…sorry, into, i meant into.
this is the second time the mail has pulled this one isn’t it? just because its a nice vague sentiment, doesn’t make it ok to attribute statements to children you’ve not fucking talked to.
The story about John Cleese has got me thinking: how many years will pass before the brilliance that is the Monty Python team’s work is completely forgotten? I was a big fan in the ’90s; youngsters nowadays don’t seem to care.
“Poison Alyce” – nice to see the DM keeping an even hand in these matters.
But hang on, isn’t she a woman who disagress with her husband and master? Surely she should be burnt, as an example to all women against This Kind Of Thing?
It’s funny how once something or someone has been around long enough, it/they automatically become part of the establishment whether they like it or not. I would hazard a guess Monty Python was something the Mail would have turned red in the face over back in the day for their irreverence and non-conformity, but here the DM are taking John Cleese to their bosom just as they have Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and other former rebels. I bet they could even muster up a soft spot for John Lydon at a push.
JohnD, I love Python, but bizarrely the Beeb, Dave, etc never repeat it. Maybe because it’d show what a heap of repetitive shite Little Britain, Catherine Tate, etc are.
Maybe Cleese and ‘Alyce’ got married and agree to pool everything they had?
Maybe that’s how come she ended up with a fraction of JCs wealth, I dunno.
Perhaps the DM thinks divorced women should only get a small settlement that they approve of?
Why bother with courts?
Rich guys should be able to get married & divorce without consequence, huh?
Never mind, they’ll soon be back to type, serving up some old b*llocks about young people and their lack of responsibility.
The connection must be so hard for them to see.
I don’t get how a divorce would entitle an ex-wife to her husbands money now that women are fully able to work. Makes no sense to me,. It should just entitle you to not be married anymore, but its not a story for the news.
I prefer the term ‘hero’ when it’s given to a bloke who has killed all his servants, strangled his own children, and can throw a javelin for miles though. Now they just give it out to people who get blown up or shot. Hell, I can do that given the right airline ticket.
Women may be “fully” entitled to work, but they are still disproportionatey more likely take a career break or give up work completely to care for children, homes and/or other family members needing care. While during this time they won’t be earning, they will still be working on behalf and to the mutual benefit of both partners – i.e. caring for children and doing housework on behalf of themselves and the working partner. The law reflects the fact that at the end of a marriage, a woman (or less frequently, man) who has given up work in favour of a caring role for a period of her life will have suffered in terms of assets acquired and relative earning power on returning to work and should therefore be entitled to a share of her partner’s earnings in compensation. Which is as it should be, although admittedly divorce settlements aren’t always awarded fairly.
Of course, the Mail thinks all wives should always get bugger all in a divorce, as housework and kids are clearly their responsibility regardless of whether their husband also lives in the house and made a genetic contribution to the kids. And they shouldn’t be getting divorced anyway, they should just stay in an unhappy marriage and make each other miserable well into old age like people did in the good old days.
Antigherkin: “they are still disproportionatey more likely take a career break or give up work completely to care for children”. Sure, and Mothers don’t have jobs? And John Cleese’s ex has young children? And all divorce payouts are because of kids? I just think a divorce should annul a marriage is all. Seems pretty fair to me. I’m not saying a man shouldn’t pay for the upbringing of his children, they should. In this case her kids are from a union with another man anyway.
Yes, mothers have jobs, often after a career break of several months to several years. They are more likely to go into a lower-paid job following this and they are more likely to work part-time. They are also more likely to take future career breaks to have more children or become carers for sick or elderly relatives. In society women are, disproportionately, carers, and their careers suffer as a result. It doesn’t help when the likes of the Mail are loading a burden of guilt on the shoulders of career mothers for “neglecting” their kids (see yesterday’s banner headline).
I’m not talking about the Cleese case. My dispute was over the suggestion women should never get a payout in a divorce because they are “entitled” to work, as if a straightforward choice is involved in an unequal society. By all apperances the settlement in the Cleese case was unfair. I’m sure plenty of divorce settlements are. But where it can be shown that one partner in a marriage, male or female, has suffered career-wise and has fewer assets of their own due to fulfilling a caring or a home-making role, this should be taken into account and a settlement awarded accordingly.
‘fully’ was meant to be ironic, BTW, because it’s the Daily Mail, but I still don’t get how payouts should go to the woman as standard. Child support, yes, but giving your money to someone who can then get married again and/or get a job just seems daft and unfair. What that job pays is irrelevant. People lose jobs and have to get lower paid ones all the time. My brother lost his house, had to pay a fat some to his ex, pays child support and she now lives with the millionaire owner of the company she works at while he had to move back with our mum for a year before he could afford to move out again. How is that fair? He only gets to see his son every two weeks, too. And he loves his son. Sorry, my sympathy glands have dried up on this one and all that ‘home making role’ angle doesn’t wash. That is a choice, and choices have consequences.
There’s no such thing as a straight 50-50 choice. I don’t think divorce payments should go to women as standard, I think that sacrifices which have been made for raising the children and keeping the home of two people by just one of those people should be acknowledged as a form of unpaid work and allowances made, with each case being treated as an individual case. Children have to be borne and raised and the expectation is still on the mother to bear the brunt of this, because she has the biological repsonsibility and the social responsibility seems to naturally follow. Guilt is heaped upon women who are seen as choosing career to the detriment of their children, and god knows, even the most vocal advocate for equal rights doesn’t want to be seen as a bad parent, dumping her toddler with a stranger every day sobbing for mummy while she goes off to the office. Women are trapped in a cycle of lower pay because of their role as a childbearer. Employers too often see them as burdened either with children, resulting in more time off work or the need for flexible hours, or with the capacity to have children, which will affect them in the future if they have to fork out maternity pay. This isn’t just a case of straightforward sexism: those kind of costs could ruin a small business. The full-time pay gap is 17%: for part-timers it’s as high as 35%. Women are likely to earn less than their partners, meaning they feel a further responsibility to be the member of the partnership who gives up work to bring up the kid(s). So of course the level of pay involved in a job counts in a divorce settlement. If I take time out of my professional career in publishing to raise my hypothetical kid until it reaches school age, the chances of me getting a job on an equal footing with my previous one after that length of time out of the game is very slim. The chances of me getting another job in an in-demand industry like publishing at all when the job market is saturated with graduates is very slim. And of course I might need to work flexible hours or part-time to be able to do my duty as a parent, thus ending up in a poorly-paid job just to make ends meet. Why should this not be taken into account in a future separation? The kids I would have given up my career for are my kids and of course it’s my responsibility to care for them, even if it means making sacrifices. But another person who gave them 50% of their DNA shares that responsibility equally and has made far fewer sacrifices. Divorce courts need to take these circumstances into account.
Your brother’s case is your brother’s case, not everyone’s. That is why divorce settlements need to be considered individually and not covered by a blanket rule. And most ex-wives don’t subsequently marry millionaires. You say women can remarry: are you implying divorcees should instantly remarry for financial reasons? What if they have no partner? Want independence? Don’t want to go back into the singles market immediately? Should they neglect that in favour of immediately finding some mug they don’t love to take over role of daddy and breadwinner for them and their kids, a la the Victorian era?
As for custody battles over children, that’s a different kettle of fish and I do agree, fathers are unfairly disadvantaged. But that doesn’t weigh on my opinions about divorce settlements. Thank god the days are gone when a lifetime of childcare and home-making could leave a middle-aged divorcee destitute, as happened in the DM’s glory days.
All the parents I know both work and having been in nursery care myself and I had no problem with it at all and have no memories of crying for my mummy. We all had an ace time playing with sticklebricks and toilet roll tubes. I’m not saying that a divorced woman should marry for financial gain, either. I’m saying that they can marry again and still keep an assload of money if they want, or they can get a job and pay the bills. The fact that their ex-husband may have kept them in a higher standard of living is irrelevant. That life is over when you get divorced, another one begins. They can want all the independence they like. Home-making as a job is another matter. I keep my house tidy because it’s my house. The reward is having a tidy house, and if my wife was out working to pay the mortgage while I looked after the kids then me doing the housework seems fair to me. It’s a partnership, after all. The idea of paying someone to keep their own house up to the spec they want strikes me as silly. Sorry.
My brother was left destitute which is why, at the age of 40, he had to move into our Mum’s house so those days are far from gone. So, yeah, I think the standard settlement should just be childcare payments. That could include nursery costs too, so I don’t really get your points. I’ve said the kids should be looked after financially.
I didn’t mean children actually cry for their mummies (although some will), I mean that is the impression the press like to nurture for the purpose of creating guilt, and I don’t doubt it works. Most (not all – my partner’s sister-in-law, for example, has given up work permanently to care for her kid, and a male friend is also a full-time father while his partner works) of the parents I know work too, but a larger number of the women than men work part-time and most are the low earners in their relationships. A larger number of them are also expected to take responsibility for housework and childcare even while working. One middle-aged lady in my office works four days a week, manages all household chores, waits hand and foot on two adult children who still live at home and one husband and is the sole carer for her frail mother-in-law who has Alzheimer’s (with minimal contribution from the husband whose parent she is). Some women of my acquaintance are graduates who had professional careers until going back to work after having kids, when they took whichever lower-paid job was available and allowed them to be flexible and local enough to get their kids from school/nursery.
Yes, in the circumstances I describe a woman can marry again and still keep the money from her previous divorce settlement. It’s her money. She has earned it from the contribution she made to her previous relationship and household. Her new husband does not take over the role of the old husband as breadwinner automatically and return “his” money. Unless you see marriage as a transferance of property deal and the divorce settlement as a payment to the woman only for as long as she “owns” or supports herself. Their ex-husband “kept” them in a higher standard of living? You imply a wife’s contribution is nil across the board. She’s not a household pet.
And I don’t mean payment for future care of kids. I mean payment for care of kids which has already been carried out. Payment for care of kids and household chores in lieu of equal pay and career options, from someone having just as much responsibility for those things. Home-making is an unsalaried job if you include in that shopping, washing, ironing, cooking and cleaning for a family of three or more as well as childcare responsibilities. And it’s a job which due to complex socio-economic influences more frequently falls to women. If those same women leave a relationship with nothing after years of making an equally valuable contribution to a household as breadwinning, would that be a fair situation? I sympathise with your brother’s circumstances, but an unjust settlement in his case doesn’t make it acceptable for you to argue others should be left in the same situation.
Hey, I never expected such a discussion, I hope this isn’t an argument. I’ll stick to my guns though. Payment for care carried out for kids? Isn’t the reward for that kids that are cared for, don’t stink and are fed? Putting a price on love just doesn’t settle well with me I’m afraid, and since life is, at its most basic level, about creating more life I’d say a kid is plenty reward in itself. If a house is legally put down as belonging to both parties then, sure, if they split and the house is sold then the money should be split too. If it isn’t, then no. Sorry, but that’s just my opinion. It’s not a dangerous one.
I respect what you’re saying, though, and since I’m in no way able to alter the law of the land what I was saying is pretty moot. The law seems to rest more with your thoughts than mine anyway. It does seem, however, that your point is that wives should be paid. I didn’t offer an opinion on that, originally. Now I have. I’m sure I’ll regret it.
The reward for childcare is a healthy, happy child, which I’m sure is what both parents would want. But the cost of a healthy, happy child is the loss or downgrading of a parent’s career, which only one of that child’s creators is usually required to pay. In the event of a separation, why should the partner who did not have to make that sacrifice not make provision for the partner who did?
The law is not on my side. I believe maternity leave should be replaced with a system of parental leave such as that in Sweden, that divorce settlements should make greater acknowledgement of individual circumstances and that male parents, grandparents and step-parents with whom a child has a bond should be given more consideration in decisions on access and custody.
I also don’t accept that life is about creating more life. I wasn’t planning on creating any, and I consider my life pretty bloody valuable and full of exciting purpose.
Nor do I claim wives should be paid. In the event of the breakdown of a relationship in which they have invested a large part of themselves and their lives, they should be compensated for the loss if assets previously considered by them to be shared and which their economic and social investment in the relationship and its outcomes gives them an entitlement to. This is not the same as some kind of spousal salary.
It’s a relief to get away from arguing about Islam and immigration for a change. How did ‘poison Alyce take John Cleese for £12.5 m?’ Very simple. Because John Cleese is an ageing man who, unfortunately for him, hasn’t lost his libido. Which made it much easier for a little gold-digging minx to get her claws into him. And no, I’m not being sexist, good luck to the little gold-digger in question. Over the centuries women have taken no end of crap from my sex. So if some of them are getting their own back now, then it only seems fair.
PS The day that a woman in a Muslim country can get £12.5 m. off her ex will be the day that Islam can say that it has caught up with the rest of the world. I’m not holding my breath!
I had whole long reply I posted from my iPhone yesterday which was awaiting moderation and now seems to have disappeared. Ah well, I can’t be bothered typing it again. Maybe it will turn up.
NeanderP or whatever your name is: you seem to think that saying you’re not being sexist makes it true. You have infantilised a middle-aged woman as “little” for a start. Just taking her part or slagging off your “own” sex doesn’t make this any less patronising. And then your claim that women should “get their own back” on men for past mistreatments, as if adult women are entitled to behave with all the mental maturity of a five year old because you have given your consent. The past is done with: we should be working to iron out the inequalities still inherent in the system as a result of that past, not sticking our tongues out and chanting “ner ner ner ner ner” at each other. I don’t see why an individual should be held collectively responsibility for past injustices committed by people with whom he happens to share a set of genitals.
I think compared to John Cleese most people are little. Well, anyway, I certainly didn’t expect some sort of Spanish inquisition, that’s for sure. I’m out. No doubt my opinion’s on divorce will change, I only got engaged the other week. Fingers crossed….
Ally, Neander – get a room. You can both rip pages out of the Koran, wipe it on each other’s gleaming arses and listen to the speeches of Churchill until the sun comes up and no lefty police will drag you out to the PC courts. Your delusions seem just as deluded as any supernatural answer to the question of the authorship of an old book. ‘Irony’!
Given that John Cleese is 6′4″ and she comes up past his shoulder, she must be well over the 5′6″ average height for women even if she’s wearing 6″ heels.
On the subject of Cleese’s genitals, I’m bagsying his left testicle. Unless the rumours are true, and he actually lost it during a performance of the Ministry of Silly Walks sketch in 1978.
Yeah, little is comparative. Compared to Eddie Large I’m pretty slim. Compared to a goldfish I’m pretty smart. I imagine I could use John Cleese’s testicles as a beanbag, though. Mmmmmn.
ah, out of the mouths of babes.
…sorry, into, i meant into.
this is the second time the mail has pulled this one isn’t it? just because its a nice vague sentiment, doesn’t make it ok to attribute statements to children you’ve not fucking talked to.
The story about John Cleese has got me thinking: how many years will pass before the brilliance that is the Monty Python team’s work is completely forgotten? I was a big fan in the ’90s; youngsters nowadays don’t seem to care.
Oh noees, not that word ‘hero’ again
I await the usual moans
“Poison Alyce” – nice to see the DM keeping an even hand in these matters.
But hang on, isn’t she a woman who disagress with her husband and master? Surely she should be burnt, as an example to all women against This Kind Of Thing?
“how did poison alyce take john cleese for £12.5m?”
i dunno, did she get tips from “money mail”?
It’s funny how once something or someone has been around long enough, it/they automatically become part of the establishment whether they like it or not. I would hazard a guess Monty Python was something the Mail would have turned red in the face over back in the day for their irreverence and non-conformity, but here the DM are taking John Cleese to their bosom just as they have Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and other former rebels. I bet they could even muster up a soft spot for John Lydon at a push.
JohnD, I love Python, but bizarrely the Beeb, Dave, etc never repeat it. Maybe because it’d show what a heap of repetitive shite Little Britain, Catherine Tate, etc are.
And guess whose paying for it?
Oh i think the Mail missed something there.
Maybe Cleese and ‘Alyce’ got married and agree to pool everything they had?
Maybe that’s how come she ended up with a fraction of JCs wealth, I dunno.
Perhaps the DM thinks divorced women should only get a small settlement that they approve of?
Why bother with courts?
Rich guys should be able to get married & divorce without consequence, huh?
Never mind, they’ll soon be back to type, serving up some old b*llocks about young people and their lack of responsibility.
The connection must be so hard for them to see.
I don’t get how a divorce would entitle an ex-wife to her husbands money now that women are fully able to work. Makes no sense to me,. It should just entitle you to not be married anymore, but its not a story for the news.
I prefer the term ‘hero’ when it’s given to a bloke who has killed all his servants, strangled his own children, and can throw a javelin for miles though. Now they just give it out to people who get blown up or shot. Hell, I can do that given the right airline ticket.
Women may be “fully” entitled to work, but they are still disproportionatey more likely take a career break or give up work completely to care for children, homes and/or other family members needing care. While during this time they won’t be earning, they will still be working on behalf and to the mutual benefit of both partners – i.e. caring for children and doing housework on behalf of themselves and the working partner. The law reflects the fact that at the end of a marriage, a woman (or less frequently, man) who has given up work in favour of a caring role for a period of her life will have suffered in terms of assets acquired and relative earning power on returning to work and should therefore be entitled to a share of her partner’s earnings in compensation. Which is as it should be, although admittedly divorce settlements aren’t always awarded fairly.
Of course, the Mail thinks all wives should always get bugger all in a divorce, as housework and kids are clearly their responsibility regardless of whether their husband also lives in the house and made a genetic contribution to the kids. And they shouldn’t be getting divorced anyway, they should just stay in an unhappy marriage and make each other miserable well into old age like people did in the good old days.
Antigherkin: “they are still disproportionatey more likely take a career break or give up work completely to care for children”. Sure, and Mothers don’t have jobs? And John Cleese’s ex has young children? And all divorce payouts are because of kids? I just think a divorce should annul a marriage is all. Seems pretty fair to me. I’m not saying a man shouldn’t pay for the upbringing of his children, they should. In this case her kids are from a union with another man anyway.
Yes, mothers have jobs, often after a career break of several months to several years. They are more likely to go into a lower-paid job following this and they are more likely to work part-time. They are also more likely to take future career breaks to have more children or become carers for sick or elderly relatives. In society women are, disproportionately, carers, and their careers suffer as a result. It doesn’t help when the likes of the Mail are loading a burden of guilt on the shoulders of career mothers for “neglecting” their kids (see yesterday’s banner headline).
I’m not talking about the Cleese case. My dispute was over the suggestion women should never get a payout in a divorce because they are “entitled” to work, as if a straightforward choice is involved in an unequal society. By all apperances the settlement in the Cleese case was unfair. I’m sure plenty of divorce settlements are. But where it can be shown that one partner in a marriage, male or female, has suffered career-wise and has fewer assets of their own due to fulfilling a caring or a home-making role, this should be taken into account and a settlement awarded accordingly.
i see the leftie justice policy at work again,letting a convicted mass murder go free.
‘fully’ was meant to be ironic, BTW, because it’s the Daily Mail, but I still don’t get how payouts should go to the woman as standard. Child support, yes, but giving your money to someone who can then get married again and/or get a job just seems daft and unfair. What that job pays is irrelevant. People lose jobs and have to get lower paid ones all the time. My brother lost his house, had to pay a fat some to his ex, pays child support and she now lives with the millionaire owner of the company she works at while he had to move back with our mum for a year before he could afford to move out again. How is that fair? He only gets to see his son every two weeks, too. And he loves his son. Sorry, my sympathy glands have dried up on this one and all that ‘home making role’ angle doesn’t wash. That is a choice, and choices have consequences.
When the right people are getting the money it’s described as “justice” and a “refund of fees”, not a “handout” costing taxpayers.
There’s no such thing as a straight 50-50 choice. I don’t think divorce payments should go to women as standard, I think that sacrifices which have been made for raising the children and keeping the home of two people by just one of those people should be acknowledged as a form of unpaid work and allowances made, with each case being treated as an individual case. Children have to be borne and raised and the expectation is still on the mother to bear the brunt of this, because she has the biological repsonsibility and the social responsibility seems to naturally follow. Guilt is heaped upon women who are seen as choosing career to the detriment of their children, and god knows, even the most vocal advocate for equal rights doesn’t want to be seen as a bad parent, dumping her toddler with a stranger every day sobbing for mummy while she goes off to the office. Women are trapped in a cycle of lower pay because of their role as a childbearer. Employers too often see them as burdened either with children, resulting in more time off work or the need for flexible hours, or with the capacity to have children, which will affect them in the future if they have to fork out maternity pay. This isn’t just a case of straightforward sexism: those kind of costs could ruin a small business. The full-time pay gap is 17%: for part-timers it’s as high as 35%. Women are likely to earn less than their partners, meaning they feel a further responsibility to be the member of the partnership who gives up work to bring up the kid(s). So of course the level of pay involved in a job counts in a divorce settlement. If I take time out of my professional career in publishing to raise my hypothetical kid until it reaches school age, the chances of me getting a job on an equal footing with my previous one after that length of time out of the game is very slim. The chances of me getting another job in an in-demand industry like publishing at all when the job market is saturated with graduates is very slim. And of course I might need to work flexible hours or part-time to be able to do my duty as a parent, thus ending up in a poorly-paid job just to make ends meet. Why should this not be taken into account in a future separation? The kids I would have given up my career for are my kids and of course it’s my responsibility to care for them, even if it means making sacrifices. But another person who gave them 50% of their DNA shares that responsibility equally and has made far fewer sacrifices. Divorce courts need to take these circumstances into account.
Your brother’s case is your brother’s case, not everyone’s. That is why divorce settlements need to be considered individually and not covered by a blanket rule. And most ex-wives don’t subsequently marry millionaires. You say women can remarry: are you implying divorcees should instantly remarry for financial reasons? What if they have no partner? Want independence? Don’t want to go back into the singles market immediately? Should they neglect that in favour of immediately finding some mug they don’t love to take over role of daddy and breadwinner for them and their kids, a la the Victorian era?
As for custody battles over children, that’s a different kettle of fish and I do agree, fathers are unfairly disadvantaged. But that doesn’t weigh on my opinions about divorce settlements. Thank god the days are gone when a lifetime of childcare and home-making could leave a middle-aged divorcee destitute, as happened in the DM’s glory days.
All the parents I know both work and having been in nursery care myself and I had no problem with it at all and have no memories of crying for my mummy. We all had an ace time playing with sticklebricks and toilet roll tubes. I’m not saying that a divorced woman should marry for financial gain, either. I’m saying that they can marry again and still keep an assload of money if they want, or they can get a job and pay the bills. The fact that their ex-husband may have kept them in a higher standard of living is irrelevant. That life is over when you get divorced, another one begins. They can want all the independence they like. Home-making as a job is another matter. I keep my house tidy because it’s my house. The reward is having a tidy house, and if my wife was out working to pay the mortgage while I looked after the kids then me doing the housework seems fair to me. It’s a partnership, after all. The idea of paying someone to keep their own house up to the spec they want strikes me as silly. Sorry.
My brother was left destitute which is why, at the age of 40, he had to move into our Mum’s house so those days are far from gone. So, yeah, I think the standard settlement should just be childcare payments. That could include nursery costs too, so I don’t really get your points. I’ve said the kids should be looked after financially.
I didn’t mean children actually cry for their mummies (although some will), I mean that is the impression the press like to nurture for the purpose of creating guilt, and I don’t doubt it works. Most (not all – my partner’s sister-in-law, for example, has given up work permanently to care for her kid, and a male friend is also a full-time father while his partner works) of the parents I know work too, but a larger number of the women than men work part-time and most are the low earners in their relationships. A larger number of them are also expected to take responsibility for housework and childcare even while working. One middle-aged lady in my office works four days a week, manages all household chores, waits hand and foot on two adult children who still live at home and one husband and is the sole carer for her frail mother-in-law who has Alzheimer’s (with minimal contribution from the husband whose parent she is). Some women of my acquaintance are graduates who had professional careers until going back to work after having kids, when they took whichever lower-paid job was available and allowed them to be flexible and local enough to get their kids from school/nursery.
Yes, in the circumstances I describe a woman can marry again and still keep the money from her previous divorce settlement. It’s her money. She has earned it from the contribution she made to her previous relationship and household. Her new husband does not take over the role of the old husband as breadwinner automatically and return “his” money. Unless you see marriage as a transferance of property deal and the divorce settlement as a payment to the woman only for as long as she “owns” or supports herself. Their ex-husband “kept” them in a higher standard of living? You imply a wife’s contribution is nil across the board. She’s not a household pet.
And I don’t mean payment for future care of kids. I mean payment for care of kids which has already been carried out. Payment for care of kids and household chores in lieu of equal pay and career options, from someone having just as much responsibility for those things. Home-making is an unsalaried job if you include in that shopping, washing, ironing, cooking and cleaning for a family of three or more as well as childcare responsibilities. And it’s a job which due to complex socio-economic influences more frequently falls to women. If those same women leave a relationship with nothing after years of making an equally valuable contribution to a household as breadwinning, would that be a fair situation? I sympathise with your brother’s circumstances, but an unjust settlement in his case doesn’t make it acceptable for you to argue others should be left in the same situation.
Hey, I never expected such a discussion, I hope this isn’t an argument. I’ll stick to my guns though. Payment for care carried out for kids? Isn’t the reward for that kids that are cared for, don’t stink and are fed? Putting a price on love just doesn’t settle well with me I’m afraid, and since life is, at its most basic level, about creating more life I’d say a kid is plenty reward in itself. If a house is legally put down as belonging to both parties then, sure, if they split and the house is sold then the money should be split too. If it isn’t, then no. Sorry, but that’s just my opinion. It’s not a dangerous one.
I respect what you’re saying, though, and since I’m in no way able to alter the law of the land what I was saying is pretty moot. The law seems to rest more with your thoughts than mine anyway. It does seem, however, that your point is that wives should be paid. I didn’t offer an opinion on that, originally. Now I have. I’m sure I’ll regret it.
The reward for childcare is a healthy, happy child, which I’m sure is what both parents would want. But the cost of a healthy, happy child is the loss or downgrading of a parent’s career, which only one of that child’s creators is usually required to pay. In the event of a separation, why should the partner who did not have to make that sacrifice not make provision for the partner who did?
The law is not on my side. I believe maternity leave should be replaced with a system of parental leave such as that in Sweden, that divorce settlements should make greater acknowledgement of individual circumstances and that male parents, grandparents and step-parents with whom a child has a bond should be given more consideration in decisions on access and custody.
I also don’t accept that life is about creating more life. I wasn’t planning on creating any, and I consider my life pretty bloody valuable and full of exciting purpose.
Nor do I claim wives should be paid. In the event of the breakdown of a relationship in which they have invested a large part of themselves and their lives, they should be compensated for the loss if assets previously considered by them to be shared and which their economic and social investment in the relationship and its outcomes gives them an entitlement to. This is not the same as some kind of spousal salary.
It’s a relief to get away from arguing about Islam and immigration for a change. How did ‘poison Alyce take John Cleese for £12.5 m?’ Very simple. Because John Cleese is an ageing man who, unfortunately for him, hasn’t lost his libido. Which made it much easier for a little gold-digging minx to get her claws into him. And no, I’m not being sexist, good luck to the little gold-digger in question. Over the centuries women have taken no end of crap from my sex. So if some of them are getting their own back now, then it only seems fair.
PS The day that a woman in a Muslim country can get £12.5 m. off her ex will be the day that Islam can say that it has caught up with the rest of the world. I’m not holding my breath!
hello leftie scum,what are you complaining at now,when are you going to slag off the koran
ally
*chase me*
Rather pathetic old son.
I had whole long reply I posted from my iPhone yesterday which was awaiting moderation and now seems to have disappeared. Ah well, I can’t be bothered typing it again. Maybe it will turn up.
NeanderP or whatever your name is: you seem to think that saying you’re not being sexist makes it true. You have infantilised a middle-aged woman as “little” for a start. Just taking her part or slagging off your “own” sex doesn’t make this any less patronising. And then your claim that women should “get their own back” on men for past mistreatments, as if adult women are entitled to behave with all the mental maturity of a five year old because you have given your consent. The past is done with: we should be working to iron out the inequalities still inherent in the system as a result of that past, not sticking our tongues out and chanting “ner ner ner ner ner” at each other. I don’t see why an individual should be held collectively responsibility for past injustices committed by people with whom he happens to share a set of genitals.
Not literally, obviously. It would be pretty awkward if men all had to share John Cleese’s genitals.
I think compared to John Cleese most people are little. Well, anyway, I certainly didn’t expect some sort of Spanish inquisition, that’s for sure. I’m out. No doubt my opinion’s on divorce will change, I only got engaged the other week. Fingers crossed….
Ally, Neander – get a room. You can both rip pages out of the Koran, wipe it on each other’s gleaming arses and listen to the speeches of Churchill until the sun comes up and no lefty police will drag you out to the PC courts. Your delusions seem just as deluded as any supernatural answer to the question of the authorship of an old book. ‘Irony’!
Given that John Cleese is 6′4″ and she comes up past his shoulder, she must be well over the 5′6″ average height for women even if she’s wearing 6″ heels.
On the subject of Cleese’s genitals, I’m bagsying his left testicle. Unless the rumours are true, and he actually lost it during a performance of the Ministry of Silly Walks sketch in 1978.
it’s fun not to feed the trolls
Yeah, little is comparative. Compared to Eddie Large I’m pretty slim. Compared to a goldfish I’m pretty smart. I imagine I could use John Cleese’s testicles as a beanbag, though. Mmmmmn.