"The Problem" Summarized

Married Woman Living with Boyfriend? No Problem says Court

Imagine a headline like this in the Western World. Give me a break. And a friend of mine, who is literally a vice president at a major software company and one of the smartest men I know is telling me that he thinks this is fine. And they say the men in this country aren't feminist-sponsored robots. Sure. 

This woman was "THIS CLOSE" to having my respect and admiration. It sounds like her family insisted she marry one man and she chose a different one. She was living with her lover, but then, again, probably to satisfy her family, she married man #2, in an arranged marriage. Now she's in a pickle, right? Because guess what, men will not share the same woman. Hello?  Her husband, man #2, takes her to court, basically to insist his wife live with him and not her lover. He uses a habeas corpus motion to release her from the custody of another man.

Cough, cough.

First off, that's a strange and bizarre use of habeas corpus and I don't agree with it. That said, in India, women are still seen as being a man's possession to some extent - and if she can divorce him and take all he has - and she can! - than the man better damn well keep track of her, as it means all that he has if she leaves! Or what else would you, dear reader, suggest the man do!?!?!?

So they go to court and instead of the adults telling them "the woman here must pick one man, marriage or not, now go home," the court says, NO PROBLEM! Marry one, live with the other, hey do as you please! Now, legally, I have no problem with that. It is not the LEGAL judgement BACKED by the POLICE that should force a woman to be with one man or the other. That's crazy! Is the STATE the shotgun held behind a man's back at the wedding? Come, now.

That said, my outrage is behind what this woman is asking: that she be able to marry one man and yet live with another. That's absurd. Further, IF that is granted - and it has been! - then the divorce laws MUST IMMEDIATELY AND WITHOUT APPEAL, be changed to NO TRANSFER OF WEALTH OR ASSETS BETWEEN PARTIES. As it stands now, a woman takes everything a man has, or nearly everything. That is absurd if she can literally commit adultery right in front of the man's face without any recourse to him.

Back in 1940 or whatnot, some women did leave their husbands to be with other men. Sadly, it happens, and will always happen - to both men and women. People grow apart, fall in love at work (stupid), whatever. I would hope it never happened, but that is not the real world. If a woman did leave a husband, in the old days, she left only with what she had. Everyone cried, and explained, whatever. And then they moved on with life. The ex-husband remarried and everyone went on their merry way.

Otherwise, this mess will only get worse:

Married woman can live with her lover: court

KS Tomar  Jaipur, April 19, 2007

First Published: 01:28 IST(19/4/2007) | Last Updated: 03:43 IST(19/4/2007)

 EMAIL

Can a married woman lawfully live with her lover against the will of her husband? The Rajasthan High Court says yes.

In a judgment on Wednesday, the court allowed a married woman, Manju, to live with her lover, Suresh. “It is improper to pass an order to hand over any unwilling married woman to her husband with whom she does not want to stay,” said justices GS Mishra and KC Sharma. The court also said that nobody should consider an adult woman as a consumer product. (JB: what the Hell does that mean?)

While dismissing a habeas corpus petition filed by Manju’s husband, the court came down hard on the misuse of habeas corpus petitions by people who want to thrust their will upon adult women without their consent. The court said the husband was free to approach the family court for divorce.

Commenting on the judgment, senior Supreme Court advocate and noted women’s rights activist Indira Jaising said, “Though it sounds strange, I am in complete agreement with the high court.”

"At the end of the day an adult woman has a right to decide whom she wants to live with. She can’t be forced to go with her husband against her will," Jaising said.

In this case, Jaising said, it is clear that the woman was prepared for divorce. She also felt that Manju’s husband had abused the habeas corpus petition because such petitions were generally filed when somebody is actually missing.

Asked whether it amounted to adultery, Jaising clarified that the woman could not be prosecuted for this offence under the law. As for the other man, she said, “it seems he is ready to face that”. National Commission for Women Chairperson Girija Vyas said that although it seemed like an important judgment, she could not comment on it since she had not seen it yet.

Manoj Chaudhry, the counsel for Manju and Suresh, had earlier rejected as baseless the allegations that Manju had been kept in illegal confinement by Suresh.

He said that the duo had been living together by their free will and that the relationship had begun even before Manju had got married.

With inputs from Satya Prakash and Sutirtho Patranobis.

Bone-headed Cop #2

http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/cop-brings-ar-15-school-safety-talk-kid-fires-3-injured-video/#axzz2ibV548mX

Note the name of the officer has not been released. Right. A PUBLIC police officer, paid by taxpayers to protect taxpayers - but his name is a secret!?!?!?  WHY?

PUBLIC OFFICIALS MAY NOT DO ANYTHING SECRETLY, PERIOD, THE END.

I'm glad the police showed up to give the kids a demonstration - after all, its not like the kids have fathers to show them this stuff, like I and my friends did.

But in yet another example of cities and towns using their fat, totally unnecessary budgets to hire 10 times the cops that are truly necessary, resulting in the hiring of morons who are not fit to be cops, one of the cops shows up with an AR-15 on his motorcycle. This is fine, just so long as the gun is secured, and unloaded. I have a friend who is a cop - as he, and every other gun owner or boy with a father, including me, knows, is that you do not load a gun unless you intend to shoot it. For people who think they may need to shoot their gun, they carry it loaded, but with the gun on safety and with it holstered (pointing straight down). For everyone else, including hunters, you carry the gun unloaded. It is IMPOSSIBLE for an unloaded gun to go off! And the first rule of gun safety is that you always expect a gun to go off, so you point it down at all times and take every safety precaution you can.

I really don't know why the cop had a large rifle like that at this school day AT ALL; for most emergencies necessitating the police, a small to medium caliber pistol is plenty. If you are going to show up to cop day at the school with a semi-automatic rifle, then it MUST BE unloaded AND safe'tied. If it is loaded, than remove the clip and remove the bullets from the clip, reinsert the clip and presto, you're done; otherwise leave all clips/magazines out of the gun entirely. The gun cannot fire when empty.

Instead, genius cop does the following:

1 - brings the high capacity gun
2 - leaves the gun near curious, young children
3 - leaves the gun loaded (why!?!?!?)
4 - leaves the gun's trigger safety off (THE cardinal sin of gun safety)

Remember, there is no such thing as an accident. EVERY GOOD COP KNOWS THIS. That is why the above four things make this cop an idiot who deserves to be dismissed ASAP.

A Leading Cause of Infant Mortality

Is the abuse suffered from a mother's boyfriend who is not the child's father:

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9808039/adrian-peterson-son-injured-father-says


But remember, all dad's are bad, and all mom's are good so all mom's should get custody. Just repeat it over and over again in your head like a robot would do.

No, No, Pacman

I'm no Pacman Jones fan. AT ALL. The guy just goes looking for trouble; it seems as if trouble follows him around. And I think he COMPLETELY over-reacted in his actions below.

That said, ladies, you are not shrouded in some cloak of invincibility because you are women. Putting a broken bottle to someone's face? That's going to get a reaction. A reasonable person might slap the bottle out of your hand. But others, especially those intoxicated, will be much more reactionary and aggressive. Such as Mr. Jones, below, and NFL football player with all the strength of one. He hits this woman very, very hard. She may have 'felt' justified in what she did, but what she didn't realize is that she was threatening a man with what could be considered a deadly weapon. I guess she thought he would just back away (also a very reasonable thing to do). He felt the need to defend himself and the judge agreed with him.

Honestly, neither of them are guilty and neither of them are innocent.

Don't threaten someone with a broken bottle, readers. Not unless you're prepared for this kind of response.

Ever Wonder Why You Hear Women Referred to in Derogatory Language?

Its because of shit like this.

Is this supposed to be funny? Merely calling one's brother-in-law an ass is now a legal crime worthy of the heavy-hand of the STATE!?!?

So if my wife calls my mother a nag, I can have her thrown in jail!?! Oh yeah, that's right - this is a nation-wide LAW just for women. Well that's sounds equal and fair, doesn't it!

Are you nuts?!?!?!?

EVER HEARD OF FREE SPEECH!?!?!?!?

From the Feminazis of India, comes this:

Legal Terrorism – 498a and DV Act exposed by Karan Thapar

October 11, 2010 § Leave a Comment

Courtesy: CNN-IBN – Devil’s Advocate by Karan Thapar

Follow http://twitter.com/498aLegalTerror

Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to Devil’s Advocate. Will the UPA Government’s Domestic Violence Bill convert innocent husbands into offenders and criminals, and worse, will it empower motivated women to act viciously and get away with it? Those are the two key issues I should raise in an exclusive interview with the Minister for Women and Child Development, Renuka Chowdhury.

Ms Chowdhury, let’s start with the definitions under this Act, which are so wide that they are worrying. To begin with, there is the whole question of what the Act means by domestic violence – it covers verbal abuse, emotional abuse, economic abuse and anything that tends towards them. I put it to you, that’s so wide as to be either meaningless or dangerously self-embracing.

Renuka Chowdhury: I don’t know why you have to see it in two extremes. Why have you not ever noticed that women live in dangerously self-embracing situations? That it’s none of this, even if you see it as porosity in the Act or that the ambit is too wide. Please understand that women are burnt to death, beaten to insensibilities.

Karan Thapar:But the cure is not imprecision, the cure is not vagueness of legislation.

Renuka Chowdhury:Absolutely.

Karan Thapar:Let me explain why this Act is imprecise. For instance, emotional and verbal abuses are defined to include insults and ridicule. That means you can’t be sarcastic to your wife, it means you can’t call you brother-in-law an ass or a mother-in-law a nag even if both are those are correct. Surely, that’s a level of silliness, but it’s a part of your Bill.

Renuka Chowdhury: I want to tell you what you deem as silly is really not something that I have created today. Under the IPC section, speaking in a way that is denigrating to the status of women, which removes her from her dignity, is very much an Act under the IPC. So I don’t see what are you getting heated up about today.

Karan Thapar:But you are here interfering in normal conversation between two adults. As Soli Sorabjee writing in The Indian Express pointed out, you are reducing an important and serious issue to the level of silliness.

Renuka Chowdhury: I don’t think anything that happens to a women in the sense of her domestic violence can be termed as silly. It is over-trivialising and over-simplifying this Act. Please understand that despite all the checks, women are burnt, one in six women is raped, murdered, beaten to death, sent in to mental asylums. I don’t think that’s funny.

Karan Thapar: No doubt. But that’s not what your Act concentrates on. Look, for instance, at economic abuse. It is defined by the Act as deprivation of any economic or financial resource, which the aggrieved is entitled to by custom and it includes disposal of household effects. Under that language, if a husband was to sell the family television at a time when his marriage was going through a bad patch, it should be deemed to be domestic violence. Now, that’s ridiculous, but it is very much a part of the Act.

Renuka Chowdhury:Is it anymore ridiculous than the fact that well-to-do men suddenly turn around and claim that they have no money, that they are bankrupt because they have to pay alimony to a woman – where human dignity is involved.

Karan Thapar:But what your Act has done is to take trivial issues – that could happen quite innocently, inadvertently and turn them into offences and crimes.

Renuka Chowdhury: I don’t agree with you. We are saying, we are facilitating and setting up a legal framework where by we expect to…

Karan Thapar:A very bad legal framework, insufficient legal framework and an imprecise one.

Renuka Chowdhury: Please listen to me. Can I be allowed to talk or otherwise this is deemed as domestic violence, this is professional violence.

Karan Thapar: That’s the danger; you are proving my point.

Renuka Chowdhury:Absolutely.

Karan Thapar:A mere interruption becomes domestic violence.

Renuka Chowdhury:Interruption? This is an overrun! It is an interpretation of what is an interruption and verbal overrun.

Karan Thapar:Don’t you think you are proving my point?

Renuka Chowdhury: You may think so, but let’s wait for what others think. But I want to tell you what I think. I think that if there is harmony within the house, there is nothing for anyone to fear. But if there is complete disharmony, where one partner is completely incapacitated, made to be dependent on another partner and they are harassed… you have no idea what harmony means.

Karan Thapar: That’s a biased statement which you are elevating into a principle of false philosophy. The reason that in fact it isn’t true is very simple: look at the range of people covered by your Act. It talks about aggrieved persons, and aggrieved persons are defined as any woman who is or has been in a domestic relationship. Then it defines domestic relationship as the relationship between two persons who live or have at any point of time lived together in a shared household.

Put them together and your Act covers not just wives, but wives who have been divorced, girlfriends who you have separated perhaps as long as a decade ago. Why are those included in the ambit of this Act?

Renuka Chowdhury: Why? Because, women even in those relationships have been harassed and held to ransom. There have been enough divorced women who have been divorced because of various reasons, and money is not returned.

Karan Thapar:Divorced women have a decree that is given by a court; an alimony that is given by a court; the divorce has been adjudicated; it is legal. There is no need for you to interfere.

Renuka Chowdhury: Fair enough. Let us assume there is no need for us to interfere.

Karan Thapar:Don’t assume, it’s a fact.

Renuka Chowdhury: Ok, if it’s a fact. But please tell me do you think a woman is given a divorce easily where a man doesn’t want (to give divorce). Go to the court and have a look.

Karan Thapar: When a divorce is given and granted by a court, there is no need to go further back in the picture. But you do.

Renuka Chowdhury: I tell you why we do it. If a man violates his custodial rights; if a man violates his restraint order; if after a divorce a husband keeps stalking me or harassing me; if a man turns up and smashes my windows – don’t you think that keeps happening, Mr Karan Thapar?

Karan Thapar:It may happen. But that’s not what your Act concentrates upon. Clause 3-C doesn’t just limit the ambit of the Act to former girlfriends you have separated from or former wives, it even talks about any person related to the aggrieved person. This means it’s not just the former girlfriend, arguably it’s her step-brother as well – this is becoming ridiculous at this stage. It means – let me interpret this for you – that a husband cannot threaten to verbally abuse. Note the words: just threaten to verbally abuse the step-brother of a former girlfriend who he parted with 10 years ago. That ambit is taking a major concern to a ridiculous extent.

Renuka Chowdhury:Oh my God! I tell you, you are looking at such extremely ridiculous situations.

Karan Thapar:It’s part of your Bill.

Renuka Chowdhury: You should be writing for a television series.

Karan Thapar:I am afraid your Bill seems to cater for it. That’s the problem.

Renuka Chowdhury: Ok, if that’s how you interpret it. But a man would, I am not surprised.

Karan Thapar:It is not a question of a man would. The reason I am pointing out the ridiculous extremes is that laws are always judged by the extremes, not by the middle position.

And what your law does – because of the wide ambit of the definition of domestic violence and because of the long range of people it covers – it tends to convert innocent husbands into offenders and criminals, and worse, it gives the power to motivated women who want to be vicious, or forgive me bloody-minded, to get away with such behaviour. That’s why it is potentially dangerous.

Renuka Chowdhury:Karan Thapar, you have to understand that this Bill addresses a family as a unit within a prescribed legal framework. If the ‘innocent husband’ as you call him is ‘innocent’ and his behaviour and attitude to his partner in life is of mutual respect and concern, there is no anxiety for men to suddenly feel victimised and victims of the whole thing.

Karan Thapar: But the point is how do you define the offence you hold him guilty of? Sarcasm becomes an offence; calling your brother-in-law an ass becomes an offence.

Renuka Chowdhury:No, calling him an ass doesn’t… that’s your personal equation. If your brother-in-law and you are not happy with each other, you are going to look at excuses. But if there is basic harmony and you call a friend or brother-in-law an ass, he is not going to take you to court, let me tell you.

Karan Thapar: Let me point it out to you why this is such a dangerous Act. Critics are pointing out that this Act is going to go the way of the anti-dowry law; it’s going to be deliberately misused.

Let me point out what the Supreme Court said in July 2005 about the anti-dowry law. It said many instances have come to light where the complaints are not bona fide and have been filed with an oblique motive. In such cases, acquittal of the accused does not wipe out the ignominy suffered during and prior to the trial. Sometimes adverse media coverage adds to the misery. Your act is going to go exactly the same way as the anti-dowry law.

Renuka Chowdhury:I want to tell you, when we bring out an Act, we help set a direction for a certain socially-accepted behaviour. Those are the broader parameters. Because of a minute percentage of people who misappropriate the Act, are you saying that I should not bring an Act, I should be in denial that women are not domestically harassed, that they are not kicked, removed from their home, denied access to their children, to their own earnings, and that they have no recourse to law?

Karan Thapar: Let me answer your question. You talk of a minute percentage of people?

Renuka Chowdhury:Yes.

Karan Thapar: The Centre for Social Research with regard to the anti-dowry law did a study after the Supreme Court judgment came out in August of 2005 and it concluded that of every 100 cases brought under the anti-dowry law, 98 per cent were false. Only two were correct. It’s not a minute percentage; the level of abuse that this could incur is phenomenally high.

Renuka Chowdhury:It’s okay.

Karan Thapar: It’s okay? It’s acceptable?

Renuka Chowdhury:It’s not acceptable, don’t put words into my mouth. No, I am very clear about it. Kindly listen – the law is not a static issue. Law reflects the need for a society to be given direction. We have put in broad parameters and we will see in which this direction this law goes. But even if this statistics are telling you that 98 per cent of the cases reported are violated and are wrong, please tell me the statistics of how many women are killed everyday, forced into abortions, raped against their will, denied access to society and property. Tell me those statistics and we will talk about it.

Karan Thapar: There is no doubt that women in India need protection. There is no doubt that domestic violence is one of the worst features of our society. The problem is you are protecting women at cost of exposing men to gross injustice. That’s why this Bill is wrong. You are creating one right against another wrong.

Renuka Chowdhury:Karan Thapar, why didn’t you do two rights in your shows earlier for those women who have no access to any justice in this country despite the establishment of laws? Are there no laws on Sati?

Karan Thapar: But you don’t have to give them access to justice at the cost of men being treated badly. That’s what you are doing. You are exposing men to injustice, harassment.

Renuka Chowdhury:We are not, we are not.

Karan Thapar: You keep talking about direction. You keep talking about importance of setting a direction for society. Clause 17 of the Act gives divorced women and former separated girlfriends – and I use that language very carefully: divorced women and former separated girlfriends – the right to claim residence in the home of their former husband or their former partner even though the Act says they may not have any right, title or beneficial interest in the same. What’s the justification for that?

Renuka Chowdhury:Because the woman is removed from her house. She is threatened, coerced and you have an ex-parte divorce, which has been granted…

Karan Thapar: A divorced woman has a decree, and I cite, granted by a court. She has an alimony granted by a court. A divorce can only happen when a court grants it.

Renuka Chowdhury:No, no certainly not. I cannot accept that every divorce case has been examined in its…

Karan Thapar: A divorced woman has an annulment, a divorced woman has an alimony given by a court – surely the merit (of the case) has been taken into account.

Renuka Chowdhury:No, no, not necessarily. Not necessarily on the merits of the case, not at all.

Karan Thapar: Are you saying the judges are wrong?

Renuka Chowdhury:Maybe.

Karan Thapar: Are you stepping in to correct what judges have done?

Renuka Chowdhury:I am not correcting judges. I am empowering my women to have the right to access the dignity to their life, if they have been denied justice on other foras, if they have been given ex-parte divorce. In the absence of this, they have had no money to go and appeal in a court and they are denied their right, and if the husband suddenly declares he is bankrupt and has not given an alimony.

Karan Thapar: You see my point. You have just qualified the problem by adding six different ifs. Your law, however, doesn’t add any of those ifs. Clause 17 begins with the phrase notwithstanding any other law in operation anywhere else in the country. Despite that divorced women and former girlfriends have a right of claim in the residence of their former partner or former husband. So, none of your ifs qualify, if you had put the ifs into the law I would understand.

Renuka Chowdhury: All right, so?

Karan Thapar: You need to amend it to actually incorporate your position.

Renuka Chowdhury: All right. We will see if the need arises, we will do it. First, let it come into being.

Karan Thapar: It has, on the 26th of October.

Renuka Chowdhury: And rather well, so far we haven’t had any complaints about the misuse of the law.

Karan Thapar: So now you accept, with limited reference to Clause 17, there is need for amendment?

Renuka Chowdhury: There is always need for corrections and amendments in any law as we progress as a society develops and the needs arise. But for one hypothetically – before I reach the bridge and cross it – if you want me to make amendments, I won’t.

Karan Thapar: In other words, let men suffer first, then I will correct the wrong I have done.

Renuka Chowdhury: It is not such a bad idea, except that I have such pity for men.

Karan Thapar: Ms Chowdhury, the great danger of the Domestic Violence Act, which came into force on October 26, is that in the hands of a bad judge and a good prosecuting attorney, it can be used to harass innocent men, to entrap innocent husbands and deny them justice. That’s the danger of the imprecision of the loose wording and the huge ambit of so-called offences included here.

Renuka Chowdhury: All right.

Karan Thapar: You accept?

Renuka Chowdhury: They may be.

Karan Thapar: What do you mean may be?

Renuka Chowdhury: If you are saying so, you are so convinced of it. You won’t even listen to what I have to say.

Karan Thapar: I have been listening to you. You seem to agree with me.

Renuka Chowdhury: I don’t have an agreeable concept of what is listening.

Karan Thapar: But tell me something. If this Act in the hands of a bad judge or a clever prosecuting attorney can inflict injustice on innocent men, does it not need amendment?

Renuka Chowdhury: Mr Karan Thapar, every law in this country is in the hands of a bad judge and a clever prosecutor. It is nothing new or unique, the situation. Hence, when we have bad judges – your words – and clever prosecutors – your words – where do the women of this country take recourse to regarding the situation they live in?

Karan Thapar: But do they need a bad law? That’s the problem. You are adding to the situation of bad judges by giving them a bad law.

Renuka Chowdhury: You are only telling me it’s a bad law for men. It’s not a bad law for women.

Karan Thapar: But that’s only 50% of the Indian population?

Renuka Chowdhury: Yes. But my tragedy is I have women who are no longer even 50 per cent of the population.

Karan Thapar: You really believe you cannot do justice to women without doing injustice to men?

Renuka Chowdhury: I don’t want to do injustice to men.

Karan Thapar: You have just done it.

Renuka Chowdhury: If you see it that way. Isn’t it injustice against women that we have rape laws in place and dowry laws in place and they have never been adhered to, that women are killed every minute?

Karan Thapar: If 98 per cent of the cases brought under the dowry laws, as I told you, turn out to be false – according to statistics given by the Centre for Social Justice – if the Supreme Court itself has opined on the subject roughly at the same time last year, I am sure you don’t need to add to the bad laws by creating more.

Renuka Chowdhury: It’s the courts which have been proactive. The High Court just recently ruled here, saying that for seven years after a woman is married, the family will be held accountable for her death. Why would a court state that extreme order? Do you think that is a fine law? You agree with the opinion of the court?

Karan Thapar: Absolutely. I do. But I am not talking about murder, I am talking about offences that are just limited to sarcasm. I am talking about sarcasm to the step-brother of a former girlfriend covered by this law. That’s why it’s a bad law.

Renuka Chowdhury: Step-brother of a former girlfriend depends on a one-to-one basis. You don’t have to be a relative of a woman for sarcasm. As a citizen if you misbehave with another citizen, under the IPC you can be held up. There is very little that is new in this law.

Karan Thapar: Let me point to you why this is, in fact, a dangerous law that can be misused in the hands of bad judges or clever prosecuting attorney. Clause 4(1) says any person who has reason to believe that an Act of domestic violence has been or is being or is likely to be committed, can inform the authorities with no liability if he or she is wrong. Secondly, at that point of time, a magistrate can impose a protection order that can severely restrain the rights of the accused. You are creating a devilish situation entirely on the basis of mischief-makers and title-tattlers snooping around.

Renuka Chowdhury: Maybe. Maybe initially you will have the title-tattlers, you will have everything. But I also like to believe that maybe you will save so may lives where we know that in-laws are planning to kill them or force her into a Sati death or go for PNDT Act.

Karan Thapar: You may also end up trapping innocent in-laws, because of paramours and other malignant people.

Renuka Chowdhury: “Innocent in-laws” have nothing to worry about. Innocent in-laws live in harmony with their daughters-in-law. There should not be problem.

Karan Thapar: The problem is that mischief-makers create trouble where there is disharmony. And Clause 4(1) permits them.

Renuka Chowdhury: Mischief-makers do create trouble everywhere. It’s mischief-makers who do tell us that women are opiated and forced to commit Sati. It is mischief-makers who report on Income-Tax laws, if you remember, earlier.

Karan Thapar: But you don’t need a law to tackle Sati.

Renuka Chowdhury: Of course, you need a law to tackle Sati.

Karan Thapar: But it’s already a crime in India. We don’t need a new law.

Renuka Chowdhury: Sure. But what is the success ratio? What are your success stories?

Karan Thapar: Let me point out the problem with Clause 4(1). It permits anyone who is inimical to you – leave aside the enemy of yours – to go and mischievously and maliciously report on things he claims you are doing and get away with it. In fact, it even permits your wife’s paramour to turn up and make mischief against you and to do so with impunity.

Renuka Chowdhury: Yeah, but I will tell you something, Karan. It is irrespective of that – these are preventive checks we are putting. Do you think the law is an ass, they will suddenly come and arrest you?

Karan Thapar: I’m afraid this law is an ass. That’s exactly what I am saying. This law is close to close to being an asinine.

Renuka Chowdhury: That’s your opinion. That may be there. But I want to tell you there are very few sections under this law, which are not existing under the IPC.

Karan Thapar: In which case, you didn’t need it. It’s redundant. So why to bring it about?

Renuka Chowdhury: It’s not redundant. Basically, we are empowering the IPC to do it. Delhi has reported that in the last year, 8,000 marital discord cases were reported to the police and there was little the police could do. How do you answer that?

Karan Thapar: Let me ask you one simple question. From Soli Sorabjee to ordinary Indians, there is great concern about the imprecision and dangerous wording and the dangerous ambit of this law. Are you prepared to listen and amend it?

Renuka Chowdhury: Of course. We are prepared in a democracy to listen and respond to a situation that could be an aberration on the societal fabric.

Karan Thapar: But you are going to wait for a situation to happen and then you are going to respond?

Renuka Chowdhury: That doesn’t deny the right for us to bring about a law like this. It is a unmet need and women across the country have not yet protested.

Karan Thapar: You are saying to me that a bad law is better than no law at all?

Renuka Chowdhury: If you want to say it that way. Any law is better than no law at all.

Karan Thapar: Ms Chowdhury, a pleasure talking to you on Devil’s Advocate.

Renuka Chowdhury: Well, thank you. But be careful.

NYTimes - Definining the Word "Moron"

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/magazine/why-are-there-still-so-few-women-in-science.html?hp&_r=1&


This is written by a woman and its supposed to be a scathing example about how there are not many women in science and math.

It is a singularly awful article.

Because its written by a woman about science and math!?!?!

NO.

BECAUSE THE LOGIC OF THE ARTICLE IS DREADFUL. And that's being kind.

Her logic is just this: there are not more women scientists and mathematicians because people, when surveyed, still have trouble seeing women as legitimate professionals in those fields.

That means relatively nothing. I personally know two women with Math degrees. I personally know 2 men with math degrees. If women almost NEVER received math degrees, it would be a small miracle (but possible) for someone to know the same amount of people, in each gender, with math degrees.

The point being women get plenty of science degrees IN SPITE OF people seeing that as bizarre.

Then the author tries to blame the lack of women TRYING to get math and science degrees on people not seeing them as math and science people.

This is backwards.

First off, women do get math and science degrees - just not at the same rate men do. Is this because of natural aptitude? Is this because of women's personal preference? Is this because people don't see women as math and science folks?

All of the above.

So let's assign weight to each of the three causes we have presumed to affect the outcome of our little experiment (SO few women in math and science).

Aptitude - I have no empirical data here so I really don't know. but I give this 20% of the cause - I saw plenty of girls in school who were very good in math and science in school.

Magical distraction/derailment - This is the author's favorite - that women don't go into math and science because they're not "expected to." Because women do not see themselves as mathematicians or scientists, so therefore the cannot be them. 20% of the cause - MAX 20%, maybe less. We have more women in college and grad school than we do men. So women see no barriers to higher education, but some "thing" magically stops themselves from entering math and science? No. they stop themselves from entering math and science. Its not aptitude.

Personal preference: 60% of the cause. Maybe closer to 80% (making the above causes 10% each). I'm a smart guy. I love art and architecture. I've been called a sharp dresser. If I really tried hard, I could work in fashion. But I don't. Why? Aptitude? Nope - in fact, studies have shown many people do things they are inherently not talented in. Someone/thing derailing me? No; although many straight men ARE probably derailed because they are seen as gay otherwise and straight men hate that - this can NEVER be brought up as an excuse though - men get no excuses. So what's the reason? BECAUSE I DON'T CARE ABOUT FASHION. I notice it. I've appreciated it. But its not what I want to do with my life. I don't think about it all that much. I don't try at it. I simply don't really care about it. There is someone holding me back from doing it - ME!!!!!

Ever meet a woman waxing rhapsodically about MATH and science? Not really. Not often. Most women WOULD RATHER care about something else. Like fashion. Art. Literature. Marketing. Whatever. Not Math and Science. Fck, I really don't care about math and science. My love is elsewhere. THIS, research has shown time and time again, is the bulk of the cause behind what people do.

Do you know who Marie Curie is? She was born in 1967. I imagine if the world is out to get women in 2013, then in the 1970s and 80s women were all but shit on in Math class, right? She won the Nobel price in Physics AND CHEMISTRY. What a miracle, eh?

Oh wait, that's wrong.

You see Marie Curie was born in 1867. EIGHTEEN SIXTY SEVEN. That's 146 years ago. Two lifetimes.

She also won the Elliott Cresson Medal, Davy Medal, Matteucci Medal, John Scott Legacy Medal and Premium, Benjamin Franklin Medal.

HOW COULD SHE DO THAT!?!?!?! SHE WAS WONDER-WOMAN!!!!!

No. She was just some girl who loved science and math and didn't hold herself back.

And the MALE-DOMINATED, EVIL WORLD that refused to recognize women as scientists went ahead and gave her not one, BUT TWO Nobel prizes.

Whups.

I guess the men forgot to ignore her for being a woman and couldn't help but notice she was brilliant.

But don't tell that to the NYTimes. Women don't achieve because of men. And that is the only possible explanation. Cuz the world is full of men and men are evil. So be sure to listen to them and not think. Its worked wonders. It really has.

The "Dads" Show, like most Big Network Sit-com's is FOR WOMEN!

I know plenty of men and I'll tell you right now: they don't watch sitcoms, for the most part. Not anymore. They used to. They'd watch Seinfeld, The Cosby Show, any of the detective-crime-dashing-male-lead shows, Law and Order, McGyver, etc. You get the picture.

But we don't bother anymore. First off, those shows are mostly dead and gone - even wildly successful Seinfeld. And secondly, the shows made today, Everybody Loves Raymond, Two and a Half Men, and the latest, "Dads" depict men as immature, incompetent, stumbling, bumbling children. Its pathetic. Even when the shows are quite funny - Two and a Half Men used some decent scripts - ultimately they're awful. And controlling much of this, is the female audience.

Men have tuned out. Men are watching movies. James Bond style stuff. Jack Reacher, Skyfall, War of the Worlds, Rambo, Die Hard, etc.. Many of those movies portray men, even if they are first seen as bums, as ultimately very capable bad-asses who get things done and are righteous in doing so. THE VERY OPPOSITE OF THE CRAP-SITCOMS ON T.V..

So who is watching t.v.? Women. That's who. And watching many of these stupid programs - from a woman's perspective - is very, very different. They basically excuse women for being around and marrying these bozo-men in the shows. After all, if the men are so pathetic, why are the women in the shows with them? Why don't they just walk away? Or never get with them in the first place?  That's never addressed, of course. NEVER. Instead the show is like a recipe for women; it says to them, See? There are plenty of women out there stuck with chauvinist losers, JUST LIKE YOU! This is why half-way intelligent people don't watch t.v. at all anymore and the internet-based programs through Netflix and others are radically increasing viewership, especially among the young. Youthful (late 30s and under) people are watching HBO, A&E, or other unique, crafty network programs. Breaking Bad has exploded in popularity and that show is about a bumbling Chemistry teacher turning into a murderous, drug-dealing, money-making bad-ass. This man is involved in a criminal enterprise and he is the hero - out-thinking and out-witting his naive wife; making millions to give to his family as he is planning on dying from cancer.

He is doing bad things for a good cause and the cause isn't even himself. It brings out his inner demons and ultimately twists him into something terrible, but his reasons at the outset were not himself, they were his family. THIS is a popular show. Everybody loves Raymond was cancelled. Take a hint, dear reader.

The women who watch the shows below are RELIEVED; they are so because they are stuck with either low-class, low-level boys from fatherless homes who are immature, INSECURE, macho lunatics, who, thanks to their fatherless home (I'm sure in each and every case the father was a monster, anyway, right?) learned their life lessons from rap videos (hence the racist and sexist angle). Or else the women who watch are stuck with a well-earning yet twisted, insensitive, and out-of-touch-with-anything-female type man. This show is to point out how foolish these men are and how much they need the women that they are with. Because the inverse of that MUST NEVER BE TRUE! RIGHT!?!?!?

The show is meant to alleviate and calm all the anxieties these female viewers have. Men don't watch these shows. They have enough outlets telling them they need to be more of a "real man" earning more, and "taking care of" their wife or girlfriend who is wildly depressed at out-earning the husband she wants to be more dominant. Men don't need injury added to the insults they receive; they watch the shows that embody who they want to be - the man who can think on his feet and outwit the world to protect his family and earn for them. Its a fantasy inside of a life lesson.

The Fox "Dads" show will be cancelled within a few months, if it takes that long. These one-sided shows on men are gaining absolutely no traction. Shows like Two and a Half men showed the man's viewpoint and his vulnerability quite often; both men and women enjoyed that; ultimately that show was doomed by its singular dimension, but it clearly had a broader audience. "Dads" does not portray "flawed" men, or even take a quick insightful look at women's flaws; it merely piles on the garbage and ills of men and then asks you to stomach it. Its a show for the white trash - I don't know how else to put it. Here's to a quick death of it.

Another look at this show appears below, but I think Robert misses on the women's angle to this.

FOX’S DADS, CRITICS OK WITH HATEFUL PORTRAYAL OF FATHERS

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September 19, 2013 by Robert Franklin, Esq.

With a new sitcom on Fox named Dads, it’s hard not to tune in and, having done so, register an opinion. It turns out a lot of TV critics did the same thing, and, at this point, it’s hard to know which is worse, the show or the critics’ responses. But, if I were asked to make a call, I’d have to say that, horrible as Dads is, the critics’ takes are worse. The two taken together tell us a lot about the anti-dad fever that’s gripped the nation for so long. Dads isn’t the only TV offering about fathers, and many of them don’t promote the type of frank misandry the Fox show does, but by itself, Dads hustles every anti-father stereotype that’s zipping around the ether. That just happens to be the good news.

Dads premiered this past Tuesday. The set-up is that two 30-something men, Warner (Giovanni Ribisi) and Eli (Seth Green) run a small but reasonably successful business making videogames. Warner’s father Crawford (Martin Mull) lives with him, his wife (Vanessa Lachey) and their two kids. In the first episode, Eli’s father David (Peter Riegert) comes to live with him.

What are these fathers like? Do you really have to ask? They’re the very incarnation of every bad stereotype of fathers trafficked in by everyone from NOW to the judges who daily decide child custody cases, almost invariably choosing Mom custody over equal custody. If dads are really like they are in Dads, who could argue?

There’s not much to choose between Crawford and David. After all, when you have one stereotype of a father and two fathers to apply it to, they inevitably come out looking a lot alike. And sure enough, both dads are childish, clueless, selfish and self-absorbed and uncaring. They’re also abject failures at everything. They’re failures in business and penniless, which is why they’re living with their sons. They’re failures at love, having left (or perhaps having been left by) their wives. And of course they’re failures at fatherhood. David left his whole family years before and Crawford is just a jerk.

All of this is hammered home in the classic sitcom tradition that nothing can be too obvious. So, within the first minute of the premiere we see Warner’s kitchen in a shambles because his father had made himself a sandwich. His wife provides the obligatory lesson that she’s already got two children and doesn’t need a third.

From there we’re treated to a show-long litany of crudities courtesy of the dads. Needless to say they’re racist (slurs against Asians), sexist (Crawford refers to Warner’s wife as “the maid) and homophobic (he asks if there aren’t “some gays” at Warner and Eli’s office).

In short, the fathers are pretty much what you’d expect – the worst of people with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. As Gomer Pyle would say, “surprise, surprise, surprise.”

By about the first commercial break, we also get the message that the apple hasn’t fallen far from either tree. The sons are just younger versions of their dads. Oh, their business is successful enough for now, but look at how they treat their female employee, a young Asian-American woman (Brenda Song). For potential Chinese investors, they have her dress up in a sexy “little Chinese schoolgirl” outfit, assuming this will impress the money men.  Meanwhile, their other scams include Eli’s dressing in jeans and wearing a motorcycle helmet to convince the investors that their company is cool and, presumably cutting edge.

The none-too-subtle message is that dads are creeps and, however much their grown sons try to convince themselves they hate them, the younger generation hasn’t changed much, if at all.

With that take on fathers, I was heartened to learn that the critical response to the show has been uniformly negative. Article after article, I read, found the show to be awful, a loser. So I figured people are starting to catch on. In a culture that seems to seek ever more hateful ways to depict fathers (remember Kevin Spacey’s Pay it Forward character whose father had poured gasoline on him as a child and set him alight?), surely people were catching on. Or so I thought.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. The show premiered on Tuesday; by the end of Wednesday, I’d read about a dozen critiques of it, and, as I’d been led to believe, they were without exception derogatory. The problem, though is that each reviewer, again without exception, completely missed the obvious. Reading them, I sometimes thought “they didn’t watch the show,” but that’s not right. They accurately described the action, the characters and quoted them in detail. The reviewers had clearly watched the show.

But astonishingly, not a single one of them noticed the screamingly obvious fact that Dads disdains dads. Despite the fact that it’s made painfully clear from literally the first seconds of the show, not a single reviewer mentioned the fact. Nor did they notice the - admittedly more subtle but still clear – point that the younger men are just somewhat hipper versions of their old men. The frontal attack on fathers as stupid, incompetent children sailed right past every reviewer I read. I suppose if they witnessed a gasoline truck collide with a school bus and explode in a ball of flame, they’d talk about the new store at the mall in the background.

What reason did they give for disliking Dads? To a person it was the same; it’s “racist and sexist.” It’s racist because Asian people are depicted in a stereotypical light. It’s sexist, not because of its treatment of fathers, but because Warner and Eli’s Chinese-American employee is forced to dress up in a schoolgirl’s uniform and Warner’s wife is never seen outside the kitchen.

Well, those things may be worth mentioning, but to notice what are essentially sidelights and ignore the anti-father narrative that appears literally in every scene, is bizarre at best.

What’s worse, though is that the reviewers do what’s unfortunately become de rigueur over the years – they don’t notice who’s wearing the white hat and who the black. I know it’s a fiendishly difficult concept, but, in no-nuance shows like this, when the bad guy (he’s the one in the black hat) says or does something, we know it’s bad. See? He’s the bad guy. When Snidely Whiplash ties Little Nell to the railroad tracks, we’re supposed to know that his doing so is a bad act, not a good one.

Sadly, the college graduates who reviewed the first Dads show haven’t mastered that most basic and simple of concepts. They think that putting the Asian employee in a girl’s school uniform with sexy red bra peeking through, is a slap at women – sexually objectifying them, don’t you know. What they miss is that it’s done by the idiot sons of idiot fathers. Because it’s forced on the young Asian woman by them, we’re meant to understand that sexual objectification of women is bad and therefore so are they. It’s so painfully obvious, but somehow everyone missed it.

Ditto the fact that the three of the four women in the piece – Warner’s wife, the Asian employee and a Hispanic housekeeper for Eli – are the only sane, competent and remotely normal people in the bunch. That may be sexist, because of course women aren’t always that way. On the other hand, it may be sexist because there’s a clear divide here between the sexes that’s far easier to see: the men are destructive idiots and the women are competent and together.

Strange how every single reviewer missed all of that. Is the show sexist? You bet it is; it’s a non-stop tirade against fathers. Somehow the critics managed to not notice.

Generally speaking, I think pop culture should be free to say pretty much anything. I think humor particularly should have a free rein in expressing ideas. But where I draw the line is where it too often promotes discrimination against a certain group of people. Pop culture’s role in creating and maintaining certain concepts is in making them part of the mainstream. It does that by depicting them as normal, everyday.

So, if we’re routinely treated to, say, African-Americans in roles as thugs and dope addicts, pop culture makes it easier for us to subconsciously assume those qualities about blacks. That in turn makes it easier to imprison them, fear them, treat them with suspicion, etc. Black people in the U.S. have a hard time getting an even break in many walks of life, and that sort of portrayal by popular culture makes matters worse. Many blacks have pointed this out many times.

Well, fathers too get the short end of essentially every stick, at least when it comes to their children. From custody to child support to adoption to paternity fraud and more, the legal system kicks dads to the curb, the unsurprising result being damage to them and their kids. It’s a situation that screams for change. Dads urges us to maintain the misandric and destructive status quo.

And not a single critic noticed.

What?!?! COMMON SENSE ALERT!

Let me be clear - I am pro-marriage. Ban divorce for all I care. But when a couple splits, they each take what they have, what they came to the marriage with and walk away, with no distribution of income from one party to the other, period. If you are not married to or seriously dating a woman you do not get to sleep with her. If you are not married to a man, or stay with him, YOU DO NOT GET HIS MONEY. Anyone who thinks that is crazy is a fucking moron. Its fair. Period.

One judge in Israel has woken up:

Child Support Ruling is ‘Very Good News for Divorced Fathers’

Judge makes unprecedented ruling freeing father from all child support obligations due to joint custody, salary gap.

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By Maayana Miskin

First Publish: 8/25/2013, 12:55 PM

Court (illustrative)

Israel news photo: Flash 90

A Tel Aviv judge has ruled that a father from Rehovot does not need to pay child support – setting a precedent that could change child support arrangements for many divorced parents.
Judge Yoram Shaked ruled that the father in question does not need to pay support because he shares custody of his children with his ex-wife, and because she has a higher income and more disposable income than he does. Were the father to pay support, he would need to pay only 300 shekels a month, Shaked found – a finding that led him to decide to waive the obligation to pay altogether.
Attorney Aviv Harel explained the significant of the verdict. “Until today, most judges set minimum child support payments for Jewish fathers that stood at 1,350 shekels per month per child or more,” he said.

“This revolutionary verdict is very good news for divorced fathers, but much less good for divorced mothers in Israel,” he noted.

Courts normally look at two aspects of child support, Harel explained. The first is “essential support,” which includes the cost of food, clothing, housing and healthcare. Fathers are automatically viewed as responsible for paying for “essential support,” regardless of their income, he said.

The second aspect includes “extras” such as vacations, entertainment, and extra-curricular activities. These costs are normally split by divorced parents based on their respective incomes.

Judges usually rule that fathers who share equal custody of their children with the children’s mother must pay 75% of the cost of raising the children, Harel said, while fathers who do not have custody at all must pay 100% support.

In the case in question, the divorced parents share custody of the children. The mother earns more than 18,000 shekels a month and owns a home, while the father earns over 13,000 shekels a month and rents his home. The mother had sued for over 13,000 shekels a month in child support, arguing that she bears primary responsibility for the children and so deserves financial support.

The court found that because the children are with their father half of the time, he is essentially already paying half the cost of “essential support.” The mother, who has significantly more disposable income than her ex-spouse, should legally pay proportionally more for “extras,” Shaked ruled.

Therefore, the father’s obligation to pay 100% of “essential support” is balanced out by the mother’s responsibility to pay proportionally more for “extras,” he said, and the arrangement the two currently have in which neither party pays support to the other is just.

“In light of the tiny sum that the father would be giving the mother, and in light of the fact that in effect the children spend more than half of their time with the father, I saw fit not to obligate the father to give the mother any payment. So the two parents will continue to equally share the costs,” he wrote.

Attorney Harel said the verdict joins several others that indicate a trend toward splitting custody and child support equally in divorce cases.

The case could lead to a reduction in the amount some divorced fathers must pay in child support, he said. However, he noted, the situation in question, in which the mother both earns more than the father and owns a home while he does not, is relatively uncommon.  

When the Law is So Far Adverse to Reason

THEN ITS IN PLACE SIMPLY TO ENRICH A FEW SLEAZY LAWYERS AND THE STATE ITSELF.

PERIOD. THE END.

THIS IS WHY THE UNITED STATES HAS ZERO CREDIBILITY WITH FAMILY/PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP LAWS THE WORLD OVER.

Women's rise in earnings, careers, and education is without question in the past 20 years+, SO AGAIN TELL ME WHY THE BLOODY HELL WE HAVE ALIMONY LAWS!?!?!?!??!

CHANGE COMES SLOWLY TO ALIMONY LAWS, BUT IT COMES

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September 4, 2013 by Robert Franklin, Esq.

The fight against the truly absurd and archaic laws on spousal support continues. And, if this article is any indication, reforms may be getting some traction (Bloomberg, 8/26/13).

Appropriately, the piece begins with a real horror story about a man named Ari Schochet who once had a good job as an investment analyst, but who lost it in the economic downturn. But the judge in his divorce case doesn’t much care that he no longer has the same job and can’t find one as good. Alimony was set at the rate required by his former earnings and, since he’s supposedly able to find a similar one, he can’t get a modification. So his life has become a hell of jail cells and desperate searches for jobs that never pan out.

Ari Schochet has grown so accustomed to being sent to jail for missing alimony payments that he goes into a routine.

Before his family-court hearing, Schochet, 41, sticks on a nicotine patch to cope with jailhouse smoking bans, sends an “Ari Off the Grid” e-mail to friends and family, and scrawls key phone numbers in permanent ink on his forearm.

Schochet, who said he worked as a portfolio manager at Citadel Investment Group Inc. and Fortress Investment Group LLC (FIG) and once earned $1 million a year, has been jailed for missing court-ordered payments at least eight times in the past two years as he coped with the end of his 17-year marriage.

The reason he ran afoul of the law was simple. He was out of work for most of that time, a victim of a weak economy, and he ran through his savings trying to pay his wife alimony and child support that totaled almost $100,000 a year.

“It’s a circle of hell there’s just no way out of,” Schochet said. “I paid it as long as I could.”

That’s too bad for Schochet because it’s going to continue - in his case, for the rest of his life. He and his ex-wife were married for 17 years and, in the eyes of New Jersey law, that means he has to support her until one of them dies. It doesn’t matter what he’s capable of earning; it doesn’t matter what she’s capable of earning; it doesn’t matter if she’s found a job or even tried to. The law is based on the long-antiquated notion that women not only don’t but can’t work for a living.

That of course has never been the case. Women in this culture have never not worked. Oh, some of them have been privileged enough to not have to work and earn, but they’ve always been the small minority. Others have worked. Until the 1930s, most women didn’t work for wages because they worked on farms with their husbands and families. But women who’d moved off of farms worked in a wide variety of jobs, mostly retail sales, nursing, secretarial jobs, restaurant jobs, etc.

Alimony laws were for the women whose husbands earned enough that their wives didn’t have to work. Unsurprisingly, there’s a long history of women who made a living off those laws by serially marrying and divorcing.

But this is 2013. Women make up over 47% of the work force, so, for all practical purposes, there are no women who can’t support themselves. As I’ve said before, there are people of both sexes who can’t do that. They’re disabled or too advanced in age to train for and find work. For those people we can make an exception and say alimony may be necessary. Likewise, I can see one person paying alimony to the other for a short time, say, two years, to allow that person to get up to speed in the job market.

But, as far as I can see, in every other instance, no one should receive alimony. A divorce is a divorce. It means the two no longer want to live together, plan together, keep up the house together, travel together, etc. There is no reason why, in this day and age, either person should be able to continue to rely on the other for support. We champion women’s abilities and drive, but then turn around and treat them like “delicate survivors” from a Tennessee Williams play.

Gradually, some states are starting to haul themselves out of the 19th century.

In states such as New Jersey, Connecticut and Florida where divorce laws are based on century-old notions of what an ex-spouse deserves, laws are being proposed to limit alimony in recognition of wives’ earning power and the changed economic circumstances husbands can face.

The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers in 2007 recommended restricting alimony amounts and duration. The proposal became the basis for Massachusetts’s alimony reform laws in 2011. Those statutes eliminated permanent alimony and gave judges guidelines for calculating amounts.

Three states have enacted laws abolishing permanent alimony with caveats allowing discretion in exceptional cases, according to Laura W. Morgan, an attorney and owner of Family Law Consulting in Charlottesville, Virginia. Lawmakers in at least 10 other states, including New Jersey, are being prompted by advocates to consider more restrictive legislation, said Morgan, who is writing an alimony handbook to be published by the American Bar Association.

New York lawmakers are considering a bill that would create an alimony formula that would require that only spouses with much higher incomes than their ex-partners pay support.

Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy in June signed legislation revising the state’s alimony statutes to add education and earning capacity to a list of factors to be considered. The changes, which take effect Oct. 1, direct judges to specify the basis for any award of permanent alimony. The law also calls for lawmakers to study the fairness and adequacy of statutes governing alimony awards and make recommendations by February.

Unsurprisingly, the only ones opposed to sanity in alimony laws have little with which to back up their arguments.

[Family attorney Laura Morgan] called the current push for change “very male-driven.”

“As men retire, they don’t want to keep paying alimony,” she said. “For every horror story that you can come up with about a support obligor, I can come up with 10 for an obligee who can’t make ends meet because her post-divorce standard of living has so drastically dropped.”

Hmm. What she doesn’t add is how many of those women did little or nothing to contribute to the family’s income while they were married. If a woman or a man allows their marketable skills to erode over the years, for any but the most necessary of reasons (like caring for children or a disability), why should the other spouse pay indefinitely? That spouse has likely already been a drag on the family’s finances during marriage. Why should he/she be one after divorce?

To give an idea of Morgan’s level of intellectual honesty, she adds this chestnut:

“But there is still a glass ceiling, and women are still earning just 70 cents on the dollar” earned by men, Morgan said.

Nonsense. That glass ceiling is made up mostly of women’s refusal to work as many hours as men or at jobs likely to get them into the top echelons of management. Far too much data exists showing women opting out of the workforce and, even when they’re in it, working substantially fewer hours than men for us to buy the glass ceiling claim.

Just last year the Times ran a piece on women in the workplace that featured one headhunter (a woman) for McKenzie and Company who said frankly that they can’t recruit women for top management jobs. They don’t want to pull the hours or deal with the stress, and believe me, I can relate. But women can’t refuse to do the work and then complain about not getting the top positions. Of course few of them do. The ones who are actually in the trenches of top corporate management aren’t the one’s kvetching. It’s mostly academics who wouldn’t be caught dead in the rat race who want to tell the rest of us how the system’s stacked against women.

And of course Morgan’s 70 cents on the dollar claim has been demolished so many times, it’s hard to believe even feminists have the gall to keep bringing it up. Women earn, in the aggregate, less than men for two primary reasons. One is that they don’t work as many hours and the other is that they tend to opt for lower-paying jobs like teaching, nursing, retail sales and secretarial jobs. That may or may not be changing, but the workforce as it’s currently configured has an abundance of women in those jobs. Ergo, they make less on average than do men. Their choices, their consequences.

But alimony law is dead set against the notion that women should have to deal with the results of their own choices. If a woman chooses not to work or to work at a low-paying job, alimony’s there to bail her out.

Meanwhile men and a few women pay every month, sometimes bankrupting themselves in the process. It’s all based on a notion that was never very much true and now is almost never so – that women can’t support themselves. Ari Schochet knows exactly what that means.

“What am I supposed to do?” he said in a phone interview yesterday. “This is so against the law, so against my civil rights. Now I’m stuck in the system again for months. It’s just unbelievable. I have no recourse. The legal system has totally stepped away from me.”