of the difficulties presented in getting a divorce, meant that people started regularly accepting very bad behaviour. If a guy was known to have been divorced for cruelty and his wife had shown up in court with photographs of herself with a black eye, he could easily tell everyone that when she fell off the ladder watering the hanging flowers on the porch they had immediately taken photographs so as to use it to get the divorce, and he hadn't touched her at all, and be believed. It wasn't like a couple could stage a scene in public where he grabbed her and pretended to choke her, because the witnesses would usually downplay the violence due to the easy acceptance of spousal abuse. And yet if they were both good church goers they might not be willing to use a fake affair to get evidence for a divorce because the stigma of adultery could cause the "cheating" partner to be thrown out of their church.
Cruelty or abandonment were the only other possibilities. But how could you continue to be a decent person and provide for your spouse and prove abandonment? You had to really abandon them for a lengthy period of time to prove that. If she went home and lived with her parents for six months and he paid for a housekeeper, the judge would probably throw the petition out and simply order her to go home. And if he kept paying her bills while she lived with her parents or friends that was a sign that they were still bonded. There were cases where a couple had been living independently and separately for five years, who had their case thrown out because the judge thought he detected some warmth in the eye contact between them when they met in court. “He was trying not to smile at her...”
Despairing of a divorce, plenty of couples just gave up and remained legally married, and either separated to set up "living in sin" with new partners, or continued cohabiting, while keeping a lover on the side. The stories were legion about kids slowly realising that Daddy's frequent "business trips" just were the nights he slept over at his mistress's apartment, and that Mom and Dad had not shared a bedroom in the kids' living memory. Worse yet, many people would assume that a "business trip" was the opportunity that the trapped person took to have sex, and thus if a women took overnight business trips, plenty of people assumed that she definitely did so to commit adultery, because why would a woman go on a real business trip?
So you had a huge host of people behaving very badly indeed, and assuming every one else was behaving very badly indeed, and turning a blind eye to everyone committing shenanigans to circumvent the law. Once the sanctity of marriage was being flouted so carelessly and with so little general condemnation, the moral authorities realised that divorce laws that pushed people to behave this way were not helping maintain the moral order at all. It was their horrified realisation that children brought up in a home where their parents were maintaining a façade of being married were growing up to have no respect for marriage at all. And indeed they didn't. The next generation went straight to living in sin and led us to common-law marriage becoming ubiquitous.
But all this history of divorce law is not something that that matters at all to the people trying to change the marriage laws. They'd be unperturbed if they got the laws changed and couples went back to conniving or having open marriages. What they want is for it to be impossible for their wives to get any control of their lives. They like the model where, if she really wants to leave she can simply flee, and then not be able to retrieve anything she left behind, or get any share of the marital assets. I think there is an economic power motive at the root of this. After all didn't someone above mention that it was Crowder who first started the divorce proceedings? What they want is to maintain control of the home and the property, even if they can't prevent the woman from leaving without locking her up. They want the leverage that she will stay, just to prevent herself from becoming homeless. Pretty sure that if his wife left him he'd feel no guilt about having a live in girlfriend, one who had no right to any of his assets when they split up because he couldn't be common-law married to her while still being legally married to a woman living in a domestic violence shelter. And I don't think he'd feel any qualms about maintaining residence in a house that was in the legal wife's name either.
So what will happen if they get this legal change made? I am going to guess that, just as younger generations are having less sex now than they did before the sexual revolution, if divorce is made difficult, fewer people will be willing to get married any more. There's too much risk. Marriage was the expected future back in the days when people needed to be married to have a comfortable life. If you wanted to ever have legal sex you had to be married. Men needed a wife to keep house, and women needed a man to provide an income. The alternative for most people was living in a boarding house sharing a lavatory with strangers, or living with your parents for your entire life and risking morals charges if they had any sex life at all.
Nowadays women can't simply assume they will get married and not have to work. Usually both are working and they are only managing to keep house by getting a roomba, ordering a dinner delivery, and having no leisure time. Increasing numbers of women are doing without a live in romantic partner of any kind, married or not. It's not worth it to cohabit if you have to work all the hours God sends and then come home to do housework. Far better to get a cat if you want to bond with someone; it will mean fewer dishes to wash. It's much easier to negotiate about those dishes with a room mate if you can't afford your own place. They are a lot less likely to presume you don't mind than a husband or a boyfriend is.
Preventing divorce is a recipe for decreasing the birthrate in the USA still farther than it already has. Now, I am all for decreasing the birthrate, despite the fact that it will tank the economy, because I believe the few babies we have, the higher the chance our great-great-grandchildren have of surviving climate change. Punitive laws of this choice never occurred to me as a way to do it. If there are a lot of incels now, fuming because they can't get a girlfriend, there are going to be a lot more if divorce laws become more stringent. The pool of women who are willing to get married is going to go down. I don't think they are going to turn into women who are happy to just date. Instead the pool of women who are willing to date while they look for a permanent relationship is going to go down when permanent relationships are taken off the table. The end result will be a lot more single people. And I am pretty sure that's not what Crowder and his ilk are hoping for.
posted by Jane the Brown at 10:12 AM on August 10, 2023 [29 favorites]
The pool of women who are willing to get married is going to go down. I don't think they are going to turn into women who are happy to just date. Instead the pool of women who are willing to date while they look for a permanent relationship is going to go down when permanent relationships are taken off the table.
Assuming things stay relatively unchanged you're entirely correct. But wait until the reactionaries start going after Reed v. Reed and start arguing what "arbitrary" truly means.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:22 AM on August 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
Assuming things stay relatively unchanged you're entirely correct. But wait until the reactionaries start going after Reed v. Reed and start arguing what "arbitrary" truly means.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:22 AM on August 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
there is a ton of psych research which shows that overnights strengthen parent-child bonds and generally increase outcomes for kids, btw
I mean, that's what my dad's divorce lawyers said too, but . . . anecdotal here, my parents (not particularly acrimonious) divorce when I was not quite 14 led to us losing my childhood home, our social standing, and me having to spend my high school in an every other weekend Dad custody arrangement that was uncomfortable and inconvenient and took me out of any and all aspects of my life I enjoyed. Dad wasn't exactly an asshole, but he also wasn't much of a parent, so it became my job as a teenager to essentially take on all domestic duties for myself and my little sister when we were at his house because he'd never bothered/never needed to learn. And mostly I came out of the whole thing resenting the fuck out of my father, who I love, but, like, I'm 47 years old and I'm still bitter about how much of my young life I feel like he stole from me by just being irrationally grabby in the custody arrangement (and, I might add, wanting to pay less child support), but when I got to his house, it never seemed like he particularly cared that we were there. I am delighted my parents divorced. It made my mother a much happier person and a much better friend and parent (I credit no fault divorce for that by the way) but lord almighty, if I could go back and never spend the night at my father's house, I would.
This, by the way, largely conforms to the experiences of many of my fellow children of divorce. Especially girls.
posted by thivaia at 10:27 AM on August 10, 2023 [37 favorites]
I mean, that's what my dad's divorce lawyers said too, but . . . anecdotal here, my parents (not particularly acrimonious) divorce when I was not quite 14 led to us losing my childhood home, our social standing, and me having to spend my high school in an every other weekend Dad custody arrangement that was uncomfortable and inconvenient and took me out of any and all aspects of my life I enjoyed. Dad wasn't exactly an asshole, but he also wasn't much of a parent, so it became my job as a teenager to essentially take on all domestic duties for myself and my little sister when we were at his house because he'd never bothered/never needed to learn. And mostly I came out of the whole thing resenting the fuck out of my father, who I love, but, like, I'm 47 years old and I'm still bitter about how much of my young life I feel like he stole from me by just being irrationally grabby in the custody arrangement (and, I might add, wanting to pay less child support), but when I got to his house, it never seemed like he particularly cared that we were there. I am delighted my parents divorced. It made my mother a much happier person and a much better friend and parent (I credit no fault divorce for that by the way) but lord almighty, if I could go back and never spend the night at my father's house, I would.
This, by the way, largely conforms to the experiences of many of my fellow children of divorce. Especially girls.
posted by thivaia at 10:27 AM on August 10, 2023 [37 favorites]
Notwithstanding the specific toxic individual being called out in the OP (and his ilk), I feel like there are lots of unsubstantiated and unfair statements being made here re: conservatives in general in this thread.
What is generally true, though, is that conservatives believe that getting married, and staying married, is generally a good thing that leads to better outcomes for parents and kids. The research I've seen so far seems to support this viewpoint: on average, marriage leads to better financial, emotional, and physical (i.e. health) outcomes for the married partners and their progeny (of course, this is on average, there are individual family units that will absolutely do better on all of those dimensions if the parents / partners split). This is something that I think my fellow progressives sometimes overlook or forget: more people getting and staying married is generally better for society.
Where conservatives are totally off-base is flocking to coercive policies and laws to 'encourage; folks to stay married (or rather, to disincentivize divorce) . Bad marriages should absolutely end, and the end of marriage should be triggerable by either partner, regardless of 'fault'. IMO, we should be encouraging marriage and staying married through social policies that mitigate the obstacles and fault lines that cause a union to rupture, and incentivizing behaviours that help folks pick the right partner and stick with them. Following list is based on my experience in Canada but I bet would apply to the States too:
- Sane PTO policies at a federal level that give ample time for family issues and emergencies (i.e. sick kids)
- More and better parental leave that encourages a more equitable division of caregiving labour
- More, cheaper, and better child care
- More, better, and cheaper access to health care, including mental health care
- More, better, and cheaper access to relationship and family counselling
- More regulation and support available around services and goods that can lead to addictions and compulsive behaviours - gambling, gaming, alcohol as examples
- More, better, and cheaper access to reproductive health services such as contraception and abortion
- More support for the unemployed, such as better EI, more and better access to reskilling and upskilling services
posted by sid at 10:34 AM on August 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
What is generally true, though, is that conservatives believe that getting married, and staying married, is generally a good thing that leads to better outcomes for parents and kids. The research I've seen so far seems to support this viewpoint: on average, marriage leads to better financial, emotional, and physical (i.e. health) outcomes for the married partners and their progeny (of course, this is on average, there are individual family units that will absolutely do better on all of those dimensions if the parents / partners split). This is something that I think my fellow progressives sometimes overlook or forget: more people getting and staying married is generally better for society.
Where conservatives are totally off-base is flocking to coercive policies and laws to 'encourage; folks to stay married (or rather, to disincentivize divorce) . Bad marriages should absolutely end, and the end of marriage should be triggerable by either partner, regardless of 'fault'. IMO, we should be encouraging marriage and staying married through social policies that mitigate the obstacles and fault lines that cause a union to rupture, and incentivizing behaviours that help folks pick the right partner and stick with them. Following list is based on my experience in Canada but I bet would apply to the States too:
- Sane PTO policies at a federal level that give ample time for family issues and emergencies (i.e. sick kids)
- More and better parental leave that encourages a more equitable division of caregiving labour
- More, cheaper, and better child care
- More, better, and cheaper access to health care, including mental health care
- More, better, and cheaper access to relationship and family counselling
- More regulation and support available around services and goods that can lead to addictions and compulsive behaviours - gambling, gaming, alcohol as examples
- More, better, and cheaper access to reproductive health services such as contraception and abortion
- More support for the unemployed, such as better EI, more and better access to reskilling and upskilling services
posted by sid at 10:34 AM on August 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
or we can just roll back everything to the 50s when it was Great
The 1850s
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 10:37 AM on August 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
The 1850s
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 10:37 AM on August 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
It's a real change of affect - like, there's a whole suite of ways in which you would have been considered an absolute loser in 2015 which are now completely part of performing right-wing manhood.
It's really something how quickly "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" has been totally pulverized by the GOP, once they realized they could stop pretending to.
posted by Mayor West at 10:47 AM on August 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
It's really something how quickly "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" has been totally pulverized by the GOP, once they realized they could stop pretending to.
posted by Mayor West at 10:47 AM on August 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
The 1850s
This unabashed Royalist Hate is why Metafilter is going down the tubes.
Everyone knows 1750s where the only 50s worth living in.
posted by DigDoug at 10:49 AM on August 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
This unabashed Royalist Hate is why Metafilter is going down the tubes.
Everyone knows 1750s where the only 50s worth living in.
posted by DigDoug at 10:49 AM on August 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
I feel like there are lots of unsubstantiated and unfair statements being made here re: conservatives in general in this thread.
If conservatives are so totally off-base with their coercive policies, why should we cut them any slack for their motivations? Does having a noble heart make up for all the damage their policies will cause?
Conservatives are entitled jackasses whose core principal is "no backsies unless I say so". All this talk about traditional gender roles and healthy marriage is just BS to support their belief that people like Stephen Crowder view their failing marriages as a personal affront to their privilege.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:59 AM on August 10, 2023 [23 favorites]
If conservatives are so totally off-base with their coercive policies, why should we cut them any slack for their motivations? Does having a noble heart make up for all the damage their policies will cause?
Conservatives are entitled jackasses whose core principal is "no backsies unless I say so". All this talk about traditional gender roles and healthy marriage is just BS to support their belief that people like Stephen Crowder view their failing marriages as a personal affront to their privilege.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:59 AM on August 10, 2023 [23 favorites]
Assuming things stay relatively unchanged you're entirely correct. But wait until the reactionaries start going after Reed v. Reed and start arguing what "arbitrary" truly means.
I honestly believe that the GOP are being played by the corporations, and in a hundred years if trends continue, they will discover that instead of the laws being preferential to white men, the laws will be preferential to corporations only. It'll take a hundred years or so though, while they still think that things are improving for them, despite their lower wages and standard of living, and fewer protections.
If everything goes to plan Nations as we know them now will have ceased to be major power players. Nations will have the same powers that counties do, with Corporations at the top openly running their governments for them. States rights are a good way to prevent states from banding together to have more power by uniting. Corporations are powerful because they circumvent national borders. If they don't like the laws in the US right now they can move operations to some location that has laws that favor them. They would be more than happy if they didn't have to move them overseas, and would be delighted if the could pit Iowa against Indiana in the race to the bottom to accommodate the corporations.
Very likely the corporations will set things up to protect the little states from immigration and emigration if they can, the way this whole thread is about preventing freedom of movement to leave a marriage.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:07 AM on August 10, 2023 [12 favorites]
I honestly believe that the GOP are being played by the corporations, and in a hundred years if trends continue, they will discover that instead of the laws being preferential to white men, the laws will be preferential to corporations only. It'll take a hundred years or so though, while they still think that things are improving for them, despite their lower wages and standard of living, and fewer protections.
If everything goes to plan Nations as we know them now will have ceased to be major power players. Nations will have the same powers that counties do, with Corporations at the top openly running their governments for them. States rights are a good way to prevent states from banding together to have more power by uniting. Corporations are powerful because they circumvent national borders. If they don't like the laws in the US right now they can move operations to some location that has laws that favor them. They would be more than happy if they didn't have to move them overseas, and would be delighted if the could pit Iowa against Indiana in the race to the bottom to accommodate the corporations.
Very likely the corporations will set things up to protect the little states from immigration and emigration if they can, the way this whole thread is about preventing freedom of movement to leave a marriage.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:07 AM on August 10, 2023 [12 favorites]
This, by the way, largely conforms to the experiences of many of my fellow children of divorce. Especially girls.
Enh, not really. My father had an every-other-weekend custody pattern, and it was fine. My parents divorced when I was much younger (preschool), which I think is easier on kids because you don't have a chance at 4 to get wrapped around the axle about your "social standing" or "childhood home." My dad was also a fully-functioning adult who didn't rely on his kids to manage any part of his life or household.
There's lots of parents of both genders and in every permutation of marriage, divorce, and custody division parentifying their kids, but that's not really a divorce/custody problem. That's a problem related to unhealed/unprepared people becoming parents.
posted by jeoc at 11:12 AM on August 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
Enh, not really. My father had an every-other-weekend custody pattern, and it was fine. My parents divorced when I was much younger (preschool), which I think is easier on kids because you don't have a chance at 4 to get wrapped around the axle about your "social standing" or "childhood home." My dad was also a fully-functioning adult who didn't rely on his kids to manage any part of his life or household.
There's lots of parents of both genders and in every permutation of marriage, divorce, and custody division parentifying their kids, but that's not really a divorce/custody problem. That's a problem related to unhealed/unprepared people becoming parents.
posted by jeoc at 11:12 AM on August 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
I honestly believe that the GOP are being played by the corporations, and in a hundred years if trends continue, they will discover that instead of the laws being preferential to white men, the laws will be preferential to corporations only. It'll take a hundred years or so though, while they still think that things are improving for them, despite their lower wages and standard of living, and fewer protections.
Oh that's absolutely what's going on. Racism is a ridiculously effective wedge tool for that because they can do anything which fucks individuals and go "look how it fucks black people worse" and the white GOP will come out in droves for it.
But it will be too late when they realize the corporations don't accept being at the top of an imaginary and constructed social strata as legal tender.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 11:16 AM on August 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
Oh that's absolutely what's going on. Racism is a ridiculously effective wedge tool for that because they can do anything which fucks individuals and go "look how it fucks black people worse" and the white GOP will come out in droves for it.
But it will be too late when they realize the corporations don't accept being at the top of an imaginary and constructed social strata as legal tender.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 11:16 AM on August 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
I feel like there are lots of unsubstantiated and unfair statements being made here re: conservatives in general in this thread.
What is generally true...
There's your problem. They want you to strip out the specific context here and retreat to "generally". There is a vanishingly small number of self-described conservatives in America today who "generally" want to encourage marriage for any reason that does not include "...as a way of blaming women and/or Black people for the problems foisted upon them by American history and society". That's why exactly zero of the eight policies you list are vocally supported by any American conservative officeholder I can think of. Because they're not generally in favor of stable families, they're specifically mad that white women are allowed to have their own lives.
posted by Etrigan at 11:26 AM on August 10, 2023 [28 favorites]
What is generally true...
There's your problem. They want you to strip out the specific context here and retreat to "generally". There is a vanishingly small number of self-described conservatives in America today who "generally" want to encourage marriage for any reason that does not include "...as a way of blaming women and/or Black people for the problems foisted upon them by American history and society". That's why exactly zero of the eight policies you list are vocally supported by any American conservative officeholder I can think of. Because they're not generally in favor of stable families, they're specifically mad that white women are allowed to have their own lives.
posted by Etrigan at 11:26 AM on August 10, 2023 [28 favorites]
It's terrible idea and I hope it dies. But..... this has got to be like abortions, something a fringe minority really wants but is terribly unpopular across both Ds and Rs. Can you even imagine Trump trying to sell an end to no-fault divorce? Even for him the hypocrisy is too much.... ok his hypocrisy is boundless but still.
And I don't think this can be done in the background by packing the courts with the right judges, you'd have to campaign on it, and it's not a popular option. If you pull a rabbit out of the hat and pass it, you'd face a pissed slate of electors in the next election.
My father anticipated his marriage vows by just one night, and then only because his future wife insisted, as she was unwilling to go through with marriage until they first were sure if they were sexually compatible or not.
My grand-mother anticipated her marriage by one day! To avoid conscription during the war they secretly got married in front of a priest, and the next day the same priest married them in front of everybody. Don't ask me if they consume the union.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 11:44 AM on August 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
And I don't think this can be done in the background by packing the courts with the right judges, you'd have to campaign on it, and it's not a popular option. If you pull a rabbit out of the hat and pass it, you'd face a pissed slate of electors in the next election.
My father anticipated his marriage vows by just one night, and then only because his future wife insisted, as she was unwilling to go through with marriage until they first were sure if they were sexually compatible or not.
My grand-mother anticipated her marriage by one day! To avoid conscription during the war they secretly got married in front of a priest, and the next day the same priest married them in front of everybody. Don't ask me if they consume the union.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 11:44 AM on August 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
A 6-month, then 6-week, residency requirement led to Reno's decades-long heyday as the Divorce Capital of the US.
Universal childcare would diminish post-divorce poverty levels. We had the Lanham Act during WWII, and Congress passed the bipartisan Comprehensive Child Development Act in 1971 -- but Nixon vetoed it.
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:05 PM on August 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
Universal childcare would diminish post-divorce poverty levels. We had the Lanham Act during WWII, and Congress passed the bipartisan Comprehensive Child Development Act in 1971 -- but Nixon vetoed it.
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:05 PM on August 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
Some of this fascist stuff really goes a LOT further than Shari’a law even in fairly conservative Muslim countries.
It’s hard as Hell for me to understand how modern, Western Christians even can fall for this stuff.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 12:14 PM on August 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
It’s hard as Hell for me to understand how modern, Western Christians even can fall for this stuff.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 12:14 PM on August 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Everyone knows 1750s where the only 50s worth living in.
Still trying to make rocococore happen.
posted by thivaia at 12:19 PM on August 10, 2023 [13 favorites]
Still trying to make rocococore happen.
posted by thivaia at 12:19 PM on August 10, 2023 [13 favorites]
Everyone knows 1750s where the only 50s worth living in.
Still trying to make rocococore happen.
Und all' die Punker sagte "Come and rock me, Amadeus!"
posted by hippybear at 12:21 PM on August 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
Still trying to make rocococore happen.
Und all' die Punker sagte "Come and rock me, Amadeus!"
posted by hippybear at 12:21 PM on August 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
I honestly believe that the GOP are being played by the corporations
I don't think so. Republicans are generally angry at a few different entire lines of business, including 'woke' software companies, the media, the medical industrial complex, 'vaccine manufacturers' and many of those are corporations. Corporations are useful to the GOP in that they funnel money from the lower classes to the upper middle class to billionaires; beyond that, they are not important.
And lots of corporate issues that increase profits, like diversity and offshoring, are under attack by the GOP.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:24 PM on August 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
I don't think so. Republicans are generally angry at a few different entire lines of business, including 'woke' software companies, the media, the medical industrial complex, 'vaccine manufacturers' and many of those are corporations. Corporations are useful to the GOP in that they funnel money from the lower classes to the upper middle class to billionaires; beyond that, they are not important.
And lots of corporate issues that increase profits, like diversity and offshoring, are under attack by the GOP.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:24 PM on August 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
It’s hard as Hell for me to understand how modern, Western Christians even can fall for this stuff.
I would question the assumption that the supporters of these motions are actually modern. Or Christian.
(They think they are, but I'd question them on it as well.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:27 PM on August 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
I would question the assumption that the supporters of these motions are actually modern. Or Christian.
(They think they are, but I'd question them on it as well.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:27 PM on August 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
I would question the assumption that the supporters of these motions are actually modern. Or Christian. (They think they are, but I'd question them on it as well.)
We might be getting into "no true Christian" territory here. To me it seems like Christians have been enforcing rules like this for the past couple of thousand years with only the occasional break for more liberal approaches. On this specific subject, Jesus himself was pretty hard-line:
We might be getting into "no true Christian" territory here. To me it seems like Christians have been enforcing rules like this for the past couple of thousand years with only the occasional break for more liberal approaches. On this specific subject, Jesus himself was pretty hard-line:
Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”posted by clawsoon at 1:04 PM on August 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
Also the Crowder brand is going down fast. Dude got pissy with the Daily Wire and is being aired out for sexual harassment - of dudes, not the traditional Mad Men “office wolf” stuff.
posted by Selena777 at 2:06 PM on August 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 2:06 PM on August 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
those traditional roles appear to be built on the assumption that men and women are natural enemies who must be bludgeoned into being together.
What is generally true, though, is that conservatives believe that getting married, and staying married, is generally a good thing that leads to better outcomes for parents and kids.
So from the position of having conservative family on both sides of the US border, I’m going to say things are actually worse.
Prosperity gospel (and its roots) teaches that if you are good with God (‘saved’ in some circles), the riches of life will rain down on you, caused *by God*. This means that if you are a proper Christian man, generally white, God Himself will supply you with a wife and obedient children and riches.
The wife is not an enemy. She is a helpmate. She’s a reward. Like Eve was a reward to Adam. Rewards aren’t supposed to say at 1 am “this marriage is over.” In my own family, when I got married, I was given a book detailing how wives should submit to their husbands for the husband is the head of the household as Christ is the head of the Church. No joke. 1994.
In this worldview, if things go wrong in your marriage either someone is horrifically, against God’s own plan, at fault or God gave you the wrong person (but God doesn’t make mistakes so that’s a no) or God now hates you. There is no possibility of no-fault divorce, because your soulmate was given to you divinely. Also, your marriage is itself a covenant with God.
This underlies a lot of ugly prejudices against single moms, especially of colour — Reagan’s welfare queens. And in churches, this is *ugly*. My cousin, an evangelical Christian teacher and wife in Florida, discovered that her Christian husband had abused her daughters and recorded it. She had the balls to gather the evidence, leave that day, and file charges (he went to jail.) Guess what happened to her? Her school fired her and her pastor asked her not to come back to church. This was in the early aughts. (They are doing fine.)
Also, God will give you riches. Which historically have gone to white men (not women). Not coincidentally, capitalism also believes that the “right” people will not just be wealthy but will be the producers of wealth for all, the captains of industry. In God We Trust. You put that together and you have the religious right driving policy at a very effective level. They have disproportionate influence because the pulpit is one of the central political organizing platforms in North America (especially the US, but try Alberta.)
I think this political movement is about seeking the next wedge issue. But it’s a wedge because there are a lot of people who really believe in, and more who are influenced by, the view that marriage is preordained by a patriarchal deity.
You can try to puzzle this out on a non-religious level, but I think that’s a mistake. This is straight out of a belief system that does not recognize women in particular but really average, non-wealthy, non-Christian-leaders, as autonomous humans.
posted by warriorqueen at 2:10 PM on August 10, 2023 [27 favorites]
What is generally true, though, is that conservatives believe that getting married, and staying married, is generally a good thing that leads to better outcomes for parents and kids.
So from the position of having conservative family on both sides of the US border, I’m going to say things are actually worse.
Prosperity gospel (and its roots) teaches that if you are good with God (‘saved’ in some circles), the riches of life will rain down on you, caused *by God*. This means that if you are a proper Christian man, generally white, God Himself will supply you with a wife and obedient children and riches.
The wife is not an enemy. She is a helpmate. She’s a reward. Like Eve was a reward to Adam. Rewards aren’t supposed to say at 1 am “this marriage is over.” In my own family, when I got married, I was given a book detailing how wives should submit to their husbands for the husband is the head of the household as Christ is the head of the Church. No joke. 1994.
In this worldview, if things go wrong in your marriage either someone is horrifically, against God’s own plan, at fault or God gave you the wrong person (but God doesn’t make mistakes so that’s a no) or God now hates you. There is no possibility of no-fault divorce, because your soulmate was given to you divinely. Also, your marriage is itself a covenant with God.
This underlies a lot of ugly prejudices against single moms, especially of colour — Reagan’s welfare queens. And in churches, this is *ugly*. My cousin, an evangelical Christian teacher and wife in Florida, discovered that her Christian husband had abused her daughters and recorded it. She had the balls to gather the evidence, leave that day, and file charges (he went to jail.) Guess what happened to her? Her school fired her and her pastor asked her not to come back to church. This was in the early aughts. (They are doing fine.)
Also, God will give you riches. Which historically have gone to white men (not women). Not coincidentally, capitalism also believes that the “right” people will not just be wealthy but will be the producers of wealth for all, the captains of industry. In God We Trust. You put that together and you have the religious right driving policy at a very effective level. They have disproportionate influence because the pulpit is one of the central political organizing platforms in North America (especially the US, but try Alberta.)
I think this political movement is about seeking the next wedge issue. But it’s a wedge because there are a lot of people who really believe in, and more who are influenced by, the view that marriage is preordained by a patriarchal deity.
You can try to puzzle this out on a non-religious level, but I think that’s a mistake. This is straight out of a belief system that does not recognize women in particular but really average, non-wealthy, non-Christian-leaders, as autonomous humans.
posted by warriorqueen at 2:10 PM on August 10, 2023 [27 favorites]
clawsoon's Biblical quote is from the Gospel of Matthew; Luke's Jesus drops the "sexual immorality" exemption and takes against divorcées: "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery."
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:20 PM on August 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:20 PM on August 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
clawsoon's Biblical quote is from the Gospel of Matthew; Luke's Jesus drops the "sexual immorality" exemption and takes against divorcées: "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery."
It's interesting how in all of the versions, women aren't considered subjects, only objects. It's a man divorcing, it's a man committing adultery, almost as if women aren't human enough even to sin.
posted by clawsoon at 3:44 PM on August 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
It's interesting how in all of the versions, women aren't considered subjects, only objects. It's a man divorcing, it's a man committing adultery, almost as if women aren't human enough even to sin.
posted by clawsoon at 3:44 PM on August 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
It's interesting how in all of the versions, women aren't considered subjects, only objects. It's a man divorcing, it's a man committing adultery, almost as if women aren't human enough even to sin.
Interesting, or really, really gross? The whole book is like that. I have never been able to figure out how anyone can take it seriously.
posted by heyho at 3:49 PM on August 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
Interesting, or really, really gross? The whole book is like that. I have never been able to figure out how anyone can take it seriously.
posted by heyho at 3:49 PM on August 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
Can you even imagine Trump trying to sell an end to no-fault divorce? Even for him the hypocrisy is too much....
Well, I doubt any of his former or current wives would have much trouble in proving infidelity. No need for a private detective there.
This, by the way, largely conforms to the experiences of many of my fellow children of divorce. Especially girls.
Enh, not really. My father had an every-other-weekend custody pattern, and it was fine.
My lived experience is that the traditional 'every other weekend' arrangement does create issues for, particularly, teenage children. I had an 'every other weekend (Fri-Mon) and every Wednesday night' arrangement with my ex. Years later, I learned from one of my daughters that it was a bit of a nightmare for them, disrupting not only social patterns but also homework and study with them bouncing from house to house all the time. She asked why we couldn't have just agreed to alternate weeks so they could be more settled. I didn't have a good answer to that.
... it seems like Christians have been enforcing rules like this for the past couple of thousand years ...
Not to get into 'true Christian' territory, but the rules outlined in the Bible only apply to Christians and do not apply broadly in a secular society. Separation of church and state specifically means that the church doesn't get to set the rules that apply to everyone. Anyone can believe what the laws of a country should be all they like, but their beliefs should not be imposed on others - the laws should be based on what the people in that society want them to be.
Yes, I know this is hopelessly idealistic, given how many 'christians' are in positions of power and hell-bent on imposing their beliefs on others.
posted by dg at 4:12 PM on August 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
Well, I doubt any of his former or current wives would have much trouble in proving infidelity. No need for a private detective there.
This, by the way, largely conforms to the experiences of many of my fellow children of divorce. Especially girls.
Enh, not really. My father had an every-other-weekend custody pattern, and it was fine.
My lived experience is that the traditional 'every other weekend' arrangement does create issues for, particularly, teenage children. I had an 'every other weekend (Fri-Mon) and every Wednesday night' arrangement with my ex. Years later, I learned from one of my daughters that it was a bit of a nightmare for them, disrupting not only social patterns but also homework and study with them bouncing from house to house all the time. She asked why we couldn't have just agreed to alternate weeks so they could be more settled. I didn't have a good answer to that.
... it seems like Christians have been enforcing rules like this for the past couple of thousand years ...
Not to get into 'true Christian' territory, but the rules outlined in the Bible only apply to Christians and do not apply broadly in a secular society. Separation of church and state specifically means that the church doesn't get to set the rules that apply to everyone. Anyone can believe what the laws of a country should be all they like, but their beliefs should not be imposed on others - the laws should be based on what the people in that society want them to be.
Yes, I know this is hopelessly idealistic, given how many 'christians' are in positions of power and hell-bent on imposing their beliefs on others.
posted by dg at 4:12 PM on August 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
Thirsting for nearly two millennia for revenge for how the Romans treated them.
posted by hippybear at 4:35 PM on August 10, 2023
posted by hippybear at 4:35 PM on August 10, 2023
> I would question the assumption that the supporters of these motions are actually modern. Or Christian.
We might be getting into "no true Christian" territory here.
You know what, you're right. I shouldn't have said that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:47 PM on August 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
We might be getting into "no true Christian" territory here.
You know what, you're right. I shouldn't have said that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:47 PM on August 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
You know what, you're right. I shouldn't have said that.
To be fair, it was very Christian of you. Historically, there has been nothing more Christian than accusing other Christians of not being Christians. :-)
posted by clawsoon at 7:45 PM on August 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
To be fair, it was very Christian of you. Historically, there has been nothing more Christian than accusing other Christians of not being Christians. :-)
posted by clawsoon at 7:45 PM on August 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
@warriorqueen, thanks for sharing your story, I'm not part of these communities and it was eye opening and horrifying to read about what you and your relative went through.
I would think, though, that the worldview you describe is not common to all or even a majority of those who identify as conservative. I haven't found data about this exact question (self-identified conservatives' views on no-fault divorce), but the data shown here seems to indicate that the majority of Republicans polled in 2020 believe that policies on most women's issues are either "just about right" or "haven't gone far enough" in terms of improving the rights and of women. A minority of republicans opined that the country had 'gone too far' on these items. It would seem that the posters on this thread ascribing certain motivations or viewpoints to 'conservatives' are vastly overstating the case.
That being said, it seems that the discourse, more and more, is being unduly influenced by a minority. Conservative lawmakers and politicians in Canada and the US seem to be catering to this 'base' at the expense of their more moderate co-partisans, and politics in general is so polarized that the moderate bloc is ok with going along with increasingly fringe / insane positions.
posted by sid at 8:14 PM on August 10, 2023
I would think, though, that the worldview you describe is not common to all or even a majority of those who identify as conservative. I haven't found data about this exact question (self-identified conservatives' views on no-fault divorce), but the data shown here seems to indicate that the majority of Republicans polled in 2020 believe that policies on most women's issues are either "just about right" or "haven't gone far enough" in terms of improving the rights and of women. A minority of republicans opined that the country had 'gone too far' on these items. It would seem that the posters on this thread ascribing certain motivations or viewpoints to 'conservatives' are vastly overstating the case.
That being said, it seems that the discourse, more and more, is being unduly influenced by a minority. Conservative lawmakers and politicians in Canada and the US seem to be catering to this 'base' at the expense of their more moderate co-partisans, and politics in general is so polarized that the moderate bloc is ok with going along with increasingly fringe / insane positions.
posted by sid at 8:14 PM on August 10, 2023
@warriorqueen, thanks for sharing your story, I'm not part of these communities and it was eye opening and horrifying to read about what you and your relative went through. I would think, though, that the worldview you describe is not common to all or even a majority of those who identify as conservative.
That's why I think warriorqueen was on-point that it's a mistake to try to puzzle this out on a non-religious level. If your conservatives are mostly conservative because they care about the private property of rich people, they might not care one way or the other about women's issues. But if they're Southern Baptist complementarians...
posted by clawsoon at 8:29 PM on August 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
That's why I think warriorqueen was on-point that it's a mistake to try to puzzle this out on a non-religious level. If your conservatives are mostly conservative because they care about the private property of rich people, they might not care one way or the other about women's issues. But if they're Southern Baptist complementarians...
posted by clawsoon at 8:29 PM on August 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
Classical conservatives don't exist in American politics anymore. The GOP is the party of theocracy and fascism, worshiping the insurrectionist Trump as a messiah.
Conservatives used to just mutter "Now, how are you going to pay for THAT," when confronted with a wacky idea like helping people when they were sick. Today the inheritors of that tradition proudly drink horse goo and die intubated because vaccines are a socialist/Communist/globalist plot, when they're not fantasizing about gunning down their neighbors or elected officials.
What was the last GOP campaign platform? Whatever Trump said. That's the totality of thought on the right, they're not even trying to make up a reason why it's imperative to segregate schools or destroy bodily autonomy anymore. Rage-driven id as policy. They just get pointed at the next target. A few years ago it was gay marriage ruining society. Today it's trans people merely existing. Tomorrow it'll be those women, thinking they're too good to be unmarried.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 9:23 PM on August 10, 2023 [20 favorites]
Conservatives used to just mutter "Now, how are you going to pay for THAT," when confronted with a wacky idea like helping people when they were sick. Today the inheritors of that tradition proudly drink horse goo and die intubated because vaccines are a socialist/Communist/globalist plot, when they're not fantasizing about gunning down their neighbors or elected officials.
What was the last GOP campaign platform? Whatever Trump said. That's the totality of thought on the right, they're not even trying to make up a reason why it's imperative to segregate schools or destroy bodily autonomy anymore. Rage-driven id as policy. They just get pointed at the next target. A few years ago it was gay marriage ruining society. Today it's trans people merely existing. Tomorrow it'll be those women, thinking they're too good to be unmarried.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 9:23 PM on August 10, 2023 [20 favorites]
@sid, strongly suggest you read up or listen to this podcast about Ralph Reed and the evangelical movement and the GOP. (I think it was that podcast I listened to.) long story short, in the 80s
posted by warriorqueen at 3:31 AM on August 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by warriorqueen at 3:31 AM on August 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
Sorry…typing on my phone with a puppy around is not great :)…the evangelical movement deliberately moved into politics. Some of the tactics were brilliant. It’s pretty scary though.
posted by warriorqueen at 3:38 AM on August 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by warriorqueen at 3:38 AM on August 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
Is that every-other-weekend-plus-wednesdays still the norm? I think it was back in the day, but I thought courts are more likely to do 50/50 now? Granted, no one I know who has gotten divorced had children together (whew!).
I'd like to add a data point that all divorces are different and all parents are different, my parents divorced when I was also in pre-school, so shuttling back and forth was pretty normal, but that time with my dad was a respite from an unhappy home with my step-dad. Socially I ended up with two sets of friends essentially, a set at my mom's house that I also went to school with and a set at my dad's house that I got to play with.
Probably a better arrangement with week on/week off would be more stabilizing, but that also requires that both parents live within commuting distance to all the schools/activities for the kids. And if mom wants to move an hour away from dad, then week on /week off isnt going to work. And if the choice is every-other-weekend-plus-wednesdays or nothing, I'm really really really glad my did didn't pick nothing.
posted by LizBoBiz at 6:17 AM on August 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'd like to add a data point that all divorces are different and all parents are different, my parents divorced when I was also in pre-school, so shuttling back and forth was pretty normal, but that time with my dad was a respite from an unhappy home with my step-dad. Socially I ended up with two sets of friends essentially, a set at my mom's house that I also went to school with and a set at my dad's house that I got to play with.
Probably a better arrangement with week on/week off would be more stabilizing, but that also requires that both parents live within commuting distance to all the schools/activities for the kids. And if mom wants to move an hour away from dad, then week on /week off isnt going to work. And if the choice is every-other-weekend-plus-wednesdays or nothing, I'm really really really glad my did didn't pick nothing.
posted by LizBoBiz at 6:17 AM on August 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
sid Just as wiith aliens, I need strong empirical evidence that the conservatives you hypothesize not only exist but are the majority before I can accept that proposal.
But, more important, even if for the sake of argument you are correct that there exists a majority of conservatives who aren't actually rabidly transphobic, homophobic, racist, white supremacist, misogynist scumbags they VOTE FOR such people and have no hesitation at all in supporting such people.
So clearly their hypothetical devotion to feminism, justice, and equality, is more a vague preference that they don't actually give a shit about rather than a real belief that influences their behavior.
When a hypothetical not so terrible conservative is functionally identical to an actual Nazi then I fail to see how there is any meaningful distinction between the two.
posted by sotonohito at 7:38 AM on August 11, 2023 [13 favorites]
But, more important, even if for the sake of argument you are correct that there exists a majority of conservatives who aren't actually rabidly transphobic, homophobic, racist, white supremacist, misogynist scumbags they VOTE FOR such people and have no hesitation at all in supporting such people.
So clearly their hypothetical devotion to feminism, justice, and equality, is more a vague preference that they don't actually give a shit about rather than a real belief that influences their behavior.
When a hypothetical not so terrible conservative is functionally identical to an actual Nazi then I fail to see how there is any meaningful distinction between the two.
posted by sotonohito at 7:38 AM on August 11, 2023 [13 favorites]
It would seem that the posters on this thread ascribing certain motivations or viewpoints to 'conservatives' are vastly overstating the case.
People across the political spectrum in the Anglosphere say they support policies that are leftward of the actions taken by politicians they vote for. Lots of people will say "Of course I'm in favor of women's rights!" to a pollster and then vote for a guy who openly advocates the death penalty for anyone who gets an abortion.
You want to show me a motivation or viewpoint, show me a ballot, not a poll.
posted by Etrigan at 7:44 AM on August 11, 2023 [19 favorites]
People across the political spectrum in the Anglosphere say they support policies that are leftward of the actions taken by politicians they vote for. Lots of people will say "Of course I'm in favor of women's rights!" to a pollster and then vote for a guy who openly advocates the death penalty for anyone who gets an abortion.
You want to show me a motivation or viewpoint, show me a ballot, not a poll.
posted by Etrigan at 7:44 AM on August 11, 2023 [19 favorites]
the evangelical movement deliberately moved into politics. Some of the tactics were brilliant. It’s pretty scary though.
Entryism, which was popularized by whom? You guessed it: Trotsky. A Communist.
posted by rhizome at 12:45 PM on August 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
Entryism, which was popularized by whom? You guessed it: Trotsky. A Communist.
posted by rhizome at 12:45 PM on August 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
I’ve read several analyses that claim evangelicals first went to the Presidential polls in significant numbers to vote for Jimmy Carter.
posted by jamjam at 2:21 PM on August 11, 2023
posted by jamjam at 2:21 PM on August 11, 2023
Really demoralizing how this is all predicated on the idea that men and women all always hate and resent each other and can never be happy, so one gender has to be subjugated into misery. No such thing as a happy marriage, better keep the women locked up. In 2015, saying that would be telling on yourself, but not now.
In 2003, John Derbyshire wrote an NR piece praising Married with Children as "one of the most conservative shows on TV" for more or less this precise reason.
posted by non canadian guy at 3:05 PM on August 11, 2023 [4 favorites]
In 2003, John Derbyshire wrote an NR piece praising Married with Children as "one of the most conservative shows on TV" for more or less this precise reason.
posted by non canadian guy at 3:05 PM on August 11, 2023 [4 favorites]
Really demoralizing how this is all predicated on the idea that men and women all always hate and resent each other and can never be happy, so one gender has to be subjugated into misery.
That's making me think of Wengrow and Graeber's discussion of Benjamin Franklin complaining about how whenever a European American had a chance to live with an Indigenous tribe they never seemed to want to come back, even if they had a bunch of money and a nice estate waiting for them. And Sally Roesch Wagner's discussion of how Iroquoian society in particular was attractive for American feminists, what with its positive view of women's property and autonomy and right to divorce.
And that all has got me idly wondering whether the civilizations which took over the world required an ethic of misery. We must celebrate being miserable in our jobs and miserable in our marriages and miserable as parents because if you can convince enough people to do that - early to bed, early to rise, time is money, spare the rod and spoil the child - you can conquer and subjugate and take over the world by being a miserable civilization with a miserable goal.
People aren't going to do that out of the gate, so you have to build up a whole religious infrastructure to support it, a whole bag of psychological tricks to get people feeling self-righteous about staying in a miserable marriage and guilty about leaving it.
posted by clawsoon at 4:45 PM on August 11, 2023 [21 favorites]
That's making me think of Wengrow and Graeber's discussion of Benjamin Franklin complaining about how whenever a European American had a chance to live with an Indigenous tribe they never seemed to want to come back, even if they had a bunch of money and a nice estate waiting for them. And Sally Roesch Wagner's discussion of how Iroquoian society in particular was attractive for American feminists, what with its positive view of women's property and autonomy and right to divorce.
And that all has got me idly wondering whether the civilizations which took over the world required an ethic of misery. We must celebrate being miserable in our jobs and miserable in our marriages and miserable as parents because if you can convince enough people to do that - early to bed, early to rise, time is money, spare the rod and spoil the child - you can conquer and subjugate and take over the world by being a miserable civilization with a miserable goal.
People aren't going to do that out of the gate, so you have to build up a whole religious infrastructure to support it, a whole bag of psychological tricks to get people feeling self-righteous about staying in a miserable marriage and guilty about leaving it.
posted by clawsoon at 4:45 PM on August 11, 2023 [21 favorites]
That's a good point, clawsoon, but I might phrase it differently, though perhaps not all that differently.
If your culture has thoroughly subjugated women and is forcing them to bear as many children as possible as fast as possible, you have plenty of sons to send out to do the same to healthier cultures.
Here in the New World, the British brought their own women, so we could simply wipe the indigenous people out, while the Spanish and Portuguese mainly left their women behind, and killed or otherwise displaced indigenous men in order to father succeeding generations.
posted by jamjam at 6:14 PM on August 11, 2023
If your culture has thoroughly subjugated women and is forcing them to bear as many children as possible as fast as possible, you have plenty of sons to send out to do the same to healthier cultures.
Here in the New World, the British brought their own women, so we could simply wipe the indigenous people out, while the Spanish and Portuguese mainly left their women behind, and killed or otherwise displaced indigenous men in order to father succeeding generations.
posted by jamjam at 6:14 PM on August 11, 2023
I have been happily married 15 years with strongly held Christian faith. This conversation troubles me, but not for the reasons you might think.
No Fault divorce is an important safety net for a peaceful society. Having a working, loving marriage is hard work, not an entitlement. You earn your marriage every day. It is an Investment in each other and your lives together. As an Investment, there are always risks. It might not work out in the end. If we find peace with that, we’re free to work hard at our marriage without the fear that causes one to want to protect it at any cost.
We are entitled only to Gods love.
If my wife decides to leave me, she shouldn’t have laws in her way. We don’t need more government based protections for religious beliefs. There are too many already. We need government protection from religious zealots who parade their faith as an excuse for their unfortunate decisions.
posted by WorkshopGuyPNW at 5:35 AM on August 12, 2023 [20 favorites]
No Fault divorce is an important safety net for a peaceful society. Having a working, loving marriage is hard work, not an entitlement. You earn your marriage every day. It is an Investment in each other and your lives together. As an Investment, there are always risks. It might not work out in the end. If we find peace with that, we’re free to work hard at our marriage without the fear that causes one to want to protect it at any cost.
We are entitled only to Gods love.
If my wife decides to leave me, she shouldn’t have laws in her way. We don’t need more government based protections for religious beliefs. There are too many already. We need government protection from religious zealots who parade their faith as an excuse for their unfortunate decisions.
posted by WorkshopGuyPNW at 5:35 AM on August 12, 2023 [20 favorites]
...even if for the sake of argument you are correct that there exists a majority of conservatives who aren't actually rabidly transphobic, homophobic, racist, white supremacist, misogynist scumbags they VOTE FOR such people and have no hesitation at all in supporting such people.
This partisanship is the normal operating mode of a rabidly bipolar political system as currently exists in the US.
I don't believe that most GOP voters "have no hesitation in supporting such people." I know a few GOP-leaning Americans; several are quite troubled about some of the people and their extreme viewpoints who are running under the GOP banner. But the US political system and electoral math requires the election of the loons if it will give the GOP victory and control. Because these voters believe that policy-wise, a Dem government is going to be worse than a GOP one. I'm sure that many Democrat-aligned voters also perform the same calculus to try to secure a Dem victory.
Hate the game... In other political party systems (eg parliamentary) it's usually easier for a voter to be convinced to support specific people, policy and issues, instead of just knee-jerk voting along party lines.
/derail
posted by Artful Codger at 8:47 AM on August 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
This partisanship is the normal operating mode of a rabidly bipolar political system as currently exists in the US.
I don't believe that most GOP voters "have no hesitation in supporting such people." I know a few GOP-leaning Americans; several are quite troubled about some of the people and their extreme viewpoints who are running under the GOP banner. But the US political system and electoral math requires the election of the loons if it will give the GOP victory and control. Because these voters believe that policy-wise, a Dem government is going to be worse than a GOP one. I'm sure that many Democrat-aligned voters also perform the same calculus to try to secure a Dem victory.
Hate the game... In other political party systems (eg parliamentary) it's usually easier for a voter to be convinced to support specific people, policy and issues, instead of just knee-jerk voting along party lines.
/derail
posted by Artful Codger at 8:47 AM on August 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
We are entitled only to Gods love.
Food, water, shelter, safety are basic human rights that everyone is entitled to. Saying that the only thing we are entitled to is nebulous, made up bullshit is morally bankrupt.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 9:00 AM on August 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
Food, water, shelter, safety are basic human rights that everyone is entitled to. Saying that the only thing we are entitled to is nebulous, made up bullshit is morally bankrupt.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 9:00 AM on August 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
But the US political system and electoral math requires the election of the loons if it will give the GOP victory and control. Because these voters believe that policy-wise, a Dem government is going to be worse than a GOP one.
No. If you fervently believe that low taxes/no environmental regulations/no gun control/whatever "conservative" cause is a reason to vote for Nazis--congratulations, you're a Nazi, too.
posted by hydropsyche at 9:07 AM on August 12, 2023 [10 favorites]
No. If you fervently believe that low taxes/no environmental regulations/no gun control/whatever "conservative" cause is a reason to vote for Nazis--congratulations, you're a Nazi, too.
posted by hydropsyche at 9:07 AM on August 12, 2023 [10 favorites]
Food, water, shelter, safety are basic human rights that everyone is entitled to.
I believe that WorkshopGuyPNW is only trying to make the point that from a religious perspective, there's no guarantee or entitlement to a perfect, harmonious marriage; the parties must work at it.
Don't conflate that with the basic human rights that you mention.
posted by Artful Codger at 9:07 AM on August 12, 2023 [9 favorites]
I believe that WorkshopGuyPNW is only trying to make the point that from a religious perspective, there's no guarantee or entitlement to a perfect, harmonious marriage; the parties must work at it.
Don't conflate that with the basic human rights that you mention.
posted by Artful Codger at 9:07 AM on August 12, 2023 [9 favorites]
No. If you fervently believe that low taxes/no environmental regulations/no gun control/whatever "conservative" cause is a reason to vote for Nazis--congratulations, you're a Nazi, too.
Partisans gonna partisan. You're cartoonish and inaccurate summary of all [US] conservatives is kind of making my point.
Probably not worth going further on this tangent, in this thread.
posted by Artful Codger at 9:13 AM on August 12, 2023
Partisans gonna partisan. You're cartoonish and inaccurate summary of all [US] conservatives is kind of making my point.
Probably not worth going further on this tangent, in this thread.
posted by Artful Codger at 9:13 AM on August 12, 2023
What about primaries?
posted by Reverend John at 10:13 AM on August 12, 2023
posted by Reverend John at 10:13 AM on August 12, 2023
It is not a tangent. I live in Georgia, USA. The guys who oppose divorce are the guys who oppose abortion are the guys who oppose contraception are the guys who spread antisemitic flyers on their neighbors' lawns at night are the guys who oppose actual rape laws are the guys who advocate for "constitutional carry" are the guys who want a flat tax are the guys who want to eliminate the EPA are the guys who oppose sane immigration policy are the guys who still oppose school integration and "interracial" marriage. They are the wealthy white exurbanites (both those guys and their spouses) who vote for Trump because he makes them feel tough. They picket at abortion clinics, at school board meetings, at public libraries, and at my workplace. I promise that I am completely aware of the beliefs of [US] conservatives because they make up 49% of my neighbors and have gerrymandered my state and suppressed our voting rights so it looks like 51%.
posted by hydropsyche at 12:35 PM on August 12, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 12:35 PM on August 12, 2023 [12 favorites]
I hear you, but you're describing the activities of a minority - a sizeable, loud minority, who have been nurtured, supported and directed - who have captured more attention than their actual numbers would warrant.
Since this thread is already Godwinned, do compare this with the early days of the Nazi's rise to power, when a well-organized attention-grabbing minority cowed the rest into silence or acquiescence.
It confounds me that it's easier for folks here to believe that about half your country's voting population is evil, instead of trying to understand how and why fringe/extremist/populist views got invited into the tent, and then proceeded to occupy the center ring. And why electability still counts for more than principles or ethics in this bipolar system.
(Primaries - To me they seem to be a cross between a travelling beauty pageant and debutante season. At the end of the primaries, the main criterion is still whether the chosen Hatfield is statistically capable of whupping the chosen McCoy)
posted by Artful Codger at 3:48 PM on August 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Since this thread is already Godwinned, do compare this with the early days of the Nazi's rise to power, when a well-organized attention-grabbing minority cowed the rest into silence or acquiescence.
It confounds me that it's easier for folks here to believe that about half your country's voting population is evil, instead of trying to understand how and why fringe/extremist/populist views got invited into the tent, and then proceeded to occupy the center ring. And why electability still counts for more than principles or ethics in this bipolar system.
(Primaries - To me they seem to be a cross between a travelling beauty pageant and debutante season. At the end of the primaries, the main criterion is still whether the chosen Hatfield is statistically capable of whupping the chosen McCoy)
posted by Artful Codger at 3:48 PM on August 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
I hear you, but you're describing the activities of a minority - a sizeable, loud minority, who have been nurtured, supported and directed - who have captured more attention than their actual numbers would warrant.
The problem is, in a lot of places in the US, this minority has worked for decades to engineer situations in which their minority turns into a majority in law-making bodies. As the recent election in Ohio [and a lot of other states] has proven, their policies lose when subjected to a popular vote they lose. But using the tools of shitty laws, they've machinated themselves into positions where even as a minority they get to make the laws, and then also appoint the judges that say whether those laws are good laws or not.
This has been a very long plan. They started this in the Seventies, and over the past 50 years they've instituted think tanks and pop culture campaigns and gerrymandering and any other thing you can think of to manipulate this moment into the Now we are experiencing.
And the other side, the side I stand on, has done none of this at all. They've tried to play by the rules as written, been content with pushing the needle 2% of the way and declaring that a victory. They've either been blind to or willfully ignorant of the bad moves and dirty tricks of the other side and have insisted that the only way to victory is to keep to the ordained paths that should lead toward victory.
So here we sit. There are many states in which the minority of the voting populace has the power, perhaps even superseding power, for legislating anything they want. And they're living their full YOLO life dreams. And the negotiated-with-slave-holding-states Electoral College continues to give too much power to this minority to the point where it's fewer than 100K votes that actually determined the 2020 election when it was many millions more who voted in the winning column.
It's nice to sit and say this is the activities of a minority. But that minority has spent generations engineering a way to achieve minority rule, and that's how things stand right now.
posted by hippybear at 4:13 PM on August 12, 2023 [5 favorites]
The problem is, in a lot of places in the US, this minority has worked for decades to engineer situations in which their minority turns into a majority in law-making bodies. As the recent election in Ohio [and a lot of other states] has proven, their policies lose when subjected to a popular vote they lose. But using the tools of shitty laws, they've machinated themselves into positions where even as a minority they get to make the laws, and then also appoint the judges that say whether those laws are good laws or not.
This has been a very long plan. They started this in the Seventies, and over the past 50 years they've instituted think tanks and pop culture campaigns and gerrymandering and any other thing you can think of to manipulate this moment into the Now we are experiencing.
And the other side, the side I stand on, has done none of this at all. They've tried to play by the rules as written, been content with pushing the needle 2% of the way and declaring that a victory. They've either been blind to or willfully ignorant of the bad moves and dirty tricks of the other side and have insisted that the only way to victory is to keep to the ordained paths that should lead toward victory.
So here we sit. There are many states in which the minority of the voting populace has the power, perhaps even superseding power, for legislating anything they want. And they're living their full YOLO life dreams. And the negotiated-with-slave-holding-states Electoral College continues to give too much power to this minority to the point where it's fewer than 100K votes that actually determined the 2020 election when it was many millions more who voted in the winning column.
It's nice to sit and say this is the activities of a minority. But that minority has spent generations engineering a way to achieve minority rule, and that's how things stand right now.
posted by hippybear at 4:13 PM on August 12, 2023 [5 favorites]
The problem is, in a lot of places in the US, this minority has worked for decades to engineer situations in which their minority turns into a majority in law-making bodies.
Bingo. Agreed.
And the other side, the side I stand on, has done none of this at all. They've tried to play by the rules as written, been content with pushing the needle 2% of the way and declaring that a victory. They've either been blind to or willfully ignorant of the bad moves and dirty tricks of the other side and have insisted that the only way to victory is to keep to the ordained paths that should lead toward victory.
I mostly agree here. I bet many Democrat supporters wish that their party would maybe take the gloves off too, and start punching below the belt. But what kind of solution is that?
It's nice to sit and say this is the activities of a minority. But that minority has spent generations engineering a way to achieve minority rule, and that's how things stand right now.
Then it's not an ideal system, if it can be captured like that, yes?
posted by Artful Codger at 4:23 PM on August 12, 2023
Bingo. Agreed.
And the other side, the side I stand on, has done none of this at all. They've tried to play by the rules as written, been content with pushing the needle 2% of the way and declaring that a victory. They've either been blind to or willfully ignorant of the bad moves and dirty tricks of the other side and have insisted that the only way to victory is to keep to the ordained paths that should lead toward victory.
I mostly agree here. I bet many Democrat supporters wish that their party would maybe take the gloves off too, and start punching below the belt. But what kind of solution is that?
It's nice to sit and say this is the activities of a minority. But that minority has spent generations engineering a way to achieve minority rule, and that's how things stand right now.
Then it's not an ideal system, if it can be captured like that, yes?
posted by Artful Codger at 4:23 PM on August 12, 2023
I don't think I ever once said this was an ideal system. The "originalist" vision of the country wouldn't even involve political parties, just people running on their own ability to govern. Imagine that!
posted by hippybear at 4:27 PM on August 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 4:27 PM on August 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
Since this thread is already Godwinned, do compare this with the early days of the Nazi's rise to power, when a well-organized attention-grabbing minority cowed the rest into silence or acquiescence.
This is a terrible tactic for you, since the Nazis got an incredible boost from the “normal conservatives” who were more than willing to enable fascism than concede anything to the left. They might have looked down on the Nazis for being dirty proles, thugs, and ham-handed grifters, but they supported them with smiles.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:53 PM on August 12, 2023 [7 favorites]
This is a terrible tactic for you, since the Nazis got an incredible boost from the “normal conservatives” who were more than willing to enable fascism than concede anything to the left. They might have looked down on the Nazis for being dirty proles, thugs, and ham-handed grifters, but they supported them with smiles.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:53 PM on August 12, 2023 [7 favorites]
It confounds me that someone who apparently doesn't even live in the US, let alone the Southeastern US, is so positive that they understand my neighbors better than I do. I live in an incredibly diverse little town in a large urban county in Georgia--I can't afford some kind of wealthy liberal bubble--and I generally know what my huge diversity of neighbors think about a huge range of issues. The white folks, including both the old time southerners and, e.g., the recent Moldovan immigrants, for the most part absolutely think what you're sure no one really thinks, including really hateful stuff about our Black, Hispanic, and Muslim neighbors. The conspiracy theories they will confidently share in the grocery store line are impressive. Additionally, I am still fb "friends" with people I went to public school with in suburban North Carolina in the 1980s and 90s. Many of the white folks really do believe passionately the things you are insisting they can't possibly believe. Perhaps I just have really bad luck now in white neighbors and also had really bad luck in my white childhood classmates?
posted by hydropsyche at 5:23 PM on August 12, 2023 [14 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 5:23 PM on August 12, 2023 [14 favorites]
*pipes up* hey remember back in 2017 when I reached out to my grandparents who were real old time John McCain style conservatives? Like how my grandpa went to school with McCain and all and my grandma and my aunt worked on the Hill, the side of my family where everyone was real honorable conservatives where I did in fact learn some of my morality by legitimately believing things they told me? remember when I reached out to build a bridge there in the wake of the 2016 election because surely not my family, my family couldn't be part of this?
you know, I think my comment history here on metafilter has it--right yeah remember when they dumped me on the side of the road in Alexandria in January without anywhere to stay after informing me that all science is absolutely worthless and a waste of money if it doesn't directly assist in killing people, allowing immigrant children to participate in the public school system is a waste of taxpayer money and resources, and fuck knows what else?
Yeah no those people really do believe this shit. I can get into all the reasons why but we already spend a lot of time on that crap, so let me just say again that we should have a better plan for dealing with them and preventing them from festering further.
posted by sciatrix at 6:38 PM on August 12, 2023 [22 favorites]
you know, I think my comment history here on metafilter has it--right yeah remember when they dumped me on the side of the road in Alexandria in January without anywhere to stay after informing me that all science is absolutely worthless and a waste of money if it doesn't directly assist in killing people, allowing immigrant children to participate in the public school system is a waste of taxpayer money and resources, and fuck knows what else?
Yeah no those people really do believe this shit. I can get into all the reasons why but we already spend a lot of time on that crap, so let me just say again that we should have a better plan for dealing with them and preventing them from festering further.
posted by sciatrix at 6:38 PM on August 12, 2023 [22 favorites]
And Jesus fuck, do not ever let yourself be put in a vulnerable position to find out that they're not deadly serious about that shit. As hydropsyche notes, there is a lot of variation! That side of my family has been involved in politics since Taft and sent my dad to be a Senate page in high school, so do not let you pretend this is something Republican elites never actively believe and foster. In no way is this "just" rural or poor voters.
If the leopard caucuses long enough with the face eating party, maybe look askance when it asks you for butterfly kisses. That's all I'm saying.
posted by sciatrix at 6:43 PM on August 12, 2023 [18 favorites]
If the leopard caucuses long enough with the face eating party, maybe look askance when it asks you for butterfly kisses. That's all I'm saying.
posted by sciatrix at 6:43 PM on August 12, 2023 [18 favorites]
Many of the white folks really do believe passionately the things you are insisting they can't possibly believe.
I haven't said that. I know well enough that there are many - too many - who do embrace stuff like that. Believing it's fully half the nation... how is that helpful? Who are you gonna reach out to for the votes to break their hold?
posted by Artful Codger at 8:22 PM on August 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
I haven't said that. I know well enough that there are many - too many - who do embrace stuff like that. Believing it's fully half the nation... how is that helpful? Who are you gonna reach out to for the votes to break their hold?
posted by Artful Codger at 8:22 PM on August 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
I bet many Democrat supporters wish that their party would maybe take the gloves off too, and start punching below the belt. But what kind of solution is that?
Possibly one that actually works? Because "going high" sounded nice, but hasn't done fuckall to stop the hate tide.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:58 PM on August 12, 2023 [7 favorites]
Possibly one that actually works? Because "going high" sounded nice, but hasn't done fuckall to stop the hate tide.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:58 PM on August 12, 2023 [7 favorites]
Mod note: [btw, sciatrix's comment and this post have been added to the sidebar]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:10 AM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:10 AM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Who are you gonna reach out to for the votes to break their hold?
That's not how it works. We're going to keep expanding the vote to include the people the Republicans work so hard to disenfranchise. We're going to keep suing whenever they gerrymander and whenever they pass a new anti-voting law and whenever they use their power and influence to bypass the democratic process. We're going to keep knocking on doors, leafletting, and tabling everywhere we can to get that 51% registered. And then we're going to keep waiting in line for hours to vote. That's how we elected Senators Ossoff and Warnock and got our electoral votes for Biden. History has shown that's what we have to do if we want to protect the right to divorce, to abortion, to not be lynched. Not by convincing our racist neighbors to be less racist, because that's just never ever going to happen.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:15 AM on August 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
That's not how it works. We're going to keep expanding the vote to include the people the Republicans work so hard to disenfranchise. We're going to keep suing whenever they gerrymander and whenever they pass a new anti-voting law and whenever they use their power and influence to bypass the democratic process. We're going to keep knocking on doors, leafletting, and tabling everywhere we can to get that 51% registered. And then we're going to keep waiting in line for hours to vote. That's how we elected Senators Ossoff and Warnock and got our electoral votes for Biden. History has shown that's what we have to do if we want to protect the right to divorce, to abortion, to not be lynched. Not by convincing our racist neighbors to be less racist, because that's just never ever going to happen.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:15 AM on August 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
Believing it's fully half the nation... how is that helpful? Who are you gonna reach out to for the votes to break their hold?
Fight the fiercest battles in education. Make the best art/popular culture. Build media empires. That’s why they’re going after CRT and DEI and removing books from school libraries. You can teach empathy and critical thinking. You can inspire through story and song. You can get stories out.
Once you’re just asking for votes it’s too late. That’s why, and I go back to the religious thing here, once someone’s world view is set it’s just a hell of a lot of work. Although this movement has always been there, its current power is coming out of changes that were initiated in the 80s and 90s. Charter schools. Evolution as a wedge educational issue. Even people who aren’t explicitly Christian are “comfortable” with those values.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:23 AM on August 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
Fight the fiercest battles in education. Make the best art/popular culture. Build media empires. That’s why they’re going after CRT and DEI and removing books from school libraries. You can teach empathy and critical thinking. You can inspire through story and song. You can get stories out.
Once you’re just asking for votes it’s too late. That’s why, and I go back to the religious thing here, once someone’s world view is set it’s just a hell of a lot of work. Although this movement has always been there, its current power is coming out of changes that were initiated in the 80s and 90s. Charter schools. Evolution as a wedge educational issue. Even people who aren’t explicitly Christian are “comfortable” with those values.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:23 AM on August 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
Not by convincing our racist neighbors to be less racist, because that's just never ever going to happen.
And for any small minority where they could be convinced to be less racist it's not going to be because the people they are steadfastly refusing to listen to tried to ask... It's going to be things like seeing the contradictions in their terrible beliefs, seeing that things don't fall apart and in fact get better for everyone when the people they're trying to exclude get a voice, seeing the perception of their neighbors change when it seems like they're no longer in a sea of like-minded bigots where it's socially acceptable to be that way. People exist that can be swayed away from that, absolutely, but you can't just cater to that tiny group that won't listen to you anyways. At least not as a general policy and expectation for your allies. If you feel like devoting your individual energies to that, go for it, but someone like Daryl Davis is an outlier and few people are going to be in his circumstances, with his dedication, and his ability to shoulder far far more abuse and emotional labor for the cause of converting bigots than anyone should.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:34 AM on August 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
And for any small minority where they could be convinced to be less racist it's not going to be because the people they are steadfastly refusing to listen to tried to ask... It's going to be things like seeing the contradictions in their terrible beliefs, seeing that things don't fall apart and in fact get better for everyone when the people they're trying to exclude get a voice, seeing the perception of their neighbors change when it seems like they're no longer in a sea of like-minded bigots where it's socially acceptable to be that way. People exist that can be swayed away from that, absolutely, but you can't just cater to that tiny group that won't listen to you anyways. At least not as a general policy and expectation for your allies. If you feel like devoting your individual energies to that, go for it, but someone like Daryl Davis is an outlier and few people are going to be in his circumstances, with his dedication, and his ability to shoulder far far more abuse and emotional labor for the cause of converting bigots than anyone should.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:34 AM on August 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
The thing is, that IS what Republicans and conservatives really believe. Perhaps to greater or lesser extents, but it's the root of their entire political ideology.
They're about social hierarchy and having a society shaped like a pyramid.
LBJ said it back in the 1960's, he was right then and he's right today:
So yes, they're all about racism, white supremacy, colorism, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny.
Historically in the US the racism and white supremacy was the part that got the most attention because it was so blatant and because there was some actual debate and pushback from the liberal side against it. The misogyny and homophobia were less focused on because they were more broadly accepted by cis het white men and therefore there was less pushback from people who they saw as mattering.
But the misogyny and homophobia have always been there too, and just as vicious and mean spirited as the racism.
So no, this isn't some tiny radical minority who somehow aren't "really" conservative pushing an agenda that conservatism as a whole rejects. At most we're seeing some more radical conservatives being a bit more vocal about it than the rest, but the rest of them are fully on board with the plan to oppress everyone who isn't a cis het white Christian man.
I'd also like to emphasize that this isn't coming from impoverished rural Americans. That is, yes many such people are very much on board with the program of oppressing all people who aren't cis het white Christian men, but they aren't the actual driving force here.
The idea of the far right, the Trumpies, the Q anoners, the MAGA types, the NRA obsessives, as poor hayseeds is nothing but classism from liberals and (sadly) many leftists. It's an effort to pretend that the GOOD conservatives, you know the ones who aren't poor hicks, are totally not part of this stuff and they're reasonable people we can get along with and work with.
They aren't.
The statistics show that the real promoters of Trumpism etc are middle to upper middle class suburban and exurban professionals.
Trying to pretend it's just a problem of rural poor white trash is pure classism and liberals need to pull their heads out of their various orifices and admit the reality. It's those nice conservatives next door in the housing development who are the actual radicals and the ones who are pushing the far right agenda. Yes, even though they're educated and have money!
They are very much devoted to racism, homophobia, misogyny, and transphobia, and they are willing to abandon reality and pretend to believe in an alternate reality to justify their hatreds and bigotries.
posted by sotonohito at 8:46 AM on August 13, 2023 [19 favorites]
They're about social hierarchy and having a society shaped like a pyramid.
LBJ said it back in the 1960's, he was right then and he's right today:
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."The entire point of conservatism is to have someone to look down on, oppress, and feel superior to.
So yes, they're all about racism, white supremacy, colorism, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny.
Historically in the US the racism and white supremacy was the part that got the most attention because it was so blatant and because there was some actual debate and pushback from the liberal side against it. The misogyny and homophobia were less focused on because they were more broadly accepted by cis het white men and therefore there was less pushback from people who they saw as mattering.
But the misogyny and homophobia have always been there too, and just as vicious and mean spirited as the racism.
So no, this isn't some tiny radical minority who somehow aren't "really" conservative pushing an agenda that conservatism as a whole rejects. At most we're seeing some more radical conservatives being a bit more vocal about it than the rest, but the rest of them are fully on board with the plan to oppress everyone who isn't a cis het white Christian man.
I'd also like to emphasize that this isn't coming from impoverished rural Americans. That is, yes many such people are very much on board with the program of oppressing all people who aren't cis het white Christian men, but they aren't the actual driving force here.
The idea of the far right, the Trumpies, the Q anoners, the MAGA types, the NRA obsessives, as poor hayseeds is nothing but classism from liberals and (sadly) many leftists. It's an effort to pretend that the GOOD conservatives, you know the ones who aren't poor hicks, are totally not part of this stuff and they're reasonable people we can get along with and work with.
They aren't.
The statistics show that the real promoters of Trumpism etc are middle to upper middle class suburban and exurban professionals.
Trying to pretend it's just a problem of rural poor white trash is pure classism and liberals need to pull their heads out of their various orifices and admit the reality. It's those nice conservatives next door in the housing development who are the actual radicals and the ones who are pushing the far right agenda. Yes, even though they're educated and have money!
They are very much devoted to racism, homophobia, misogyny, and transphobia, and they are willing to abandon reality and pretend to believe in an alternate reality to justify their hatreds and bigotries.
posted by sotonohito at 8:46 AM on August 13, 2023 [19 favorites]
The idea of the far right, the Trumpies, the Q anoners, the MAGA types, the NRA obsessives, as poor hayseeds is nothing but classism from liberals and (sadly) many leftists. It's an effort to pretend that the GOOD conservatives, you know the ones who aren't poor hicks, are totally not part of this stuff and they're reasonable people we can get along with and work with.
White liberals love—I mean absolutely fucking love—to tell themselves, and others, that the problem is Those Other White People Over There, who by the most extraordinary of coincidences always somehow happen to be safely distant (geographically, economically, educationally, religiously, aesthetically, etc. etc.) from themselves.
Among other things, this is why Bill Maher is still on the air, and why Hillbilly Elegy became a bestseller *and* got a Hollywood adaptation.
posted by non canadian guy at 11:42 PM on August 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
White liberals love—I mean absolutely fucking love—to tell themselves, and others, that the problem is Those Other White People Over There, who by the most extraordinary of coincidences always somehow happen to be safely distant (geographically, economically, educationally, religiously, aesthetically, etc. etc.) from themselves.
Among other things, this is why Bill Maher is still on the air, and why Hillbilly Elegy became a bestseller *and* got a Hollywood adaptation.
posted by non canadian guy at 11:42 PM on August 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
Do Republicans vote for people who come extremely close to passing laws that blatantly want me and mine (The transgender community) dead? Yes.
Am I afraid of them for this madness, this frothing hate when all I want is to live a quiet life, work a decent job, and not die starving in the street, or be hatecrimed? Yes.
Will I welcome them with love and joy if they see the light and stop supporting hate? oh god, yes.
Do I think I can do anything to change the people who believe I'm possessed by literal Satan, sent to destroy a stable, wholesome society blessed by a white, vengeful God? Nope! (Hi grandma, I miss you.)
The left and the right have very, very different nightmares. Some of us fear for our lives and freedom, while some fear being laughed at or 'emasculated' or not allowed to be blatantly bigoted. When you're used to being the elite, and possibly owning slaves, equality looks like oppression.
posted by Jacen at 2:08 AM on August 14, 2023 [13 favorites]
Hate to say it, but unless 50/50 custody becomes the norm, this might become the "killer app" for the Red Team. Family law has been unfair to men for far too long.
Don't get me wrong — I think no-fault divorce is a good idea, and we need to keep it. But 50/50 custody should be the default, and there's no good reason for it to be otherwise.
posted by panama joe at 2:40 AM on August 14, 2023
Don't get me wrong — I think no-fault divorce is a good idea, and we need to keep it. But 50/50 custody should be the default, and there's no good reason for it to be otherwise.
posted by panama joe at 2:40 AM on August 14, 2023
Studies for the last decade have shown that men get custody about 60% of the time that they seek it. The reason that primary custody goes to women about 85% of the time in total is because most divorced fathers don't want it. I'm having trouble finding a source because of all the divorce lawyer sites and Google's General crappiness these days.
posted by harriet vane at 3:06 AM on August 14, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by harriet vane at 3:06 AM on August 14, 2023 [12 favorites]
Studies for the last decade have shown that men get custody about 60% of the time that they seek it.
Could you clarify what that means? Does it mean that "60% of the time, when they ask for 50% custody, they get it?"
And yes, if you could provide a cite, that would be helpful.
posted by panama joe at 3:29 AM on August 14, 2023
Could you clarify what that means? Does it mean that "60% of the time, when they ask for 50% custody, they get it?"
And yes, if you could provide a cite, that would be helpful.
posted by panama joe at 3:29 AM on August 14, 2023
harriet vane: I'm having trouble finding a source because of all the divorce lawyer sites and Google's General crappiness these days.
You might have more luck with scholar.google.com, which so far seems to have avoided enshittification.
posted by clawsoon at 5:51 AM on August 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
You might have more luck with scholar.google.com, which so far seems to have avoided enshittification.
posted by clawsoon at 5:51 AM on August 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Increases in shared custody after divorce in the United States
The likelihood of shared physical custody after divorce more than doubled in the United States from before 1985 until 2010–2014, from 13% to 34%. Non-linear probability (logit) models show that non-Hispanic Whites and more advantaged individuals are more likely to report shared physical custody. Both sequential multivariate models and a more formal decomposition show that the increase cannot be explained by changes in the characteristics of those divorcing; rather we find that several characteristics become more strongly associated with shared physical custody over time.posted by hydropsyche at 9:14 AM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
^Daniel R. Meyer also co-authored The Growth in Shared Custody in the United States: Patterns and Implications (Family Court Review, Oct. 2017): We document the dramatic decline in the United States of mother sole custody arrangements following divorce. Our empirical analysis uses Wisconsin court records data spanning more than two decades (1988–2010). Updating earlier analyses that showed significant increases in shared custody, we estimate that shared custody (where children spend at least 25% of time with each parent) has now replaced sole-mother custody as the most common post-divorce parenting arrangement—accounting for just over half (50.3%) of all cases in the most recent cohort available.
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:15 AM on August 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:15 AM on August 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
And yes, if you could provide a cite, that would be helpful.
Can I just say that I find an (evidently) male MeFite asking (evidently) female MeFites to do his googling for him evidence of the problem here?
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:51 PM on August 14, 2023 [14 favorites]
Can I just say that I find an (evidently) male MeFite asking (evidently) female MeFites to do his googling for him evidence of the problem here?
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:51 PM on August 14, 2023 [14 favorites]
PS Kudos to the women who are way more patient than me. Just saying, I see you, for what little that is worth.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:52 PM on August 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:52 PM on August 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
To be far, US taxpayers paid a lot of money for me to learn, among other things, how to use Google Scholar effectively and quickly skim journal articles to identify ones that are actually high quality and relevant. So I do try to help when I can. You will likely be unsurprised by how often that help is not welcome.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:20 PM on August 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 4:20 PM on August 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
custody after divorce
Use of the term 'custody' is something I find odd - it's a term that hasn't been used in a family law context here in Australia since 1975. Under the current family law, both parents are presumed and expected to take equal responsibility for their children, regardless of how much time they physically spend with them. Child support is determined based on each parent's income (with some allowances for (eg) children of other relationships they have care of) and the proportion of time the child/ren spend with each parent.
The whole system is focussed on the rights of children, rather than 'parental rights', aiming to ensure children can have a meaningful relationship with each of their parents, and be protected from harm. It's far from a perfect system, but I do like that the focus is on the rights of children rather than the right of one parent or another to 'possess' a child.
posted by dg at 9:31 PM on August 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
Use of the term 'custody' is something I find odd - it's a term that hasn't been used in a family law context here in Australia since 1975. Under the current family law, both parents are presumed and expected to take equal responsibility for their children, regardless of how much time they physically spend with them. Child support is determined based on each parent's income (with some allowances for (eg) children of other relationships they have care of) and the proportion of time the child/ren spend with each parent.
The whole system is focussed on the rights of children, rather than 'parental rights', aiming to ensure children can have a meaningful relationship with each of their parents, and be protected from harm. It's far from a perfect system, but I do like that the focus is on the rights of children rather than the right of one parent or another to 'possess' a child.
posted by dg at 9:31 PM on August 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
dg: The whole system is focussed on the rights of children, rather than 'parental rights', aiming to ensure children can have a meaningful relationship with each of their parents, and be protected from harm [...] rather than of one parent or another to 'possess' a child.
Came here to mention this concept. In French family law (in my direct experience, I am not a French attorney or jurist), the central concern is what will foster the well-being of children, not what's theoretically "fair" to either of the parents.
The question of what arrangement is best for one's children can obviously still be highly contentious, but it places the focus where it belongs, rather than on custody/child maintenance as simply an aspect of the wider conflict between the divorcing spouses. (The same principle also holds for parents who never married and *are* disputing custody only.)
The comments here about possible drawbacks of no-fault divorce for women or for abused/exploited spouses are good food for thought, but my instinct is to say ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT to anything being pushed by the far right. Whatever the actual, direct effects would be, policy changes like this are always sought as part of a larger agenda to erode the legal and societal standing of the people they hate.
posted by peakes at 1:16 AM on August 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
Came here to mention this concept. In French family law (in my direct experience, I am not a French attorney or jurist), the central concern is what will foster the well-being of children, not what's theoretically "fair" to either of the parents.
The question of what arrangement is best for one's children can obviously still be highly contentious, but it places the focus where it belongs, rather than on custody/child maintenance as simply an aspect of the wider conflict between the divorcing spouses. (The same principle also holds for parents who never married and *are* disputing custody only.)
The comments here about possible drawbacks of no-fault divorce for women or for abused/exploited spouses are good food for thought, but my instinct is to say ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT to anything being pushed by the far right. Whatever the actual, direct effects would be, policy changes like this are always sought as part of a larger agenda to erode the legal and societal standing of the people they hate.
posted by peakes at 1:16 AM on August 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
Can I just say that I find an (evidently) male MeFite asking (evidently) female MeFites to do his googling for him evidence of the problem here?
You can say it, but no, that exchange is not evidence of the problems with ending no-fault divorce. Besides the (evidently) female MeFite had already done the googling and came up empty. Why would an (evidently) male MeFite completely unfamiliar with studies cited have any better success?
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 4:54 AM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
You can say it, but no, that exchange is not evidence of the problems with ending no-fault divorce. Besides the (evidently) female MeFite had already done the googling and came up empty. Why would an (evidently) male MeFite completely unfamiliar with studies cited have any better success?
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 4:54 AM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
I dunno, it’s evidence of a certain kind of unthinking and casual assumption of a right to a woman’s time. Why would he expect that she has time or energy or interest to spend more time seeking when he evidently wishes to spend none?
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:03 AM on August 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:03 AM on August 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
Thankyou, GenjiandProust and clawsoon.
I've been unable to find anything with the numbers I said earlier, so I won't stand by them. But with Google Scholar I've found data which says that fathers say they want custody (parental time in the US, parental responsibility in Australia) a lot more often than they actually take steps to get custody.
Dividing the child, Maccoby & Mnookin, p100 After excluding the fathers who made no request where it could be assumed they were agreeing to the mother's specific request, that left one-third of fathers who asked for less physical custody than they'd told the researchers they wanted.
I also found a more recent article, Equal isn't always equitable (PDF) about how the presumption of joint custody may not always be in the best interests of the child. It puts the parents desire for equal consideration above the stability of the child's home life and the capacity of the parents to maintain the arrangement.
The reason I started pushing back on this topic is related to the main topic of the FPP, I didn't intend to poke at Panama Joe. Some men hate no-fault divorce for the same reason they seek custody - because they see their wives and children as trophies or possessions. They don't want to lose a fight. But they don't want to do the work of caring for their children anymore than they want to do the work of maintaining a happy marriage. Having a wife and kids who are legally or financially stuck with them is fine in their world.
posted by harriet vane at 6:46 AM on August 15, 2023 [15 favorites]
I've been unable to find anything with the numbers I said earlier, so I won't stand by them. But with Google Scholar I've found data which says that fathers say they want custody (parental time in the US, parental responsibility in Australia) a lot more often than they actually take steps to get custody.
Dividing the child, Maccoby & Mnookin, p100 After excluding the fathers who made no request where it could be assumed they were agreeing to the mother's specific request, that left one-third of fathers who asked for less physical custody than they'd told the researchers they wanted.
I also found a more recent article, Equal isn't always equitable (PDF) about how the presumption of joint custody may not always be in the best interests of the child. It puts the parents desire for equal consideration above the stability of the child's home life and the capacity of the parents to maintain the arrangement.
The reason I started pushing back on this topic is related to the main topic of the FPP, I didn't intend to poke at Panama Joe. Some men hate no-fault divorce for the same reason they seek custody - because they see their wives and children as trophies or possessions. They don't want to lose a fight. But they don't want to do the work of caring for their children anymore than they want to do the work of maintaining a happy marriage. Having a wife and kids who are legally or financially stuck with them is fine in their world.
posted by harriet vane at 6:46 AM on August 15, 2023 [15 favorites]
The likelihood of shared physical custody after divorce more than doubled in the United States from before 1985 until 2010–2014, from 13% to 34%.
"It's getting better" is not a convincing argument if you're one of the many men who get screwed by the current (unfair) system.
Updating earlier analyses that showed significant increases in shared custody, we estimate that shared custody (where children spend at least 25% of time with each parent) has now replaced sole-mother custody as the most common post-divorce parenting arrangement—accounting for just over half (50.3%) of all cases in the most recent cohort available.
Okay, so that means 50% of the time, the mother gets full custody? So that means, potentially, 50% of the time, the man gets an unfair deal.
Look, I'm not married, never been married, have no children. I have essentially no dog in this fight. What I was trying to say in my initial comment is that we're giving a big old gift to the Red Team by maintaining or defending the status quo. I've been hearing "it's getting better" for a long time, but it sounds like things are still pretty bad!
There are a lot of men who have a legitimate grievance here. And the cultural norm where the mother gets full custody is morally indefensible. There's really no reason for anyone here to accept it. We should make the system more fair, robbing the Red Team of what could be a "Killer App" in the current cultural climate.
posted by panama joe at 12:33 AM on August 16, 2023
"It's getting better" is not a convincing argument if you're one of the many men who get screwed by the current (unfair) system.
Updating earlier analyses that showed significant increases in shared custody, we estimate that shared custody (where children spend at least 25% of time with each parent) has now replaced sole-mother custody as the most common post-divorce parenting arrangement—accounting for just over half (50.3%) of all cases in the most recent cohort available.
Okay, so that means 50% of the time, the mother gets full custody? So that means, potentially, 50% of the time, the man gets an unfair deal.
Look, I'm not married, never been married, have no children. I have essentially no dog in this fight. What I was trying to say in my initial comment is that we're giving a big old gift to the Red Team by maintaining or defending the status quo. I've been hearing "it's getting better" for a long time, but it sounds like things are still pretty bad!
There are a lot of men who have a legitimate grievance here. And the cultural norm where the mother gets full custody is morally indefensible. There's really no reason for anyone here to accept it. We should make the system more fair, robbing the Red Team of what could be a "Killer App" in the current cultural climate.
posted by panama joe at 12:33 AM on August 16, 2023
is the fault/no-fault divorce in each state a binary thing? ie: if a state has no-fault divorces, does that mean that they do not have fault divorce? I can see where both types would be important to have, and I had thought that even states that have no-fault divorce still have the option to have a 'fault' divorce.
The answer is "It Depends", largely based on the state. Some states have both, but a number of states (15, including my home state, Washington) only have no-fault divorce. Other states may allow fault-based divorce but may still not allow marital fault to be taken into consideration in most property division.
I think also it's worth noting that I think this is one area where (again as the divorcing mefite willing to speak about self), it feels like conservatives and progressives are willing to spend a lot of energy fighting each other and not really caring about the people who are caught in the crossfire.
Conservatives know, in their hearts, that a lot of marriages are entered into or stayed in by women for economic circumstances; they're willing to provide some protections for them as a result, but only if they stay forever no matter how miserable the working conditions get. Progressives, in turn, seem willing to admit that *conservative* women enter or stay in marriage for economic circumstances, but don't seem to want to admit than anyone *else* ever does, and so don't seem willing to provide economic protections for that behavior; it seems like it requires this fiction that everyone else is in an ideal marriage where money has never been a factor and so no one else should ever complain, which I find bewildering.
50% of the time, the mother gets full custody? So that means, potentially, 50% of the time, the man gets an unfair deal
Examine your priors, sir.
Do you know a lot of heterosexual marriages where the man does greater than 75% of the childcare? Because frankly, I don't. I do know a lot of heterosexual marriages where the reverse is true. A custody deal that enforces that the parent who has been providing most of the childcare...continues to provide most of the childcare...is not inherently unfair just because the other parent feels bad about it.
posted by corb at 2:48 AM on August 16, 2023 [10 favorites]
The answer is "It Depends", largely based on the state. Some states have both, but a number of states (15, including my home state, Washington) only have no-fault divorce. Other states may allow fault-based divorce but may still not allow marital fault to be taken into consideration in most property division.
I think also it's worth noting that I think this is one area where (again as the divorcing mefite willing to speak about self), it feels like conservatives and progressives are willing to spend a lot of energy fighting each other and not really caring about the people who are caught in the crossfire.
Conservatives know, in their hearts, that a lot of marriages are entered into or stayed in by women for economic circumstances; they're willing to provide some protections for them as a result, but only if they stay forever no matter how miserable the working conditions get. Progressives, in turn, seem willing to admit that *conservative* women enter or stay in marriage for economic circumstances, but don't seem to want to admit than anyone *else* ever does, and so don't seem willing to provide economic protections for that behavior; it seems like it requires this fiction that everyone else is in an ideal marriage where money has never been a factor and so no one else should ever complain, which I find bewildering.
50% of the time, the mother gets full custody? So that means, potentially, 50% of the time, the man gets an unfair deal
Examine your priors, sir.
Do you know a lot of heterosexual marriages where the man does greater than 75% of the childcare? Because frankly, I don't. I do know a lot of heterosexual marriages where the reverse is true. A custody deal that enforces that the parent who has been providing most of the childcare...continues to provide most of the childcare...is not inherently unfair just because the other parent feels bad about it.
posted by corb at 2:48 AM on August 16, 2023 [10 favorites]
Also seems to be ignoring whatever the proportion of divorces is where the dad makes no move whatsoever to get any custody at all.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 3:41 AM on August 16, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 3:41 AM on August 16, 2023 [8 favorites]
panama joe For a person claiming no dog in this race you sure seem very very convinced that the REAL problem in our society is that men are being victimized by evil harpies during divorce and that now, when Roe is dead, when the Republicans are attacking every civil right that exists, when women are STILL getting paid less and being pushed away from careers, when the Republicans are trying to trap women in abusive marriages that NOW is exactly the time when we absolutely must buy into right wing mythos and make correcting an imaginary wrong the core of our position.
As a rule men get custody when they ask for it. The reason for the fact that following divorce most men don't get custody is because, surprise, they don't ask for it.
So stop victim blaming here and stop spreading misogynist right wing lies.
posted by sotonohito at 4:30 AM on August 16, 2023 [17 favorites]
As a rule men get custody when they ask for it. The reason for the fact that following divorce most men don't get custody is because, surprise, they don't ask for it.
So stop victim blaming here and stop spreading misogynist right wing lies.
posted by sotonohito at 4:30 AM on August 16, 2023 [17 favorites]
Fathers are favored in custody battles even when abuse is alleged
as long ago as the 1980s, studies found that the vast majority (94 percent in one study) of fathers who actively sought custody received sole or joint custody and that fathers received primary physical custody far more than mothers.
PDF: Domestic Violence Perpetrators are More Likely to Contest Custody than Non-
Abusers This PDF is full of grim research on abuse and custody. Abusers appear to get custody, as the PDF says, "surprisingly often".
It really frosts me when people get into this whole "oh dads are treated so unfairly in divorce courts" business. Fathers are treated unfairly, yeah, unfairly well.
I should add, lest you think I am biased by my own experience, that my parents had a wonderful marriage and my father cared for my mother with great love during her final years of illness and decline. I know from experience that men who want to try can be outstanding parents and people.
posted by Frowner at 5:52 AM on August 16, 2023 [21 favorites]
as long ago as the 1980s, studies found that the vast majority (94 percent in one study) of fathers who actively sought custody received sole or joint custody and that fathers received primary physical custody far more than mothers.
PDF: Domestic Violence Perpetrators are More Likely to Contest Custody than Non-
Abusers This PDF is full of grim research on abuse and custody. Abusers appear to get custody, as the PDF says, "surprisingly often".
It really frosts me when people get into this whole "oh dads are treated so unfairly in divorce courts" business. Fathers are treated unfairly, yeah, unfairly well.
I should add, lest you think I am biased by my own experience, that my parents had a wonderful marriage and my father cared for my mother with great love during her final years of illness and decline. I know from experience that men who want to try can be outstanding parents and people.
posted by Frowner at 5:52 AM on August 16, 2023 [21 favorites]
What I was trying to say in my initial comment is that we're giving a big old gift to the Red Team by maintaining or defending the status quo.
It strikes me that what "gives a big old gift to the Red Team" is adopting the same kind of zero-sum thinking they use.
Yes, you are correct that "there are a lot of men who have a legitimate grievance". There are also people who were negatively affected by the COVID vaccines. There are also people who were negatively affected by Obamacare. But that isn't proof that COVID vaccines are bad or that Obamacare is bad - it is proof that no system is EVER perfect, and no matter how hard you try, some people are still going to be negatively affected no matter what.
So then the real test isn't "can we eliminate hardship 100%", it becomes "does it improve the percentage of people who are POSITIVELY affected." And in the case of COVID vaccines and Obamacare, the answer was "yes".
The status quo for child custody was better than the previous system. The fact that some men are negatively affected does not change that. And your claiming it does gives a big old gift to the Red Team, especially when you "have no dog in the fight".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:03 AM on August 16, 2023 [7 favorites]
It strikes me that what "gives a big old gift to the Red Team" is adopting the same kind of zero-sum thinking they use.
Yes, you are correct that "there are a lot of men who have a legitimate grievance". There are also people who were negatively affected by the COVID vaccines. There are also people who were negatively affected by Obamacare. But that isn't proof that COVID vaccines are bad or that Obamacare is bad - it is proof that no system is EVER perfect, and no matter how hard you try, some people are still going to be negatively affected no matter what.
So then the real test isn't "can we eliminate hardship 100%", it becomes "does it improve the percentage of people who are POSITIVELY affected." And in the case of COVID vaccines and Obamacare, the answer was "yes".
The status quo for child custody was better than the previous system. The fact that some men are negatively affected does not change that. And your claiming it does gives a big old gift to the Red Team, especially when you "have no dog in the fight".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:03 AM on August 16, 2023 [7 favorites]
As noted by a couple other posters upthread, the idea of custody as an issue of parental rights or fairness and not what is best for the children is also fundamentally the wrong framing.
posted by eviemath at 6:06 AM on August 16, 2023 [17 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 6:06 AM on August 16, 2023 [17 favorites]
eviemath You're correct, but unfortunately in US law the intersts of the child are one factor but parental "rights" and hypothetical fairness are also weighed by the judge and it's basically just up to the whim of the individual judge.
posted by sotonohito at 9:07 AM on August 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by sotonohito at 9:07 AM on August 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yes, but my point is that panama joe’s arguments are baseless in all respects, including the moral/ethical axis of what “should” be, not just on the facts of custody decisions in the US.
posted by eviemath at 11:24 AM on August 16, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 11:24 AM on August 16, 2023 [7 favorites]
panama joe, your position in this is way out of line. Yes, there are men who have been screwed over in all sorts of ways by family law outcomes. There are also plenty of women that have been screwed over and, unfortunately, there are even more children that have been adversely affected. Any situation where legal arguments are involved in the care of children is going to be a poor outcome for someone, if not for everyone involved.
The whole idea of 'custody' (ie ownership) of a child is abhorrent to me and treats children as chattels in the same way women have been since time immemorial. I've been through a custody battle myself when that was a thing here in Australia and it was a nightmare. This was back in the '80s when the prevailing view was that men were incapable of rearing children alone and the legal battle was only the start of the challenges I faced. I've also been through the process of negotiating parenting arrangements under the current scheme here (which assumes shared parental responsibility as the default) and, while it was much less legalistic and very much focussed on what is best for the children rather than parental 'rights', it was still an awful experience. It pretty much always is, from what I've seen, mixed in with all the negativity of a relationship breakdown and the emotional and financial stress that causes. Don't even get me started on the unfairness of determining child support when one parent is willing to lie about their income and the system refuses to take into account financial contributions not paid directly to the other parent.
No matter how fair a system is or how well-intentioned, divorce is messy when children are involved and everyone gets screwed one way or another. But, to get back to the topic of the thread, forcing (mostly) women to stay married just because they want to get out of a bad relationship (or even a dangerous one) is not the answer. Posing this as some kind of threat to men is not only not the answer, it's the worst kind of misogyny and a direct attack on the safety of children. Yes, there are lots of people with legitimate grievances related to family law outcomes and processes, but they're not all men, not by a long shot.
posted by dg at 4:07 PM on August 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
The whole idea of 'custody' (ie ownership) of a child is abhorrent to me and treats children as chattels in the same way women have been since time immemorial. I've been through a custody battle myself when that was a thing here in Australia and it was a nightmare. This was back in the '80s when the prevailing view was that men were incapable of rearing children alone and the legal battle was only the start of the challenges I faced. I've also been through the process of negotiating parenting arrangements under the current scheme here (which assumes shared parental responsibility as the default) and, while it was much less legalistic and very much focussed on what is best for the children rather than parental 'rights', it was still an awful experience. It pretty much always is, from what I've seen, mixed in with all the negativity of a relationship breakdown and the emotional and financial stress that causes. Don't even get me started on the unfairness of determining child support when one parent is willing to lie about their income and the system refuses to take into account financial contributions not paid directly to the other parent.
No matter how fair a system is or how well-intentioned, divorce is messy when children are involved and everyone gets screwed one way or another. But, to get back to the topic of the thread, forcing (mostly) women to stay married just because they want to get out of a bad relationship (or even a dangerous one) is not the answer. Posing this as some kind of threat to men is not only not the answer, it's the worst kind of misogyny and a direct attack on the safety of children. Yes, there are lots of people with legitimate grievances related to family law outcomes and processes, but they're not all men, not by a long shot.
posted by dg at 4:07 PM on August 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Cishet divorced American fathers also disproportionately benefit from an aspect of patriarchy vis-a-vis the larger domestic supply of willing stepmother figures. (There is no counterpart to this for divorced mothers - no large, willing domestic supply of stepfather figures eager to be “helpmeets” in Biblical parlance, for these cishet divorced moms, to any meaningful number/degree, anyway.) Typically, once a stepmother appears in a child’s life, custody soon gets modified to give the divorced father more parenting time (while his new wife/girlfriend is the person actually performing his court-ordered childcare labor for him) and also typically reducing/eliminating his child support obligation to the former wife. Once the divorced father gets himself a live-in female partner who will do his shared parenting for him, her free childcare labor and emotional labor enables him to file for more custody and avoid child support. When fathers ask the courts for custody, they usually get it.
Peer-reviewed research has also established the happiest cohort of women are single and childfree women, while the least happy cohort of all women are married stepmothers. In a majority of states, there are no “stepparents’ rights” unless the stepparent has formally adopted the child, and becomes a parent with legal rights to the children. Hence, stepmothers in a vast majority of US states have no rights to these children they are raising.
Stepmothers are one breakup away from never seeing the stepchildren they’ve been putting their hearts and souls into raising for these fathers. When a divorced father does that statistically likely thing of splitting up again with his subsequent female partner, it’s the children who too often also lose a stepmom who really loved and nurtured them. It’s a huge problem nobody really talks about. Heaven help the well meaning girlfriend who encourages her deadbeat/adjacent boyfriend to step up for his kids, calls the lawyer for him, arranges the entire custody fight for him, cares way more for and about his kids seeing him, then years later, ultimately finds herself falling into the ~65+% of failed 2nd marriages/cohabiting relationships category, finding herself divorced and suddenly legally unable to have any contact or visits with her own stepchildren.
It’s absolutely wild how pretty much nobody warns women moving in with divorced fathers about this very common, foreseeable pitfall. Because: patriarchy.
posted by edithkeeler at 5:27 AM on August 17, 2023 [13 favorites]
Peer-reviewed research has also established the happiest cohort of women are single and childfree women, while the least happy cohort of all women are married stepmothers. In a majority of states, there are no “stepparents’ rights” unless the stepparent has formally adopted the child, and becomes a parent with legal rights to the children. Hence, stepmothers in a vast majority of US states have no rights to these children they are raising.
Stepmothers are one breakup away from never seeing the stepchildren they’ve been putting their hearts and souls into raising for these fathers. When a divorced father does that statistically likely thing of splitting up again with his subsequent female partner, it’s the children who too often also lose a stepmom who really loved and nurtured them. It’s a huge problem nobody really talks about. Heaven help the well meaning girlfriend who encourages her deadbeat/adjacent boyfriend to step up for his kids, calls the lawyer for him, arranges the entire custody fight for him, cares way more for and about his kids seeing him, then years later, ultimately finds herself falling into the ~65+% of failed 2nd marriages/cohabiting relationships category, finding herself divorced and suddenly legally unable to have any contact or visits with her own stepchildren.
It’s absolutely wild how pretty much nobody warns women moving in with divorced fathers about this very common, foreseeable pitfall. Because: patriarchy.
posted by edithkeeler at 5:27 AM on August 17, 2023 [13 favorites]
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posted by hydra77 at 1:30 PM on August 9, 2023