[t0suj4]

From what I've heard the problem are divorce courts granting women nearly everything. That rigs the game against dads.

Marriage is a huge liability. Men are gambling with nearly all their lives on their partner's unwillingness into a divorce.

On the other hand I've heard rumors where therapists were suggesting divorce to married women. I don't know how widespread that is but maybe something worth looking into.

[igetspam]

Does it though? In a typical marriage, one side goes to work and the other stays home. The one who stays home has a pretty stale resume during the years kids can't be in school and they often don't make it back to the workforce at all. This is a decision that's usually agreed to because the long term plan is to stay together and this is the agreed upon model for load distribution. Then comes divorce.

The party that has always been the primary caregiver is expected to keep that role, in general. Without a partner who works and gets paid, they are left scrambling to find a job. Since their resume has gone stale, they end up making a fraction of what they would have, had they stayed working. Don't forget, they're still probably the primary caregiver and have to handle finding daycare or babysitters so they can work and take care of of kids.

You can guess which parent generally get the more difficult role. So which side has it better?

My wife hasn't worked since she completed her Masters. If we split, she'd have a degree that qualifies her to be a teacher but not valid certifications. I make a very good salary. She'd have our kid because there's no math that would make sacrificing my job a reasonable option. I could give her half my net and I'd still live the high life but she would have to deal with all the details of scheduling our kid's life and I'd be able to opt out of it. I never plan to split but my life would be much easier than her life would be, if we did.

[Longlius]

>Does it though? In a typical marriage, one side goes to work and the other stays home.

This is flat out incorrect. More than 2/3rds of married mothers in the US work.

[lyaa]

As far as I know, in the US, the custody and house/apartment is almost always given to the parent who /wants/ the children. Men often don't fight for custody. They should.

Also, the division of assets is not out of proportion I think. If I got married and my partner left the workforce to take care of the home/children, I do think they should get their fair share of assets in case of divorce.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

> Men often don't fight for custody.

In the cases where both do, majority custody is almost always given to the wife.

[SamoyedFurFluff]

Do you have a study for this? When I researched it briefly years ago it seems when men ask for custody they often get exactly the custody they ask for, and the narrative they don’t is something largely spread by people who are either ignorant or men who were denied custody for heinous examples of abuse. Men simply ask for custody less or ask for less custody broadly.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...

> noting that nearly 30% of fathers surveyed did not want physical custody

> The outcome matched the re-quest for maternal custody in nearly 90% of such cases. See id. In contrast, paternal physical custody was awarded in only 75%

> in a 1992 study of 1,124 divorced families, 67.6% of children lived with their mothers; 15% lived with both parents on a joint custody basis; and only 9.5% lived with their fathers

[Jiro]

This fails to correct for how many fathers won't even ask for custody because there's such a low chance of getting it.

If it was the 19th century and I observed that most women who took the bar exam passed the bar exam, would that prove that men and women were on an equal footing?

[dragonwriter]

> If it was the 19th century and I observed that most women who took the bar exam passed the bar exam, would that prove that men and women were on an equal footing?

It would require other evidence (of which there is plenty, for the 19th century legal training pipeline, including explicit institutional discrimination) to show the bias.

But other evidence isn't just an unsupported narrative.

[SamoyedFurFluff]

This was published well over 20 years ago. Do you have anything more reflective of modern days? Taking it at face value, assuming nothing has changed (a big assumption) it’s still the case that the vast majority of men who ask for custody are awarded custody.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

I'm not sure how you possibly reached that conclusion.

~30% of men don't want ANY custody. Yet ~67% of children live only with their mother.

Assuming that 100% of children that the father didn't want go to the mother (they don't - some go to the system or relatives) - that means in 47% of the other cases, the mother gets FULL custody.

So this means for 100% of those 47% of cases, the father did not want the mother to get FULL custody, but that's what the court decided.

[Dma54rhs]

The laws and the system against that are openly and publicly against men, its not exactly a secret.

[rabuse]

Women also file for divorce 60 - 75% of the time (up to near 80% in the black community). Men are risk assessors by nature, and see no benefit to risking their livelihoods for such little benefit.

[igetspam]

By nature? Really? What are women, by nature?

:popcorn:

[dgfitz]

Lmgtfy which might encourage you to reconsider making flame bait comments that serve no useful purpose.

http://journal.sjdm.org/jdm06016.pdf

[fn-mote]

I loved the idea of this comment, so I read the article.

It says that men are more likely than women to take risks across several domains. This does not support the idea that men (more than women) are "risk assessors by nature".

The article also says that women and men are equally likely to take risks in the social domain... which probably includes marriage.

In general, I think the blithe characterization of men and women in this way does not move the dialogue forward.

[dgfitz]

My point was it’s roughly equal, why make a shitty comment trying to start a fight instead of looking up the information.

[igetspam]

Because the parent comment was ignorant and stupid. Making statements like "one gender does a thing by nature" that is not tied to a core biological function is ridiculous. Now, if we want to have a discussion about "by nurture," then we're able to talk honestly. It's beliefs and statements like that, that make honest conversation nearly impossible and therefore true equality just an idea.

[sokoloff]

It seems obvious to me there are situations where a therapist should help their client/patient explore divorce as an option.

[ss108]

Plenty of much more sophisticated and educated men continue to get married despite that, but you're suggesting that these less educated and knowledgeable men are incentivized by modern family law?

[throwaway0a5e]

>I don't know how widespread that is

There's a proverb about apples that seems relevant.