Briffault's Law

[Krynn72]

So apparently there was a show on Discovery that talked about how some dude got ****ed by his ex wife via child support (the lady was asking for more than 100% of his post-taxes income) and then sent to jail for not paying it. Apparently it happened because of something called Briffault's law? I just saw this video on it and had never heard of it before. Now the video itself I take with a large grain of salt (its mostly clips from the show, with bits of your typical butthurt youtube commentary). Its got a thick air of melodrama to it, and a clear bias, but I can't really find any other information on this law. Anyone know more about it, or about similar laws in other states?

 

[ríomhaire]

I haven't watched the video yet but I did a quick google on "Briffault's law" and it seems to be a load of "oh noes the feminists" shite.

The female, not the male, determines all the conditions of the animal family. Where the female can derive no benefit from association with the male, no such association takes place.

Oh dear god what a load of crap. While in a way true (generally a relationship is symbiotic and does not occur if both parties derive no benefit) I would say that there are a hell of a lot more relationships out there where men derive benefit and women derive rape, beatings and servitude. Look at the history of women's rights, look at present day Saudi Arabia.

Now I know that child support and such things are often weighted too much in favour of the women (also cases where the police are called because of domestic abuse from a woman to a man and arrest the man). So yeah, there are cases where society is unfairly biased towards women but to say that women domination relationships in society is laughable.


Edit: Krynn, I don't think this is an actual legal law. It's a law as in Poe's Law and Godwin's Law.

 

[kineaesth]

This stinks of "Men's Rights"-type bullshit. Ignore at all costs

 

[Krynn72]

Edit: Krynn, I don't think this is an actual legal law. It's a law as in Poe's Law and Godwin's Law.

That makes more sense, but then there's got to be a law that enables the woman to do the kind of shit she does to the guy in the video still.

This stinks of "Men's Rights"-type bullshit. Ignore at all costs

The video does of course, but as far as I can tell the guy who was sent to prison because his ex was demanding over 100% of his income seems legit. Should things like that be ignored? Also, I find it humorous that you put Men's Rights in sarcastic quotes like you dont think men should have rights that protect them. I know (hope) thats not what you meant, but it made me laugh just like I do when I see people talk about "'Women's Rights' bullshit".

 

[kineaesth]

"These ****ing hippies, always on about "Human Rights""

With Men's Rights, I was referring to this http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/ and other similar examples of horrid, backward forums and messageboards.


(and in the interest of transparency I edited your post to remove a typo I made while quite tired last night)

 

[Raziaar]

Does alimony for life bother anyone?

Even alimony itself bothers me, because of the degree at which you need to pay. You have to ensure the standard of living for your non working spouse(what if she was working? They can still get alimony then too I think) that she had during the marriage. If your quality of life plummets and you can't afford the alimony, it doesn't matter cause you still have to support that quality of life for your spouse.

I think support for a brief while is fine, like unemployment from an employer, so that the spouse has time to get accustomed to having to find work again, but them being able to keep that level of living without having to work is just ridiculous.

It's some of the more backwards states that have it for life, but I doubt there's any connection there. Mississippi rings a bell.

 

[Krynn72]

Thats kind of what I was trying to get at with this thread. I dont really know much about the topic, and am wondering if people here know much about it. It seems like the way alimony and child support costs are determined is pretty ****ed up, in that the wife essentially gets to set it to whatever she wants.

 

[KiplingsCat]

Alimony seems kind of dated to me...I mean, it's more normal now for both partners to be working, so it just doesn't seem necessary. Also, why should you benefit from a relationship that you are no longer in? I mean, if I split up with my boyfriend, I won't still expect him to drive me places and buy ice cream for me. That would be insane.

Child support is a different issue. I'm totally for child support, in that children shouldn't lose out financially because of the relationship status of their parents.

 

[ríomhaire]

I can understand the point of alimony in the short term. I mean, if your spouse was the only one earning money for years and you had no way to support yourself because you had become entirely dependant on the other person...well I think seeing as that other person took it on themselves to exclusively support the first person it would be unreasonable to just suddenly dumping them with nothing but it should only be for helping the other person get back on their feet. Permanent alimony is crazy.

 

[KiplingsCat]

To be fair, this whole Briffault's law thing is crazy too though. One law being unfair =/= all womans are evil. This level of hatred and anger doesn't help anyone or change anything.

 

[Krynn72]

I can understand the point of alimony in the short term. I mean, if your spouse was the only one earning money for years and you had no way to support yourself because you had become entirely dependant on the other person...well I think seeing as that other person took it on themselves to exclusively support the first person it would be unreasonable to just suddenly dumping them with nothing but it should only be for helping the other person get back on their feet. Permanent alimony is crazy.

Yeah, it should be sort of like how unemployment compensation from the government. You get it for awhile, and in decreasing amounts until it finally expires after a couple years.

To be fair, this whole Briffault's law thing is crazy too though. One law being unfair =/= all womans are evil. This level of hatred and anger doesn't help anyone or change anything.

I dont think anyone here would disagree. The point isn't to generalize about women, or even feminists as the idiot in the video does, but the law should not allow for such ridiculous exploitation and punishment based on gender.

Also, how does child support generally work? Is it set by the mother as well? Does it expire when they turn 18?

 

[KiplingsCat]

Do the laws actually discriminate against gender specifically though? Surely it's the spouse who has the kids that gets the child support payments, which could either be the man or the woman (and similarly, the spouse who earns more gives alimony to the spouse who earns less, I'm guessing...in my parents' case, for example, that would definitely be my mother paying up). Now, it's usually the woman who gets the kids, yes. But does the law specifically say "give all your moneys to the woman!"?

To be honest, I don't fully know how the laws work...not here in Ireland and certainly not in the States. But looking over the Irish family law documentation available on the interwebs, I see no direct allusions to men having to pay money or women having to take the children...the wording seems pretty gender neutral, although they do say that usually it is the mother who has custody of the children. But it's not actually the law that she does.

 

[ríomhaire]

So biased judges is the issue?

 

[KiplingsCat]

So biased judges is the issue?

Well....I don't know, that's not really what I was saying. The issue is that this situation is the product of men usually earning more than women, and women usually getting custody of the children in the event of a divorce (often a mutual agreement, sometimes court-ordered, not always deservedly so, that's really a whole other story).

Combine that with the fact that some people are just assholes who'll do anything to get a quick buck or get revenge, and yes, you do then occasionally have men getting screwed out of their money or having their kids taken away from them. It's probably not common to have that situation (divorces are shitty but most people seem to manage them without turning into crazy revenge-seeking monsters), and the fact that it happens to men way way way more than women is probably because of what I said above...men are usually the ones who are earning more/not taking care of the kids. So they're the ones who are in a position to get screwed over like this, more so than women.

I'm not trying to justify it...it's still crappy and unacceptable. But it's not because women are inherently greedy and want to screw over men, which is what Briffault's Law states. This doesn't happen "because of Briffault's Law". It's not an issue of women being mean to men or men being oppressed by women. It's a combination of badly drawn up laws (Child support/alimony should be strictly means-tested, and if it isn't then that's just batshit insane), deeply entrenched social structures, and yes, I suppose, a possible bias on behalf of judges towards women. Why that bias exists is a whole other day's work, I suppose. Silly billies.

 

[Eejit]

I can understand the point of alimony in the short term. I mean, if your spouse was the only one earning money for years and you had no way to support yourself because you had become entirely dependant on the other person...well I think seeing as that other person took it on themselves to exclusively support the first person it would be unreasonable to just suddenly dumping them with nothing but it should only be for helping the other person get back on their feet. Permanent alimony is crazy.

Permanent is crazy, but fairly long-term can be justifiable. If one partner in the marriage has been out of the workplace for many years they're not going to be able to jump back onto the same rung of the career ladder they would have been on if employed for that time. They would be earning less, potentially much less, even after they get a job.

 

[Raziaar]

Permanent is crazy, but fairly long-term can be justifiable. If one partner in the marriage has been out of the workplace for many years they're not going to be able to jump back onto the same rung of the career ladder they would have been on if employed for that time. They would be earning less, potentially much less, even after they get a job.

An so is the person paying the Alimony, because they have to basically employ the non working spouse. In many circumstances they can't afford it at all. It's like paying for another mortgage on your house on top of whatever else you're paying.