Though no-fault divorce was first legalized more than 50 years ago, it has long been sneered at in conservative circles, who see it as a danger to the sanctity of marriage and the concept of the American family.
If you believe that women are closer to being property than to being full and equal partners in a relationship, you don't want them being able to exit a marriage without a fight.
Some of these idiots actually say that a woman shouldn't be able to divorce without the husband's permission. Crazy and gross.
The irony being that spouse murder rates notably dropped after the majority of the US legalized no-fault divorces. If a woman can't escape a toxic marriage legally, she's more likely to just murder you instead (and before anyone jumps in to patronize, I realize how terrible it used to be for many women and we should fight against any toxic, regressive policies like this).
My understanding is murder dropped on both sides, but it was a bigger drop in the deaths of the wives. Women are more able to get away from abusive husbands with a no fault divorce - they don't have to go to court and prove the abuse. Abusive relationships often escalate over time, and can end in death if the abused doesn't get out.
I have an amazing anecdote about a friend who was working hospice who had an ancient lady tell her about how she (the old lady) killed her first husband for being an abusive dick.
It's so perfectly appropriate that that abusive piece of shit
Steven Crowder opposes no-fault divorce. He's just such a vivid example of the sort of emotionally stunted manchild who opposes it and of why they oppose it, and thus of why it has to continue to exist.
Let's be real here. It's not that conservatives, conservative men specifically, want to get rid of no-fault divorce. In Crowder's case, his wife has pretty compelling evidence that Steven emotionally abused his wife.
Conservatives would use no fault divorce to separate from "mouthy" women in a heartbeat if the threat of it would keep them in line.
They hate that a law exists that can be used against them.
They believe they should not be bound by the law of a no fault divorce but would have zero problem using it if it served their interests.
“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."
If this was the "wifely duties" one, the dog needed some meds which a pregnant woman can't touch. Affects the fetus. He wanted her to put on gloves so she could do it. What a POS. If that stuff could affect my kid I wouldn't want it anywhere near my wife.
Because they're cunts. That is the answer. It doesn't matter what the question is, the answer is that conservatives are cunts. It explains the entirety of their behavior.
Well, but that doesn't explain anything. Of course you can always go deeper with "why" questions and at some point you have to be satisfied, but asking "why are they being cunts?" is not going too far. Being a cunt usually has no benefit and is not desirable, so using it as an explanation for human behavior is not sufficient.
The answer should include the supposed reason why conservatives think being a cunt would be advantageous to them, i.e. why they're choosing this over other beneficial behavior.
but asking “why are they being cunts?” is not going too far.
I don't agree with you on this. The phrase "being a cunt" implies that you have some choice in the matter; you normally are not a cunt, but you choose to be one for some reason. I don't think that applies for conservatives. They aren't choosing to be cunts any more than a dog chooses to be a dog. They are cunts. Therefore, they gravitate towards conservatism. Conservatism is the ideology of cunts.
I'm satisfied with the answer "because conservatives are cunts". If you're looking for a deeper answer, you won't find it. Just accept it and treat these people accordingly.
Its too easy? Fuck you. I want to be able to text a number and boom my divorce is filed. Republicans once again proving their the party of piss babies and iron fists. Maybe if you all weren't so completely revolting in your souls you'd find someone that wishes to intertwin with it.
Technically if you don't have any disputed assets or kids to traumatize, you can pretty much get divorced online these days. There a bunch of online legal services websites out there who will send you boilerplate to fill out and then file it for you for under $1000.
Yes. That's how no-fault divorce works. The point is, they don't want that at all, for anyone, regardless of assets or children. They want wives to be the property of men, unable to get a divorce.
Those services are scams. At least in my state, the court's website includes a boilerplate form to fill out free of charge.
Having said that, even if there is no dispute, if you have sizable co-mingled assets/liabilities (such as a house and mortgage, effectively comingled retirement savings, etc), you should probably still get professional help even if you agree in principle how to divide them.
Conservatives delight in the misery of the vulnerable. You can see it in the things they find funny, the sadistic movies they enjoy and their genuine happiness in killing animals.
These people who want to keep "traditional family values" alive don't want you to use in-vitro fertilization methods either. Don't believe me? Read this article from the Knights of Columbus. This is the mentality we're up against.
They also don't want to make the economic conditions happen that allowed for the 'traditional family', where there's one bread winner. It's just not possible in this day and age for the average worker to support a wife and kids.
I wonder if the brains of conservatives are structurally different from everyone else's. Like I get that boomers have their lead poisoning, but younger cons are just as terrible and just as stupid while growing up with better education and endless info against their values.
There might be "better education", but you also have to remember that we have much worse socialization today. There's no sense of community anymore, no natural places to go to meet people, families are smaller, it's much easier to pick up and move somewhere else ending up in an unfamiliar environment with no friends, and so on and so on.
If you have bad socialisation, you end up with bad social skills, so you end up being rejected everywhere you go, so you end up wanting to control people so they have to stay with you, so you don't end up alone.
Yes. Lack of emotional intelligence, lack of cognitive intelligence (unless they're grifting), and a willingness to engage in sociopathic behavior. You should absolutely be able to see structural differences in people that willfully engage in conservatism.
I would suppose the brain, like a muscle, can be trained to be stronger (more computing power) and simultaneously can wither if neglected. Rather than the brain structure being an innate political preference indicator from birth it is (attempted to be) nurtured into a culturally efficient information processing organ. Which is why the battle lines in children's education around set conservative orthodoxies (such as religions) vs critical thinking, or obedience/conformity vs self actualisation, or hierarchical society vs egalitarianism are so heated. It is a battle for the soul of the country. Which, of course is continued throughout the rest of your life too overtly through partisan messaging and covertly through message format/style.
I think part of it may be that, but there's definitely big money behind pushing and disseminating these beliefs. You've got foreign government-funded groups whose whole purpose is to push these talking points out to large swaths of the US population, to create conflict, on both the Left and the Right. Our own corporate elite has been doing this to the US population for years via our tv and news media, but now with the internet and social media, world governments are getting in on the act and everyone is trying to push us one way or the other.
Without no-fault divorce, one party has to admit to some kind of "harm" to the other, like "emotional neglect" or some such thing. It was pretty common, when both people wanted to divorce, for them to agree to essentially lie to the court to meet that requirement. And then, there would often be a required separation period of a year or more before the divorce could be finalized.
That's all in a relatively civil "at fault" divorce. If either party wants to be an ass about it, then it gets way uglier.
When my great-grandparents got a divorce, they had to get my great-grandfather's sister-in-law to lie in a bed with him under the covers and take a photo of it to prove infidelity. What a ridiculous system.
As usual conservatives don't think of the consequences of their actions. Marriage rates are already declining. Eliminating no-fault divorce won't make people stay together. It will make them decide getting married isn't worth it in the first place.
Hopefully this helps the "institution" of marriage just die off even sooner, at least as a government-recognized status. It should just be civil unions across the board is what's officially recognized, let marriages just be a Church ceremony and take government out of it altogether.
Marriage predates any modern religion, and likely predates organized religion entirely. Marriage is a civil institution. Marriage belongs to all of us, not just churches, not just the religious. Don't let them take it.
I legitimately don't understand why you would want to hold someone hostage if they don't want to be with you. Ignore the whole human rights issue... Unless you are an actual sadistic sociopath why would you want to subject yourself to another person's misery like that, instead of going out and seeking mutual happiness?
You answered your own question. To conservatives, a spouse is merely another piece along your way to the "traditional family". And that is explicitly your (the royal you) way. How dare that piece have the audacity to remove itself from your carefully laid plans. Doesn't it know you have a wholesome image to maintain? Though it's nothing a little "discipline" won't fix.
For some, women and children are things, not people.
My terrible grandfather was like that. Abusive to everyone in the household, stole my grandmother's income, and when winter rolled around he'd disappear until spring to who knows where leaving my grandmother and kids to fend for themselves. He literally tried to kill one of my uncles just because he could (tried to run him over with a tractor).
Not just that, but marriage to them is a prize they won, not something they did as a partner. And once they won their prize, they can do anything they want with it.
It's not about holding someone hostage. A lot of breadwinners would let their spouse walk if they didn't take half of the breadwinner's savings with them.
The rest of it is all fluff...the core of this issue is money.
That's not it. If that was the case they would want no fault. But without it then they can reduce women's rights and make it harder for them to escape marriage. It's civil rights, not looking bad.
I have no problem with no-fault divorce (on the contrary, it’s a great thing). What I do have a problem with is 50-50 split laws that create the possibility that assets will be automatically equally split in a divorce, which is stupid and enables gold-digging. I would think conservatives would be against that too, which I could actually support. This though…this is just abusive and motivated by either misogyny and/or Christian religious values (although I’m sure some other religions could get behind it too [hard stare at Islam]).
What I do have a problem with is 50-50 split laws that create the possibility that assets will be automatically equally split in a divorce, which is stupid and enables gold-digging.
I have never heard anyone complain about a 50-50 split laws.
You clearly have a strong opinion about it. If you're willing to share, do you believe that "gold-digging" is such a prevalent problem that the default 50-50 split needs to change? What are you proposing as an alternative? If you're worried about "gold-digging" how do prenuptial agreements not mitigate this already?
My mom slept around for 20+ years of marriage, was emotionally abusive to her kids, and never did much if it didn't further her public image. From the outside she looked great, but now she is on the never talks to me again list. My dad was the primary breadwinner by a large margin, cooked dinner every night, coached multiple of our sports teams, taught us to drive, volunteered at our school several times per year, and was so calm I can only remember one time where he lost his temper. He basically raised us as a single father and never wanted to divorce because he was determined to break the cycle. He sounds fake when I type it out.
The settlement after two years of lawyering, and only one of the kids being not an adult at 17 years old, was ridiculous. He took on all of the debt, took care of all the kids, paid all 3 kids child support until we were 21, paid my mom alimony of over $2k, she took half the shit out of our house, and gave her a free basically new car. Oh and he paid for her apartment for a year. This was after talking the judge down for months.
We were firmly middle class, like $150k gross in the 2010's when this played out. I had to pay for our groceries a few times because of this fucked up system. It basically fucks the good parent into the ground for a sense of equality.
I don't feel strongly either way here, but want to point out that something doesn't need to be a big, prevalent problem before you advocate for change. If it's a problem for someone, somewhere, and you can solve the problem without introducing new problems for others, that should be enough.
As for the 50-50 split, I intuitively think it would make sense to have some kind of clause regarding what each part brings in to a marriage. If one part brings in a house, while the other just got their first job, it doesn't make sense to me that the default upon a divorce should be that they get equal parts of the house. Of course, implementing a good solution in practice can be anything but simple.
I’m not at risk of it, in case you’re wondering if I have a personal stake. But I’ve always found the notion of a person taking 50% of another’s accomplishments simply because they managed to get them to fall in love with them tantamount to rape. I have very strong opinions about rape too, by the way.
Prenuptial agreements are nice, but the truth of the matter is that 50/50 should not be the default and people shouldn’t have to take preliminary measures to protect themselves. It’s not about the prevalence of the problem; rape isn’t actually that prevalent if you look at the full scope of human sexual interaction. Nonetheless, that it occurs at all is abhorrent. That alone justifies action and legal protection. The alternatives are extrajudicial negotiation via lawyers and court judgments if that fails. Plenty of states have this system; only nine have 50/50 laws. Thankfully, it seems most people can see their stupidity. I’d rather see resources split equitably according to needs and what people deserve than a completely in-arbitrary split that’s sole purpose is to spare court time and resources.
And if you don’t think my comparison to rape apt, I can assure you I don’t mean to equate the two in every aspect, obviously. But it’s been said by many others that this is the principal way in which women take advantage of men, and I do consider it severely psychologically damaging, even if the outcomes aren’t the same (e.g. PTSD). Legally stealing a person’s earned income isn’t just about money; it’s a slice at their very life’s work, and that is about far lore than the material goods it’s associated with.
I was going to bring up the story of Andrew Jackson's wife, but apperently the story was much more complex then part of the country had no fault, and the other part didn't.
Instead I shall bring up the fact that Andrew Jackson had a parrot that swore a fuckton. Like it was at Jacksons funeral and it swore so fucking much it had to be taken out of the church. I aspire to be like that parrot.
Following what some conservatives view as legal victories on the battlegrounds of abortion rights and affirmative action, a number of politicians and influencers are turning their attention to another long-held construct: No-fault divorce.
It may not seem political on its surface, but the history of no-fault divorce in the US reveals a clear connection to these social issues and outlines why some feel so strongly about protecting it while others seek to tear it down.
“Cruelty – and more specifically, causing a spouse unneeded pain, whether emotional or physical — is typically the most common grounds for a fault divorce.,” says Thomas A. Ramuda Jr., a divorce attorney based in Colorado.
It wasn’t uncommon for couples to concoct scenarios together that would feign adultery, or for one party to move across state lines to fulfill legal requirements for fault claims like abandonment.
Husbands typically controlled a family’s finances, and the social stigma for seeking divorce — not to mention the difficult process of having to prove “fault” — was a major deterrent.
Conservative politicians and commentators, along with some religious and social groups, say unilateral divorce degrades the American family unit and adversely affects men, children, and the economy.
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