Pre-nups

That's a spurious reason for supporting it. People in abusive marriages had scope to file for divorce prior to the introduction of No Fault divorce.

In many countries in the Western world, marriage rates are at the lowest on record. There's plenty of reason for that, No Fault divorce being one of them.

 

Well you don't even have to be "married" ...live with someone for 2 years and it's all on the line.

 

If they could prove it. Many abusers are clever enough not to create any evidence. Even in the absence of abuse, I see no positive of having "at fault" divorces.

The kind of person who wouldn't get married because of no fault divorce, is probably the kind of person who shouldn't be married anyway, so I still don't see any negatives.

 

Hmm. Requiring one to provide evidence when making an accusation of a crime. Imagine that!

As long as this attitude prevails throughout much of society, marriage rates will continue to fall. The internet has been a godsend, in that it allows people who have been raked over the coals in divorce court to have a voice that reaches right across the world and is heard by thousands, if not millions.

 

Divorce is a civil not a criminal matter; being a bad spouse is not a crime.

If one has been emotionally abused, I can't imagine that it leads to better outcomes for a spouse to have to first convict their spouse of criminal domestic violence in order to obtain a divorce, than if they could just get a divorce without having to initiate criminal proceedings.

I think the kind of people who get sucked in by mens' rights activists are best staying home alone hating on the world via their keyboards, than out there ruining prospective spouses' lives and reproducing. It is indeed a godsend.

 

Ahhh, resorting to shaming now. It was fun while it lasted. I'm out!

 

I'm not assuming you're one of them; I would give you more credit than that.

I viewed my comments more as a warning against believing them. Because certainly in Australia, talk to any male lawyer who's familiar with divorce laws, and you'll be hard-pressed to find any who think the system is biased towards women. The male divorce lawyers I know are quite committed feminists, precisely because of what they've seen.

If you count yourself as a MRA, well, sorry. If the cap fits...

 

Refer: wolf in sheep's clothing

 

Why does it seem the ones that have nothing to losr and everything to gain are the ones who get offended the most by prenups etc

If i was dating a rich girl, id bring up the prenup first to prove to her i was with her for non financial motives

 

There's a distinction between being offended, and recognising the request for one as indicative of the kind of person one wouldn't want to marry.

 

Had to look up No Fault Divorce

The Family Law Act 1975 established the principle of no-fault divorce in Australian law. This means that a court does not consider which partner was at fault in the marriage breakdown. The only ground for divorce is the irretrievable breakdown of the relationship, demonstrated by 12 months of separation.

 

Other people are NOT within another persons control... I have so seen waaay too much romanctic drama... I admit I LOVED the romantic scandals of equity and trusts law... My lecturer said something along the lines 'you should not be involved with someone that talks about asset protection'... However,if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. I agree that pre-nups are a safety net... If your relationship cannot stand the discussion that isn't a good sign.

 

Hi Perp, I am most certainly not an MRA. To me, feminists and MRA's are flip sides of the same coin. Competing against each other in the Oppression Olympics to see who can be the biggest victim. Both sides disgust me.

Perp, the video below sums up perfectly how I view masculinity - a masculinity that is sadly lacking in our society today - a masculinity that is not only being systematically stripped away, but also by what the MRM has become.



When I first started getting involved in men's issues in general and discovering for myself what masculinity is specifically, the MRM was primarily about fighting for fathers to have more involvement in their childrens' lives. Nowadays it is about 'oppression this and violation of our rights that' and is embarrassingly pathetic.

Jack sums up perfectly in the video what masculinity means to me. Strength, Courage, Mastery, Honour. Masculine virtues that are sadly lacking in today's world of hyper femininity and open hostility towards what it meant to be masculine in generations past. Where the MRM fought for these virtues, today it is sadly a reflection of the opposite. Femininity is a worthwhile virtue - in women - but not in men.

I don't believe in equality. Equality as a concept belongs in the land of fairies and unicorns. It just does not exist in the real world. In any relationship - whether it be husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend or boyfriend and boyfriend or girlfriend and girlfriend or between friends, there is always one party who is dominant and one who is submissive. That's the way it has always been and always will be.

What I believe in is complementarity. Which is:

A relationship or situation in which two or more different things improve or emphasize each other's qualities.

Okay, so let me outline here that I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, an expert on law. However, having listened to and read the experiences of a wide number of men - and I want to point out here that (excuse the caps lock) I DO NOT WANT THIS TO TURN INTO A GENDER ISSUE - that the courts - note I said the courts - NOT the law - are heavily in favour of women.

I've been following these issues for over ten years now and the stories I've heard/read about follow a familiar pattern. Yes, I fully agree that the law is gender neutral, but lawyers play in the grey.

When I hear the same stories repeated over and over from men across not only Australia, but the world, it develops a certain pattern. One that cannot be excused.

When you look at the steady drop in marriage rates *worldwide*, you need to step back and ask yourself: What is the common thread? Look, I know that the prevailing meme (for lack of a better description) is that men are commitment phobic. But that isn't factually correct. Most men I know would love to settle down and get married and have kids.

But the facts are: women initiate the overwhelming majority of divorces, women get primary custody of the children, that men are the ones that lose the majority of their assets and - most importantly - see their children once every few weeks if they are lucky. I know that the popular argument is that men only care about material belongings, but for most guys, what truly breaks their hearts is that they have minimal access to their children. If you talked to these men, 99% of them would give up everything for increased time with their children.

Did you know that divorced men are 39% more likely to commit suicide? Why do you think that is?

Young men are reading and hearing these stories and thinking 'Where's the benefit for me in getting married? What happens if my wife decides to leave me out of the blue, for no reason other than she wants me gone? Why can't I see my kids?' and (rightly so) asking themselves "Where is the benefit for me in getting married when I face this huge risk?"

You may (or may not) know this, but the Howard government passed legislation in 2007 to ensure that fathers were granted more time with their children post divorce. When Labor got in power, they retracted this. Why? They claimed it was to ensure children were not exposed to abuse, however statistics show that children that have access to both parents are less at risk of abuse.

For reals Perp, if you want to have a discussion about this, I will happily discuss it with you until the cows come home, but if you choose to get personal or passive aggressively take cheap shots, I will walk away. Let's focus on the topic.

 

So your lecturer is saying that its not good to be with someone who talks about asset proteciont??

But next sentence he is saying . If you dont do something about it. Its bad?

 

You may or may not remewbr me from ss. But i was one of the most vocals of anti marriage

That being said . The law doesnt favour the women or man. It actually favours the lower earning/educated/qualified/career orientated side. So it could be either man or woman

BUT, society expects/allows/normalises that the man should earn more and should be more qualifiied etc etc etc.

Sure times are changing. But society still expects
- men to pay for dates
- placd a higher value on men with higher paying jobs
- the woman to stay home wheb kids come
- maternity leave>>> daddy leave
- its ok for a 30s single woman to have a crappy job with no savings. While a sinilar man would be considered as not good enough if he had a crappy job/no investment property/deposit for house
-the man having to leave the marital home in case of divorce/separation
-for men to man up when things get tough
- buy an expensive engagement ring

Etc etc etc

Ita no wonder why men in australia and the western world are refusing/reulctant to get married. Unromantic as it seems. Its a lose lose for many of us. Why would men do this. Its like buying a ip wmthats negatively geared plus negative growth!

And for thise women that say oh how unromantic that is. Or if you are thinking about negatives then youll get nowhere or you need to take risks in life or money isnt everything...... will you be wanting to get married if the roles were reversed? ??

 

I'm with you. A relationship in which engaging in rational discussion about important stuff like this can be detrimental is not one I would sign up for as it's clearly built on very weak foundations.

 

Other people's conduct isn't, but you control who you choose to partner with. It's rare that these things aren't predictable, IMHO.

I totally agree with that.

The point of feminism - which I wholeheartedly endorse - is that anybody should be allowed to be how they want. If you want to be that kind of man, power to you! If others don't, that's their choice, too. There's not an ideal "amount" of each kind of being that we should have to conform to, so I don't see how any kind of being male or female can be judged "sadly lacking".

I think relationships are far more multi-dimensional than this. My husband takes the lead in some domains, I take the lead in others. There's no right and wrong; there's what works for each couple. Each party should be respectful to the other. What you describe as complementarity sounds right to me, but many other things you say suggest to me that you have a different view of that than I have, because I think that suggesting that men "should" be a certain way is oppressive.

Only if they view joint assets as "their" assets. What kind of a mindset is this in a partnership?

Not under any court order that complies with Australian law. (Unless there's domestic violence or child abuse involved.)

I totally agree with this. If a man wanted a pre-nup that ensured access to any children we may have together, I'd have a lot more respect for him than if he focused on material items, and I'd think it showed he had good values and priorities.

Because divorce is an horrific experience. I don't claim that it isn't; it's absolutely to be avoided wherever possible.

I may be mistaken, but I really don't believe that anybody approaches the matter this rationally.

Actually, it was 2006: the Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Act 2006 (Cth). It was actually to introduce a presumption of shared parenting responsibility, which may or may not mean equal time. Parental responsibility refers to decision-making, meaning that even if one parent had what used to be called "primary custody", the other parent still had equal input into important decisions affecting the child, e.g. school choice, non-emergency surgery and medical procedures, extra-curricular activities, etc.

That's simply untrue. I assume you're referring to the Family Law Legislation Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Act 2011 (Cth), which was passed years after Labor got into power, so was hardly something that "they did as soon as they could" due to philosophical/political differences; it was done more than 4 years into their government after lengthy submissions and public inquiries.

The main changes that it made don't affect > 90% of families, I imagine, but they were:

1) Previously, when considering shared parental responsibility, the courts had to give consideration to both a) the safety of the child, and b) the maintenance of a relationship with both parents.

There was no guidance as to how to prioritise the two when they were in conflict. There were instances when a court effectively said "I think that the child having a relationship with parent A does benefit them in some ways (e.g. educationally), but that parent also abuses the child. The legislation gives no guidance as to how to weigh these conflicting considerations, so consistent with the overall theme of the legislation and its emphasis on shared parenting responsibility, I have to allow equal shared parental responsibility".

The legislation introduced a provision saying that when the two considerations conflicted, the safety of the child was to be given higher priority. (I would hope that's uncontroversial.)

2) The 2006 legislation controversially introduced a "friendly parent" provision, which basically said that if one parent bad-mouthed the other, or discouraged the relationship with the other parent, that would be weighed against that parent in considering distribution of parental responsibility.

It doesn't take Einstein to see the result: partners who were being abused, or whose children were being abused, or both, refrained from filing complaints of domestic violence for fear that the child would then have to spend more time with their abuser.

This provision was deleted.

I'm not sure what about either of these changes is undesirable.

I remember you

You're focusing entirely on the material. If getting married is intended to be purely a financial prospect, and you're a higher breadwinner, then you're absolutely right that you shouldn't.

I think most people think that marriage is about more than finances.

 

Everything we have we built together. Also, I made a significant career sacrifice for my partner. Therefore I am personally dead set against a pre-nup. We are well and truly defacto now anyway so it does not matter.

The only place I see for a pre-nup is for much older couples who are unlikely to build wealth together and want to, for example, bequeath their assets to their children from a previous marriage.

However in almost all other circumstances both members of a partnership will give either direct or indirect support to the partner building wealth. E.g. emotional, household management, child or pet rearing etc.

 

CORRECT..Very highly regarded academic suggested that you do not want to be in a relationship with a person who talks about asset protection. Needless to say I strongly disagree!

Fav cases would have been (copied from my notes) Stowe v Stowe (1995) 127 FLR 25 – The woman argued that because the man had promised to marry her once he left his wife, and strung her along, during which time she changed her name to Stowe

 

Interesting topic and something I need to think more about.

I'm just wondering how you would go about setting up such an agreement to be fair and equitable. What are the essential ingredients to make an agreement fair and equitable? Can anyone recommend good reading material?