Under the category of topics that makes my husband nervous, today I’m talking divorce law inspired by this post by Colby Cosh.

Colby discusses the recent changes in divorce law in Canada. The latest case overturned a previous divorce agreement saying that it was a tax dodge and setting the precedent that all divorce agreements have the potential of being overturned.

Cosh writes,
In a single blow, one of Canada’s most famously progressive judges has turned back the clock 60 years on divorce law. The revived doctrine is that it is a husband’s job to support his wife, and not the state’s. But Miglin also makes the state, and not the husband and wife, the arbiter of how they are to divide assets. Madam Justice Abella’s old-fashioned view of marriage will warm some hearts, but men and women who quite reasonably thought themselves free of their spouses are chilled to the bone.

I could see that constantly returning to court to renegotiate agreements could become rather chaotic and that should be avoided. But on the other hand, if you’ve been married for many years and have kids, there is no clean break with a spouse. There are always negotiations going on if not about money, then about child visitation issues, holidays, and things. You’re never rid of your spouse. And any attempts to have a clean break from your spouse, usually benefits the husband.

Part of the problem is that modern divorce law totally screws over women with kids. Most women with kids have either stopped working to care for them or had to scale back their work responsibilities in some way. Guys, on the other hand, keep climbing the career ladder without pause. Mothers’ sacrifices are not taken into account in modern divorce law. Women always end up worse off than their higher earning husbands.

If this makes me Victorian, then “God Save the Queen.”