[RD] Marriage and Family Court

[civver_764]

Who has more power in marriage and reproduction, men or women?

Reproduction
Through technology we have made a lot of great strides in women's reproductive rights. Women have several options for affordable birth control and abortions. Legally speaking, they have full discretion over whether or not they have a child. Once the child is born and until paternity is established (which either involves the mother writing the father's name on the birth certificate or the father taking the matter to court) she can put the child up for adoption based solely on her own wishes. If she and the father split while she's pregnant (or during the infant stages), she gets custody by default unless she's clearly a threat to the child's safety. If she can't afford the child's expenses she is entitled to financial support from the state.

For fathers the situation is a lot different. Once he impregnates a woman, he essentially has no more choices. If he wants to keep the child but the mother does not, too bad. Even after his child is born, the mother can put the child up for adoption without his consent. On the other hand, if he doesn't want anything to do with the child but the mother decides to keep the child, he is legally obligated to support the child for 18 years. He also has no legal right to be involved in the child's life, that is something he has to fight for. If he's lucky, he might get to see his kid every other weekend. If he can't afford the child support, he will either be fined or sent to jail.

The general trend here is that where the mother has rights, the father has responsibilities.

Marriage
The disparities that I bring to light here and not about men vs. women per se, as most of our family law is gender-neutral. These disparities are between breadwinners and homemakers, and how we treat each role in the event of a divorce. Most of the time men are the breadwinners and women are the homemakers (or at least the lower income provider), so these issues primarily affect men. Therefore, I will be using gendered pronouns 'he' and 'she' when referring to these roles.

In the event of a divorce, the breadwinner is usually expected to continue supporting his spouse through alimony payments. We generally tend to think that she has a right to financial stability in the event of a divorce. This often results in the breadwinner spending even more money supporting his ex-spouse, in essence his responsibility to her increases. On the other side, her responsibility to him effectively ceases. She no longer has any "homemaking" or "income supplementing" responsibilities to him. Indeed, we would probably consider it abhorrent and a violation of women's rights to suggest otherwise.

With regards to child custody, things are not much better. While fathers will typically get "visitation" rights, they will likely lose custody due to their role in the marriage. The "primary caregiver" is usually given preference when granting custody. The breadwinner is in turn expected to provide child support, no matter his involvement in the child's life. His responsibility to the child increases, but his time with the child decreases.

Given these disparities, is it any wonder that divorced men commit suicide at 8 times the rate of divorced women?

Fatherless Children
Fathers are not the only ones negatively affected by our system. Our children suffer as well. The effects of fatherlessness on children include:

-higher risk of drug/alcohol abuse
-higher risk of dropping out of high school
-higher risk of teen pregnancy
-higher risk of suicide
-higher risk of running away from home
-higher risk of being abused
-higher risk of behavior disorders

Discussion
What can be done about these disparities? How can we make our family law more equitable? Some suggestions:

-allow fathers to get a "legal abortion" where they surrender all parental rights but also all parental obligations
-make father's consent before adoption mandatory, unless the father is genuinely unknown
-make joint legal and physical custody the rule unless a) one of the parents is a danger to the child or b) one of the parents opts out.
-stop punishing fathers for failing to pay child support, and recognize that they need financial stability of their own
-make it significantly more difficult for one parent to move away from the other parent with the child. we need to do everything we can to make sure that both parents are allowed and encouraged to be in their child's life.

And a question: To any of you who are married, who do you feel has the most power in your marriage?

 

[Farm Boy]

make father's consent before adoption mandatory, unless the father is genuinely unknown

It almost always is. You'll have to show me a state where this isn't true before I'll look into it, as I don't believe it off the cuff.

Most situations I am aware of in which the biological father is not "in the know" before an adoption is finalized require a period of a month to three months after the child's birth with no filing by the biological father and after public notices posted at the courthouse/on the courthouse's website/etc. Frankly, I think the law generally gets it about right here. If one has a biological child that one doesn't know about since one hasn't followed up or asserted his right to investigate whether or not the woman he inseminated was impregnated did later give birth? He is grossly negligent in the care of his biological child and no longer deserves a voice in it's rearing. IL state has caveats(is it Federal?) for men who are in service abroad and were not reasonably able to assert their parental rights. Also various caveats for general insanity when it comes to children with traces of native American tribal lineage(pretty sure that's Federal).

No broader statements as to the various family court systems implied by this post.

 

[JollyRoger]

You overstate many of the problems. The father would be first in line to adopt. A father generally can terminate his parental rights. Joint custody is the general starting point today. Child support is generally means tested. There are fairly standard processes in place to keep geographic restrictions on a divorced parent with children.

 

[JollyRoger]

First in line for custody.

 

[caketastydelish]

For the love of Christ, stop making these threads. Your obsession with the topic is freaky.

Moderator Action: Flaming is against the rules. Two point infraction. - Vincour
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Farm Boy]

Present and past inadequacies in the family court system, many times favoring by default inadquate mothers over fathers trying to step to the plate have caused and continue to cause harms that echo on a generational time scale. The damage is real, the pain is real, and somehow it's always just a little bit weird to seem overly intersted in advocating for men who want to man up. Possibly because it's often presented alongside with the men who want to cop out, which then just means the issue being discussed is "stuff random men want when it comes to heterosexual intercourse." Hardly special, that.

 

[Camikaze]

As with all grand pronouncements on 'the law', it's inevitably jurisdiction specific, and you haven't identified the jurisdictions you're talking about, or even referenced any actual law. Assuming though that there's generally a fair amount of similarity across common law jurisdictions, a few points:

• The presumption is generally that a child should be cared for equally by the parents (or each of the parents should enjoy equal custody). To just quote some extracts from the Australian legislation so at least there's something concrete for you to consider,
  
  
  Family Law Act 1975 (Cth)
  
  s 60CA - Child's interests paramount consideration in making a parenting order
  

  In deciding whether to make a particular parenting order in relation to a child, a court must regard the best interests of the child as the paramount consideration.​

  
  s 60CC - How a court determines what is in a child's best interests
  

  (2) The primary considerations are:
  

  (a) the benefit to the child of having a meaningful relationship with both of the child's parents; and
  (b) the need to protect the child from physical or psychological harm from being subjected to, or exposed to, abuse, neglect or family violence.
  ​

  s 61DA - Presumption of equal shared parental responsibility when making parenting orders
  

  (1) When making a parenting order in relation to a child, the court must apply a presumption that it is in the best interests of the child for the child's parents to have equal shared parental responsibility for the child.
  ​

  s 65DAA - Court to consider child spending equal time or substantial and significant time with each parent in certain circumstances
  

  (1) Subject to subsection (6), if a parenting order provides (or is to provide) that a child's parents are to have equal shared parental responsibility for the child, the court must:
  

  (a) consider whether the child spending equal time with each of the parents would be in the best interests of the child; and
  (b) consider whether the child spending equal time with each of the parents is reasonably practicable; and
  (c) if it is, consider making an order to provide (or including a provision in the order) for the child to spend equal time with each of the parents.
  ​
• You're right that the major reason why the mother typically gets more custody than the father is that traditional gender norms place the mother in the role of primary carer, and the father in the role of breadwinner. Usually this means firstly, that it is in the child's best interests to be continued to be cared for by the mother rather than the father, and secondly, that fathers often do not want equal custody, as it would be a huge impediment for e.g. continuing work. Fathers will often seek joint custody as a bargaining position, without genuinely desiring that end result (of course, in particular circumstances, mothers might adopt this bargaining position too). So as we escape from traditional general norms and more mothers become breadwinners, and more fathers become primary carers, you'll see fathers getting more custody, simply as a result of the way in which legislation is framed in a gender neutral way.
  
  
• You've stated that a father who has to pay child support will have seen an increase in his responsibility to the child. This is not the logical conclusion that flows from what you've said. What you're getting across is that each parent retains equal responsibility for a child of the relationship; indeed, that seems to be what you're interested in seeing continue following a separation. But if one party is acquitting that responsibility through being the primary carer for the child, then the other party is required to acquit their equal responsibility by providing financial support. Thus, child support is generally calculated using a formula which takes into consideration the proportion of time the child is with each parent. So in order to maintain equal responsibility for the child, the amount of child support payable is directly related to the non-financial care given to the child.
  
  
• Child support is generally directly related to income. Child support is generally not payable if a party cannot afford it. Recovering unpaid child support is an extremely difficult process for an aggrieved party. No-one goes to jail.
  
  
• You haven't established that it's easy for one parent to take a child away without the other parent's consent. It is generally quite difficult.
  
  
• The title of the post mentions family courts, but nowhere within your post have you referenced the role played by family courts. Presumably the argument goes that, although the law is framed in gender neutral terms, family courts have an ingrained bias towards the mother. This would of course be a strange argument, which assumes that lawyers worldwide are just failing to pick up on clearly appellable error.

Again, this is all jurisdictionally specific, but what you seem to be getting at is a more structural issue related to the basic concepts used in family law in common law jurisdictions. I've demonstrated how a particular common law jurisdiction manages to cope. Providing an example of a jurisdiction which hasn't yet caught up wouldn't establish structural problems.

Though to be fair, you don't actually seem to place much value on the concepts used in family law, but rather on the traditional gender roles which play into those concepts in practice. So your instinctual conclusion that we should look to move beyond traditional gender roles is probably a sound one.

 

[Commodore]

No-one goes to jail.

That's not entirely true. While no one goes to prison specifically for not paying child support, they can be sent to prison for contempt of court and failure to obey a court order. But that only happens if the court determines that not paying court ordered child support was deliberate.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

If having "power" is a major concern of yours when it comes to marriage or reproduction, I don't think you should ever marry or reproduce.

 

[civver_764]

It almost always is. You'll have to show me a state where this isn't true before I'll look into it, as I don't believe it off the cuff.

It is mandatory if the father has established paternal rights, but that can be tricky if the mother fights him. I will grant you that this is a rare circumstance, but I have read a few horrifying stories about fathers losing their children before they were even able to establish their paternity.

A father generally can terminate his parental rights.

As well as his parental obligations(ie. child support)? I've never heard this before.

Joint custody is the general starting point today.

This is true. Joint custody arrangements have been gaining a lot of traction in last few decades. However, and correct me if I'm wrong, the majority of the time it is still the mothers with sole custody and the fathers with only visitation rights. There is also the matter of while sometimes fathers are able to attain joint legal custody, the mother still gets sole physical custody which means the child still sees a lot less of their dad.

There are fairly standard processes in place to keep geographic restrictions on a divorced parent with children.

In California, if one parent has sole custody over a child, they are allowed to request a "move away". At this point the burden of proof is on the parent with visitation rights to show why this would harm the child. I'm not sure on the stats behind this but from what I've read/heard the judge will usually grant these requests.

Present and past inadequacies in the family court system, many times favoring by default inadquate mothers over fathers trying to step to the plate have caused and continue to cause harms that echo on a generational time scale. The damage is real, the pain is real, and somehow it's always just a little bit weird to seem overly intersted in advocating for men who want to man up. Possibly because it's often presented alongside with the men who want to cop out, which then just means the issue being discussed is "stuff random men want when it comes to heterosexual intercourse." Hardly special, that.

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here, care to rephrase?

Though to be fair, you don't actually seem to place much value on the concepts used in family law, but rather on the traditional gender roles which play into those concepts in practice. So your instinctual conclusion that we should look to move beyond traditional gender roles is probably a sound one.

While I am opposed to traditional gender roles, I think my main point is that (male or female) breadwinners shouldn't be denied custody of their children simply because they weren't the primary caretaker during the marriage. After all, once divorce strikes both parents are going to be working full time and taking the breadwinner role.

If having "power" is a major concern of yours when it comes to marriage or reproduction, I don't think you should ever marry or reproduce.

Oh spare me.

 

[Farm Boy]

I feel obliged, just in case this is relevant to anyone now or later, to metion that putative father registeries are generally a thing in the US these days. Unfortunately, California may be behind the times on this. If you think you may have fathered a child that the mother may place for adoption without your consent and over your desire to parent your child, please contact either an attorney who practices in your state or an agency/charity/church which provides advice and support.

 

[Farm Boy]

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here, care to rephrase?

Not really, I cut out all the parts that I thought weren't necessary to get the meaning across, but I can try:

If one wants to assert that men have parental rights in adversarial processes against mothers, then yes, by all means consider me an ally. For all the reasons that society benefits when men man up and do the right thing and for all the reasons that malaise settles in when they flake out. But don't expect me to support men getting rights from doing penis-things and simultaneously expect me to support men getting their counterpoint obligations from doing penis-things erased. Some of the stupidest and most selfish aspects of our society treat sex as if it was a toy, especially for men. If you're going to make the argument it isn't, then it isn't.

 

[civver_764]

You've stated that a father who has to pay child support will have seen an increase in his responsibility to the child. This is not the logical conclusion that flows from what you've said. What you're getting across is that each parent retains equal responsibility for a child of the relationship; indeed, that seems to be what you're interested in seeing continue following a separation. But if one party is acquitting that responsibility through being the primary carer for the child, then the other party is required to acquit their equal responsibility by providing financial support. Thus, child support is generally calculated using a formula which takes into consideration the proportion of time the child is with each parent. So in order to maintain equal responsibility for the child, the amount of child support payable is directly related to the non-financial care given to the child.

I guess what I meant is increase in financial responsibility, since oftentimes the child support comes out to be more than the amount he was paying for the child's expenses during the marriage.

Also, I think it is unfair to say "you are spending less time with your kid, therefore you must pay more" to parents who would want nothing more than to spend more time with their kids. It's like the worst of both worlds.

If one wants to assert that men have parental rights in adversarial processes against mothers, then yes, by all means consider me an ally. For all the reasons that society benefits when men man up and do the right thing and for all the reasons that malaise settles in when they flake out. But don't expect me to support men getting rights from doing penis-things and simultaneously expect me to support men getting their counterpoint obligations from doing penis-things erased. Some of the stupidest and most selfish aspects of our society treat sex as if it was a toy. If you're going to make the argument it isn't, then it isn't.

Are you talking about the legal abortions that I mentioned?

 

[Farm Boy]

Judging.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

This is true. Joint custody arrangements have been gaining a lot of traction in last few decades. However, and correct me if I'm wrong, the majority of the time it is still the mothers with sole custody and the fathers with only visitation rights. There is also the matter of while sometimes fathers are able to attain joint legal custody, the mother still gets sole physical custody which means the child still sees a lot less of their dad.

And yet there are situations that turn out the opposite way. In my own case, my dad had been living in the city with a woman who had 4 kids (from two previous marriages). One reason why it was decided that he would get custody was because my parents thought it would be beneficial for me to live in a household with other kids (I have no siblings). The idea of living with my grandparents was dismissed because of the "they're too old" attitude (not one shared by my grandparents; two years of hell could have been avoided if I'd just moved in with them from the get-go instead of two years later when my dad's relationship with his girlfriend fell apart).

During those two years, I saw my mother for a few hours twice a month. To this day I don't know if that was court-mandated visitation or if it was an informal agreement worked out between my parents. I do know that I had to fight tooth and nail to be able to visit my grandparents, as my dad's girlfriend did everything she could to keep me away from them - even to the extent of saying she wanted to keep me after kicking my dad out, and trying to prevent me from going on our usual spring and summer holidays to visit family in British Columbia. (BTW, are grandparents' rights a thing in your state? Some grandparents have helped in custody fights by making the case that they are entitled to have contact with their grandchildren)

To this day I regard my paternal grandmother as my real mother-figure. My mother eventually remarried and then couldn't understand why I refused to regard any of her new in-laws as my family. Our relationship deteriorated badly over the years, with continual badmouthing of my dad and his family.

It's really a shameful thing when divorced (or estranged) parents use the kids as tools to punish each other - canceling visits, spreading false stories, badmouthing the other parent to the kid.

Civver_764, I honestly do wish you luck in resolving this, and I hope your ex isn't engaging in what my mother did - never passing up an opportunity to tell me what a lazy, useless person she considered my dad to be. I'm not saying my dad was a saint - he was an alcoholic and sometimes I was really furious with him - but for the most part he did the best he could, and decades later I discovered that much of what my mother had been telling me were lies, and lies of omission.

 

[Narz]

I actually have personal experience on this matter (unfortunately) but I don't really care to discuss it.

All I'll say is it pays to make sure you have agreements in writing and be legally binding before you marry or reproduce. Very sad but people who once claimed to love you can turn very cruel.

You want rights? Fight for them before you have to, it's a lot less expensive and emotionally taxing.

I'm not getting involved in this battle of the sexes stuff except to say it's getting more fair for men than it used to be.

And I've heard horrific stories of injustice, court mandated often, from both men and women. People get vicious when they feel spurned, scorned or fear powerlessness. I never thought I'd see such ugliness and lies myself.

 

[Commodore]

I actually have personal experience on this matter (unfortunately) but I don't really care to discuss it.

All I'll say is it pays to make sure you have agreements in writing and be legally binding before you marry or reproduce. Very sad but people who once claimed to love you can turn very cruel.

You want rights? Fight for them before you have to, it's a lot less expensive and emotionally taxing.

I'm not getting involved in this battle of the sexes stuff except to say it's getting more fair for men than it used to be.

And I've heard horrific stories of injustice, court mandated often, from both men and women. People get vicious when they feel spurned, scorned or fear powerlessness. I never thought I'd see such ugliness and lies myself.

In light of all that, it's not hard to see why some people consider either murder or suicide instead of going through a divorce.