New alimony law is bad for women - CNN.com
children victims of violence.
(CNN) -- If Massachusetts' strangely arcane Alimony Reform Act were to become the law of the land, the financial well-being and security of married women could be seriously threatened.
The law dramatically changes the way judges grant alimony for nonworking ex-spouses. It is written in gender-neutral terminology, but because 97% of the people who seek and require alimony are women, the effects on women will be substantially greater.
First the (oversimplified) basics: The new law decides whether alimony will be granted, if at all, based not on a wide variety of criteria -- such as the value of the nonworking spouse's contributions to the marriage -- but on how many years the couple stayed married and how much money the working spouse made during the marriage. And it won't last a lifetime. If a marriage lasted 15 years, a woman will receive alimony, at most, for only 10½ years.
It's craziness. The Massachusetts legislature has effectively embraced a policy declaring that being married is roughly akin to working in state government. The more years you log, the bigger your pension, and if you make it to certain cut-off periods, you get a larger sum.
Specifically, five years of marriage or less gets the dependent spouse alimony for a period equal to 50% of the number of months the couple was married. So, if a couple stays married for two years, the dependent spouse will receive alimony for no more than 12 months. A marriage that lasts at least 15 years, but less than 20, entitles the dependent spouse to alimony for 80% of the number of months of the marriage.
If it weren't such a dangerous bill, it might be worth only a few snarky remarks about how people are not widgets, and human relationships should not be subjected to mechanical valuation systems. But this is a bill that threatens serious consequences and will affect women in ways that transcend economic concerns.
rest of article at the link
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/09/opinion/murphy-alimony-overhaul-con/index.html
Hilarious that an alimony law offering 'equality' is considered bad for women by this woman. Sorry, sometimes 'equality sucks.'