With all due respect to the customs, laws and practices of other cultures and countries, this story made me glad that I practice family law in California.
The BBC reports that a Sudanese man has been forced to take a goat as his “wife”, after he was caught having sex with the animal.
The goat’s owner, Mr Alifi, said he surprised the man with his goat and took him to a council of elders.
Divorce is one of life’s biggest and most painful stressors and traumas and far too often those involved carry the weight, the pain, the blame, the hurt and the anger around with them for years, long after the divorce itself.
Dr. Fred Luskin of the Stanford Forgiveness Project defines forgiveness as follows: to forgive is to gibe up all hope for a better past. If you are stuck in regret or anger over the past you have less energy available for your life today, and are in some ways compromising your future by being defensive and carrying around some unhappiness from the past.
Forgiveness is about healing. There is a distinction between justice, reconciliation, condoning and forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean you condone what was done, nor does it mean you have to reconcile with or like the person who did it. It is fine to say, “This was such a dreadful act that I must end my relationship with them.” And it doesn’t mean you don’t seek justice, if warranted. These are separate from the inner healing that occurs with forgiveness, which means that you don’t take what happened as just personal, but that you see it as a part of the bigger, ongoing human experience of hurt, resolution, conflict and negotiation.
The Telegraph reports that a Frenchman has been ordered to pay his ex-wife £8,500 (approximately $14,000) in damages for failing to have enough sex with her during their marriage.
The 47 year old wife in this case filed for divorce blaming the break-up on her husband’s lack of activity in the bedroom and sought 10,000 euros in compensation for her Husband’s lack of sex during their 21 year marriage. Despite the husband’s claim that tiredness and health problems prevented him from being more sexually active, the 51-year-old husband was fined under article 215 of France’s civil code, which states married couples must agree to a “shared communal life”.
A judge in southern France ruled that the Husband was solely responsible for the split and that article 215 implies that “sexual relations must form part of a marriage” and that “a sexual relationship between husband and wife is the expression of affection they have for each other, and in this case it was absent.” By getting married, couples agree to sharing their life and this clearly implies they will have sex with each other.” the judge ruled.
As I often explain to clients, it is far easier to get married than to get divorced. As probably the most common and incredibly complex contracts that a party can enter into, why is there no requirement for acknowledgement of the laws, obligations, and responsibilities? Why is there no arbitration or mediation clause?
It would be enormously helpful to prospective marriage partners to be informed about the financial and other considerations of the contract they are entering that is commonly referred to as marriage. Many married couples don’t understand that retirement plans and other assets and debts accumulated during the marriage are community property. Debt assumed during the marriage – even if in one party’s name – is a community obligation. If one party works and the other does not, the earners sometimes think their earnings are theirs alone.
There is insufficient basic information about the contractual rights and obligations that should be understood and agreed to before marriage. This information would resolve many problems if and when the marriage fails. And a standard arbitration or mediation clause that is typically found in most all other contracts would, in the event of marital breakdown, be the first step in an out of court process that would save the courts, and most couples, a great deal of time, energy and money.
In July of 2011, an obviously angry and unhappy 48 year old wife from Garden Grove in southern California whose husband of 16 months had recently filed for divorce cut off her 60 year old husband’s penis and then tossed it into the garbage disposal.
According to the police, Catherine Kieu Becker made her husband a delicious and unbeknownst to the husband, poison laced dinner and served it to him.
As the dinner (poison) kicked in, the husband felt sick and went to lie down. Shortly thereafter he lost consciousness and Becker tied his arms and legs to the bed with a rope and stripped him naked. She took a 10-inch kitchen knife and began sawing away at her husband’s penis, according to police.
I have long been a supporter of gay marriage and the rights of LGBT folks to have the same rights as the rest of us. However, I also think it is important to be flexible and open to new ideas and discussions any all controversial issues. Hence, more ideas on gay marriage and beyond.
As same-sex marriage becomes increasingly legal in various states, more companies require that their employees become legally married in order for their partners to qualify for health insurance. Currently, many of these same companies already provide domestic partner benefits for employees with same sex partner in states where cannot legally marry.
While this would appear to be what advocates of same-sex marriage want, there may also be unintended consequences. One obvious problem is that although the marriage may be recognized in a given state, it is not yet recognized by the federal government making marriage not a feasible choice for some couples and in so doing would deprive them of the health insurance benefits they previously enjoyed. It is important that when states legalize gay marriage, they also keep the domestic partnership option available at least until gay marriage is recognized by the federal government.
In an incident that received little attention in the mainstream press, a man named Tom Ball, 58, committed suicide in front of the Keene, New Hampshire County Courthouse on June 15, 2011 by dousing himself with gasoline and lighting a match. His 15 page suicide note explained that he was angry at the state child protection bureaucracy and the courts after his ten year battle over child abuse charges. He was angry at the US court system, the federal government, police, child protective services, in general, a system that in his opinion no longer works and no longer serves our interests.
Ball’s troubles began when he slapped his then four-year-old daughter, giving her a cut on the lip, when she refused to obey him after three verbal warnings.
His wife called the child’s mental health provider who apparently told her that if she did not call the police, both she and Ball would be arrested.
I live and practice law in Fremont, California, one of the most diverse communities in the diverse San Francisco Bay area. Over half the population of Fremont is Asian and Fremont has more folks from Afghanistan than any city in the US. Consequently, many of my clients are Asian and Middle Eastern.
Asian clients often express their belief that divorce is more shameful in their culture and consequently more difficult for them. In addition, in those cultures where arranged marriages are common, and even if the marriage itself was not arranged, the divorce involves the entire extended family.
Another difficulty for these clients in a divorce is that the cultural and legal systems from their country of origin differ from the American system, but American courts will not take these factors into account. For example, aspects of Sharia law or property issues related to dowry may be very important to the spouses but will not be factors that a California divorce court will consider. But in mediation or Collaborative, couples can incorporate their own sense of fairness and justice and/or values and principles that derive from their cultural and ethnic background and thereby create agreements that honor their highest values and the values of their culture.
To most couples planning to marry, marriage is a loving commitment between two people who want to share the rest of their lives. Under the law, however, marriage is a contract between two people … not a contract about love, but a contract about the legal and financial rights and obligations of marriage.
It isn’t easy to discuss marriage as if it were a business, but when considering a premarital (or prenuptial) agreement, that is precisely the right approach. A premarital agreement isn’t a predetermined exit plan and neither does it reflect a lack of faith in the relationship. It simply protects against unfortunate future circumstances that can, and frequently do, happen and is a most worthwhile effort to address the legal and financial issues of the marital contract.
The following suggestions may help you and your future spouse have a constructive conversation about what kind of premarital agreement would be right for your marriage and your relationship, as well as the role of money in your lives together, and if done right such a conversation can ultimately be more helpful in securing a strong foundation for the marriage than it’s actual, intended use.
As social media becomes increasingly more prevalent and dominant in our lives, not surprisingly it is increasingly involved in that time honored life passage known as Divorce. First, Facebook may actually help facilitate the divorce. A 2010 survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (an odd name for an organization devoted to the opposite of marital bliss) found that four out of five lawyers reported an increasing number of divorce cases citing evidence from social networking sites, primarily Facebook.
To begin with, Facebook can facilitate divorce in any number of ways. It is easy to rekindle old flames and to start new ones online; flirtatious comments can lead to more and/or can inflame jealousy that undermines the marriage. Or Facebook addiction, like any addiction, can lead to marital breakdown.
Once the divorce process starts, Facebook increasingly plays a role in custody and other battles as spouses use the site to spy on each other and find incriminating evidence such as drug or alcohol use or other misdeeds to paint the other as an unfit parent.
Bay Area Divorce Lawyer Blog