Alimony

Abstract: ALL marriages are entered into with the promise, and most with the intention, that the relationship will last a lifetime. This basic promise represents and implies a vast set of other promises as to how the marriage shall be conducted. All too frequently these promises are broken, and the parties seek to dissolve their agreement; that is, to divorce. Precisely because marriage is a species of contract, many of the problems inherent in fashioning an efficient and equitable law of divorce, alimony, and property division are variations and special cases of the difficulties that surface in the enforcement of commercial contracts.l In marrying, men and women exchange promises to deliver a lifetime stream of spousal services. These services are peculiar in that their value is crucially dependent on the attitude with which they are delivered and received. In reliance on the promise of these services, each party invests in assets specific to this marriage and forgoes other opportunities both for marriage and for other activities. Over time, the utility functions, information, and opportunities of both marriage partners change. Frequently, one or the other party will, during the course of the marriage, have an incentive to breach the contract. A party who breaches destroys much of the life-cycle value of the marriage for his or her spouse. When a marriage ends in divorce, both parties usually return to the marriage market, the conceptual place in which the original marriage partner was secured and the marriage agreement con-

Abstract: Conflict and controversy usually accompany major social changes in America. Such issues as civil rights, abortion, and the proposed Equal Rights Amendment provoke strong and divisive reactions, attract extensive media coverage, and generate heated legislative debate. Some theorists even claim that only mobilization and publicity can stimulate significant legislative change. How is it possible, then, that a wholesale revamping of American divorce law occurred with scarcely a whisper of controversy and without any national debate? This is the central question posed and authoritatively answered in Herbert Jacob's "Silent Revolution."Since 1966, divorce laws in the United States have undergone a radical transformation. No-fault divorce is now universally available. Alimony functions simply as a brief transitional payment to help a dependent spouse become independent. Most states divide assets at divorce according to a community property scheme, and, whenever possible, many courts prefer to award custody of children to the mother and the father jointly. These changes in policy represent a profound departure from traditional American values, and yet the legislation by which they were enacted was treated as a technical correction of minor problems. No-fault divorce, for example, was a response to the increasing number of fraudulent divorce petitions. Since couples were often forced to manufacture the evidence of guilt that many states required, and since judges frequently looked the other way, legal reformers sought no more than to bring divorce statutes into line with current practice. On the basis of such observations, Jacob formulates a new theory of routine as opposed to conflictual policy-making processes. Many potentially controversial policies divorce law reforms among them pass unnoticed in America because legislators treat them as matters of routine. Jacob's is indeed the most plausible account of the enormous number and steady flow of policy decisions made by state legislatures. It also explains why no attention was paid to the effect divorce reform would have on divorced women and their children, a subject that has become increasingly controversial and that, consequently, is not likely to be handled by the routine policy-making process in the future."

Abstract: Allocation of Income within the Household develops an important new economic model of income distribution within the family, one that attempts to determine which family characteristics affect spending patterns. Professors Lazear and Michael base their work on an analysis of the 1972-73 Consumer Expenditure Survey and test their conclusions against the 1960-61 survey to verify the persistence of the effects discovered. They find, for example, that the average household spends $38 per child for every $100 spent per adult and that the level of relative and absolute expenditure on the child rises with the level of education of the head of the household. Lazear and Michael also explore the implications their study may hold for the process of determining child support payments in households that dissolve. They argue that, unless the spending of every dollar can be monitored, alimony cannot be disentangled from child support. They also develop several criteria by which income might be distributed among family members, and, using one of those criteria, they present a series of tables that suggest the appropriate payment from one parent to another given family size, structure, and income level. Their model is particularly useful because it takes account of the ways other family members who were not part of the original household may contribute income to the new household. Other issues considered include the appropriate way to deal with children with special needs and the timing of transfer payments.

Abstract: Little research has been done on antifeminism, whether from the perspective of the sociology of social movements or even of women's studies. Yet, a particular form of antifeminism has been at work for a number of years, more specifically, masculinism. Its discourse claims that men are in crisis because of the feminization of society and it mobilizes primarily around issues pertaining to the interests of fathers and spouses (divorce laws, alimony, child custody, violence). This article examines two alternative explanations of the masculinist phenomenon: (1) men have real problems, and masculinists scapegoat women and feminists instead of targeting the true causes of their problems, such as the transformation of the labor market; (2) masculinism is openly opposed to feminism and is thus the result of countermovement dynamics. While referring to other contexts (UK, the USA, etc.), our paper takes the situation in Quebec (Canada) as a case study. The feminist movement and masculinism are dynamic there and sta...