{"product_id":"9780814708248-the-marriage-buyout","title":"The Marriage Buyout","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe Troubled Trajectory of U.S. Alimony Law\u003cbr\u003eFrom divorce court to popular culture, alimony is a dirty word. In short, critics of alimony claim it has no place in contemporary visions of marriage as a partnership of equals. The author argues that alimony is often the only practical tool for ensuring that divorce does not treat today's primary caregivers as if they were suckers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom divorce court to popular culture, alimony\u003cbr\u003e is a dirty word. Unpopular and rarely ordered, the awards are frequently\u003cbr\u003e inconsistent and unpredictable. The institution itself is often viewed as an\u003cbr\u003e historical relic that harkens back to a gendered past in which women lacked the\u003cbr\u003e economic independence to free themselves from economic support by their spouses.\u003cbr\u003e In short, critics of alimony claim it has no place in contemporary visions of\u003cbr\u003e marriage as a partnership of equals. But as Cynthia Lee Starnes argues in The\u003cbr\u003e Marriage Buyout, alimony is often the only practical tool for ensuring that divorce does not treat\u003cbr\u003e today's primary caregivers as if they were suckers. Her solution is to\u003cbr\u003e radically reconceptualize alimony as a marriage buyout.\u003cbr\u003e Starnes's buyouts draw on a partnership model of marriage that reinforces\u003cbr\u003e communal norms of marriage, providing a gender-neutral alternative to alimony\u003cbr\u003e that assumes equality in spousal contribution, responsibility, and right. Her\u003cbr\u003e quantification formulae support new default rules that make buyouts more\u003cbr\u003e certain and predictable than their current alimony counterparts. Looking beyond\u003cbr\u003e alimony, Starnes outlines a new vision of marriages with children, describing a\u003cbr\u003e co-parenting partnership between committed couples, and the conceptual basis\u003cbr\u003e for income sharing between divorced parents of minor children. Ultimately,\u003cbr\u003e under a partnership model, the focus of alimony is on gain rather than loss and\u003cbr\u003e equality rather than power: a spouse with disparately low earnings isn't a\u003cbr\u003e sucker or a victim dependent on a fixed alimony payment, but rather an equal\u003cbr\u003e stakeholder in marriage who is entitled at divorce to share any gains the\u003cbr\u003e marriage produced.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56501250916726,"sku":"9780814708248","price":50.47,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/orig_37592020_60b51e81-837e-405e-a59f-43fb23893392.jpg?v=1762190090","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9780814708248-the-marriage-buyout","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}