nourishing obscurity

The misnamed Child Support Agency, in the tradition of the Orwellian Ministry for Love, Ministry for Truth or the Soviet Era Pravda, has been aptly named the Father Bashing Agency in the UK.  What the situation is in the U.S. is an unknown to me – I see the legal advice pages but they can be misleading.

There is overwhelming evidence in the UK that it really is the FBA and if I use only one reference, it is to shorten the article and get to the point more quickly – there are many more cases, starting here.  In the case quoted below, not even the ex-wife agreed with the FBA’s intervention and the manner of treating him as a criminal in court drew the ire of his current wife.

Michael Cox, 43, had argued that their three children spent half their lives with him and that he should not therefore have to pay the Child Support Agency (CSA) for the time that they spent with their mother.  A letter from Ms Peach [former wife] was read out in court, begging magistrates not to give Cox a custodial sentence because of the impact on her family.

In a letter to magistrates, Ms Peach said that if her former husband were sent to jail, she would have to give up her job to look after the children.

Naturally, while the courts go soft on real criminals and issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, in line with the “everything turned on its head policy” in the UK, they also bash fathers whenever the opportunity arises and in doing so, they don’t give a damn about mothers either. They’re not interested in the two people – they’re interested in bashing.  That’s all.

[Cox] at first refused to be handcuffed, saying that it was “unnecessary and undignified”, but a female security officer insisted and locked cuffs on his wrists. She explained that she was following “Home Office rules”.

Par for the course.  This example is not as powerful as that of a friend of mine many years ago and no, I’m not going to name him for obvious reasons.  He and his wife came to an arrangement in that she got the house and a cash settlement.  It wasn’t a pre-nup but a sit-down talk as it appeared likely that there’d be a split.

That’s where a meddlesome “friend” of hers said she could get far more through the CSA [women know] and so that abomination was called in.  He immediately became a pauper in technical terms by giving all his savings away, the house was now split instead of given and she gets about one tenth of what she would have had from him.  She discovered that once that body gets involved, men with brains will immediately take measures and what she might have had, she now won’t, thanks to their insistent meddling.

Whereas the law in the UK recognizes the principle of separating “informally” and even a separation agreement, one little line tacked on alters the practice:

A court may change an arrangement made by a couple that it considers to be unreasonable or, in the case of a child, if it’s not in the child’s best interests.

Not only “may” they interfere but they do interfere like bulls in a china shop.

The Cox case was an example of law versus justice and in the UK, the two are widely disparate things.  In America, it seems that most states are “no fault” and those that aren’t use the following grounds only to cut the delay, not alter the payout:

• separation for a period of time
• adultery
• desertion
• conviction of felony or misdemeanor
• insanity
• cruelty
• physical inability to engage in sexual intercourse, if it was not disclosed before marriage.

The immediate problem with “no fault” and the reason it was brought in was to exonerate and boost the lesser-earning partner [usually the woman], giving her a bigger split than she otherwise would have and even this varies from state to state.  This is the pernicious, enforced egalitarianism of Statism of a leftist bent.

In the case of Florida, where the Woods thing happened, the law is at least sympathetic to the earner to a degree and he stands to protect a “fair” proportion of his state.  Not so in PC California – there it is a 50/50 split, irrespective of the respective earning power of the two partners.  The terminology in the U.S. is to maintain for her, “a lifestyle to which she has become accustomed”.

Naturally, Elin would be advised that if she sues for divorce, California is the place to do it from.

This is an iniquitous law because it encourages Heather Millsism and golddigging as a preamble and even undermines the reason for marriage in the first place.  That’s the idea of the left – to do dirt on marriage and encourage living together instead but even there, things have tightened up.  Far better for the earner to stay footloose and though he commits by his actions to their relationship and even children, if they live separately, he can zip off whenever he wants and she’s left with nothing.

This is what the law encourages and given the rampant greed in high profile divorce settlements, men of sense are more than wary to commit to any woman now – again the general idea of the feminists behind the legislation.  They don’t care about the sanctity of marriage or even of the particular marriage but about how much they can get out of the main earner – when, not if, it all goes pear-shaped.

This is what the feminists want in their hatred of anything male but it is not what women themselves want.  What women looking towards a family still generally want [and it's all over the web] is a loving relationship with a committed man where both run a family in peace and harmony.  That’s the idea and left alone, unmeddled in by extremists on any side, they might just have a shot at finding it.

Tiger Woods makes two main contributions – one to his wife and one to his children.  The one to the children is not in dispute and any father who woud not support his children to a reasonable level is not on the list for discussion here.  Obviously he needs to contribute and I don’t know any divorced men who don’t concede that.

But if it’s his money, then it is his decision how it is disbursed to the children – the fees, the clothes and so on.  If she is the source of the money, then it is her decision.  The money giver decides or at least has a major say.

We’re talking justice here, not the law.

In the case of the wife herself, that’s an entirely different matter and IMHO, it depends on fault entirely.  If he walked out or he cheated or he did any of the things on the list above aside from living apart, if he is the guilty one and if he is also the earner, then he has to pay her and not leave her destitite, at least until she hooks up again, when the matter is reviewed.

This has the unfortunate side-effect of bringing back in the private detective and the lawyer but it is more equitable – six of one, half a dozen of the other.

If she was the cheater and not the earner, she doesn’t get a penny for herself but their children do and it has to be enough to achieve the plan for their children they were known to have agreed to.  So if they’d intended to send the kids to the local high school, she can’t now suddenly say they’d planned to send them to Eton.  Plans are frozen in time.

It’s far too late for me, personally, to alter what happened in my past.  I lost out big time but what’s done is done now and I have no hard feelings, nor does any woman in my past and yes, it was discussed.  This post is an exercise in sympathy, that’s all.

Look, to reiterate, if I’m at fault, then I have to wear that and she gets a fair portion, the kids get the other.  If I’m not guilty, if she is, then the kids get a fair portion and she gets zilch, especially if there is another man involved.  If both agree to the ump sum, then there’s an end on’t.

Guilt is a factor and realpolitik dictates that it doesn’t matter a damn what the law says on this – the payer outer is always going to take this position and stick to it, even if he/she has to go to extreme measures to achieve it.

Filed under: Society & human issues