Do Gays Need Alimony?
As the Daily Mail reports, Jodie Foster and her partner of fifteen years, Cydney Bernard, recently ended their relationship. That made me wonder: will Cydney ask for alimony?
Sure, they weren’t married, but that didn’t stop Judy Nelson from suing Martina Navratilova for some type of alimony back in 1991 when their eight-year relationship ended, making both parties settle out of court.
I hope alimony is never something I have to think about in my own life, but with the advent of gay marriage here in California, people all around me are buzzing about future nuptials, and let’s face it: half of all marriages end in divorce. Perhaps alimony is something we need to consider, and maybe redefine for our own purposes.
Historically speaking, alimony doesn’t fit gay marriage. Alimony here in the U.S. evolved from religious courts in England which allowed husband and wife to be separated, but never actually dissolved the union, nor restored the rights of a single woman. As DivorceNet explains, ‘œThe rights of a woman to personal property and profits from realty were vested in her husband by law after the marriage. The husband was seen as the ruler of the family and responsible for management of the marital property. Therefore, to protect the wife, a common law duty of support from the husband arose.”
Here in the U.S., we made the dissolution of marriage absolute, but we kept the part where one spouse of either gender has to support the other after marriage.
Do we really need to keep around something this archaic for the modern notion of gay marriage?
Child support is an entirely different animal, which I believe is an absolutely necessary obligation to the children in the middle of a divorce. But with alimony I ask: Wouldn’t you just want to move on from the relationship and rely on yourself?
Getting rid of alimony altogether doesn’t make sense either.
For example (via Queery), David Gonzalez and Steven Green got married in Massachusetts but later signed a separation agreement after their relationship soured. Gonzalez then also filed for divorce in New York (despite having already agreed to the separation agreement), so Green counter-sued for the return of $780,000 ski-house he agreed to give Gonzalez.
The presiding judge denied the divorce because gay marriage is not legal in New York, but awarded the $780,000 alimony to Gonzalez. In this case, the right to alimony protected the distribution of assets as stated in a separation agreement.
And then there are cases where people seek alimony due to adultery or abuse in a relationship. In these cases, alimony could certainly help with the process of healing.
But while politicos chatter about whether or not gay marriage will end the world, perhaps it’s time for us gays to consider whether alimony is too much of a safety crutch for settling down into our own permanent unions that are finally getting the recognition they deserve.
What’s your take on alimony?
As a straight man, I can tell my gay brothers here that you definitely don’t want to venture in the dark world of alimony. During the days of fault-only divorce, alimony was a logical enforcement tool to keep the two parties to the marriage loyal to the terms of the contract. It kept the “husband” in line by the threat of having to pay it, and it kept the “wife” in line by the threat of not receiving it. It was the perfecet positive/negative enforcement tool. (carrot to one party, stick to the other party).
However in the post no-fault days, Alimony is an odd dinasaur which has no logical use.
Unless one keenly supports Communist/Marxist principles (comrade Boris sits in his warm Moscow apartment all day, while comrade Ivan slaves away in the Siberian Uranium mines: at the end of the month they split Ivan’s paycheck 50/50; under threat of government violence against Ivan), then Alimony definitely shouldn’t deserve your support. This is especailly true given that the current law does not distinguish between the party that broke the marriage contrct (through cheating, leaving, etc) and the party who tried to stay loyal to it and uphold it. If the cheater/abandoner can get awarded alimony in today’s world under today’s rules, then this left-over artifact needs to go.