Literally why? That's only a punishment for them because they can't be perpetually horny like the usually want to be. I mean most men don't think past their penis. Does the shorter sex chromosome remove all the genes for not being retarded or what?
Because the desire to shame in revenge for some real or imagined (individual or generalized) slight has, for some, become an obsession.
Imagine what putting all that energy into something not negative could do.
"Alimony." Another canard.
Guess what percentage of divorces have spousal maintenance?
10%, as of 2015.
What was it at its
high,
60 years ago?
25%.
And that was when fewer than 40% of women were in the workforce at all, less so married women or married mothers, and even if working women were usually making a pittance, especially relative to a male spouse (except at the lowest economic rungs, in which it was more likely for both to work and both to make a pittance) .
But assume that all of that is ex-husbands paying ex-wives. 25% support 60 years ago to (maybe) 10% now. It has never been the case that men are, by and large, grossly and unfairly "punished" with alimony in divorce court.
Men's share of those 25%-now-10%-max alimony-ordered divorces increased from 0.5% in 2000 to 3% in 2010. In a survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, 45 percent of divorce lawyers noted that they had seen a rise in the number of ex-wives paying alimony since 2014, so > 3% now. Of course it's lopsided, due to common marital dynamics about who stays home/takes care of children 100%. But most, if not all, U.S. courts now have gender-neutral determinations for spousal maintenance.
...And so what factors count "for" alimony?
A variety of factors, but length of marriage and whether someone spent their prime working years caring for children and/or have low earning capacity are the biggies.
Typically alimony (not talking child support) occurs among people divorcing after 50, with grown/near-grown children and a large disparity in earned and earnable income between spouses.
...So who, in the currently over-50 crowd was far more likely to work as child-caretaker and earn 0/little compared to their spouse?
Women.
So the slice of divorces where there is
any alimony is concentrated in older couples and at 1/10 and falling, and men's % of that falling % is increasing. Yet "omg men are so fucked by divorce/women financially rape men in divorces and it just gets worse all the time" is considered by certain sectors to be unassailable truth, despite being wrong and increasingly more wrong.
And during the marriage? An increasing number of women are the primary (>60% household income) breadwinners. Women played this role in 24 percent of marriages in 2011, according to data from the 2011 American Community Survey. This represented a fourfold increase from 1960.
In 2023,
While men remain the main breadwinner in a majority of opposite-sex marriages, the share of women who earn as much as or significantly more than their husband has roughly tripled over the past 50 years.
In 29% of marriages today, both spouses earn about the same amount of money. Just over half (55%) of marriages today have a husband who is the primary or sole breadwinner and 16% have a breadwinner wife.
Men have gone from being the
sole breadwinner in 49% of marriages in 1972 to 23% today.
So 45% of married women make about as much as or more than the men, though only 16% of women make >60% of the household income. Women are fairly rarely the
sole breadwinner, even though many earn more than their men. Translated, this just means that even where women make more, they don't typically make a lot more. (And conversely, where men make more and divorce happens, it's much less likely now that the earning disparity will be significant enough to warrant alimony.) So in addition to changing cultural assumptions about earning capacity even of SAHPs, the relative earned dollars (M vs. F) add to the trend downward in alimony rates in general.
(And yet, even breadwinner women do more home/unpaid duties than their lower-earning men. The lone earning category exception is sole breadwinner women.)
Further, the severe trend is toward temporary (during divorce proceedings), or rehabilitative (a year or couple while lower earner trains/gets a job), or some limited number of years' alimony/support that is equal to some percentage of the years married. Permanent support is exceptional and increasingly rare; disability and advanced age can be factors.
Finally, even if there is support, the amount that
could be (not
is) awarded varies widely. (It can also be avoided by changing the property settlement in lieu, and of course people can negotiate whatever they agree to, generally.) Most courts have, and use, discretion to limit alimony in general. But even assuming it is awarded (that 10%) and a calculator is employed,
- Under one formulation in a couple states, a spouse making $300k divorcing one making $100k with a 10-year marriage could theoretically be ordered to pay $2500/month (of the payor's $25,000/month gross, or an effective rate of 10% of gross), for 52.x months.
- By contrast, using the same calculator, a spouse earning $120k divorcing a spouse making $75k, same marriage term, would pay at most $250/month (of the payor's $8333/month gross, or 3% of gross) for the 52.x months.
- At $112-113k vs $75k, it hits $0, with the wage disparity being relatively minor.
- At $250k vs $160k, potential support could be $333/month (of the payor's $20,833/month gross, or an effective rate of 1.5% of gross).
- $600k, vs. $0 - potential for up to $16,500/month (of $50,000/month, or an effective rate of 33% of gross).
- $60,000 vs $30,000 could potentially be $500/month (effective rate of 10% of the payor's $5000/month gross).
- $75,000 and $0? $2062.50, or an effective rate of 33% of gross.
None of those, except the last, exactly break the bank for the paying spouse, but the greater the disparity and the higher the earnings, or the fact of one spouse not working at all/very little, the greater potential percentage that could go to a former spouse (for some prescribed period of time, not likely forever).
Tl; dr: alimony/spousal support to women has decreased dramatically in numbers and duration as women's earning power has increased and as perspectives about the ability of a lower-earning spouse (historically wife) to earn a living have changed. Further, women in general, as their earning power (whether due to educational achievement or wage history) has increased overall, are both far less likely to be awarded alimony and increasingly likely to have to pay it.
Most likely scenario in which men could be required to pay spousal support: long "trad" marriages with women not working outside the home that end after children have been raised, followed by shorter marriages in which the wife has been staying home with kids and has little education or qualifications to translate into earning capacity.
Tl; dr: Tl; dr: the proposed ideal of an uneducated breeder/nanny is more likely than any other scenario to lead, in the event of divorce, to a man having to pay alimony.
Caveat emptor.
And the silver lining for men is that even in the worst scenario, any potential obligation to provide spousal support is increasingly likely to be strictly time-limited.
And even brighter for men who resent the idea of spousal support: just because there is a theoretical calculator in a state, it is less and less likely that a court will deem it necessary to use (where there is discretion).
Ladies, get an education and a good job, because you might need it tomorrow, despite agreements today.
