Re-thinking the "Conspiracy against Men and Fathers"

I would like to begin an open discussion about something I hear bantered about, but infrequently examined: That is the bias against men in general, and specifically fathers in the divorce court.


I'll start with the assumption that men and woman are the victims of domestic violence at equal rates. (Source)

* In a 1995-1996 study conducted in the 50 States and the District of Columbia, nearly 25% of women and 7.6% of men were raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or dating partner/acquaintance at some time in their lifetime

In 2000, 1,247 women and 440 men were killed by an intimate partner.

84% of spouse abuse victims were females, and 86% of victims of dating partner abuse at were female.

Males were 83% of spouse murderers and 75% of dating partner murderers

50% of offenders in state prison for spousal abuse had killed their victims. Wives were more likely than husbands to be killed by their spouses: wives were about half of all spouses in the population in 2002, but 81% of all persons killed by their spouse.

These statistics clearly show that woman are more frequently victimized by domestic abuse, yet many argue that the statistics are unreliable because men are equally victimized, but do not report their abuse.

I highly doubt that this is the case, but it is, then it is not wholly the fault of the female that the abuse against men continues. They are only harming themselves with their conspiracy of silence. For those that argue that those who do complain are not taken seriously, remember that abuse against females was not given proper attention until the social awareness was raised in the first place.

Then there are those men who are convicted of domestic abuse and when questioned will say something along the lines of, "She hit me for years but when I got fed up with it and hit her in order to stop her from hitting me, the vindictive woman called the police!" Please. First of all, that man is doing a disservice to himself by staying in the relationship, and second of all, her physical abuse does not lessen the fact that he chose to go down to her level and also engange in such behaviors.


The most frustrating place I encounter this is in the arena of family court. Primarily they feel that they are as a whole discriminated against because courts tend to primarily place children with the mother as the sole custodial parent.

I beleive that this is how it should be. Children are by nature emotional, and a mother will be more attuned to this. She will be better able to understand their needs when they can't express them well verbally.

Of course there are bad apples in the spectrum of woman, who may be unfit to have custody, or even any contact at all, with the children. However--if this is the case, the burden of proof lays upon the father. I have known a few men who felt that the courts should have given them sole custody because the mother drank/drugged/whatever, but went in with nothing to substantiate this. Therefore they were not taken seriously, and did not have the outcome they desired. My observation has been that it isn't so much that the courts are biased when taking information regargind abuse comes into play, but that the woman are much, much, more proactive in gathering the evidence and presenting it.

Another thing that annoys me is fathers complaining about the support they have to pay. It is rarely set at more than 25%, which is paltry compared to the 75% or more that would have, in some way, gone directly to the child's welfare before the divorce. While I do think that it shoudl be adjusted and be in some way proportional to how much the noncustodial parent sees the child, I would say that it only sends a message to the child that they are unworthy of fiancial support, let alone love, if the father complains.

I have heard too often men use the excuse of "I'm not a deadbeat, but she wouldn't let me know where to send the check!" That is no excuse. In most places the state forwards the check to the mother.

And, beleive it or not, mothers are often just as guilty, and convicted, of deadbeatism.


My biggest beef is with the "Father's Rights" groups which advocate the courts giving the father at least 50% custody, by default. They make no attempt to investigate the abuse charges levied against the men that they assist, and advocate kidnapping charges for mothers who would leave with the children, even in cases where this was done to escape abuse. While this may seem noble at first glance, in practice it would be insideous: In many cases The courts would, in order to promote "equality," force contact between an abuse parent and the children. They would escape only to find that in the process of legalizign that "escape," they were required to continue the relationship. I beleive that these groups are attempting to undermine the efforts of woman who truly wish to be good mothers.

Family court is never going to be a smooth, well oiled machine, and someone is always going to come out of it feeling shmucked, but I am so tired of hearing about this bias against fathers.

Originally posted by asmeone2

The most frustrating place I encounter this is in the arena of family court. Primarily they feel that they are as a whole discriminated against because courts tend to primarily place children with the mother as the sole custodial parent.

I beleive that this is how it should be. Children are by nature emotional, and a mother will be more attuned to this. She will be better able to understand their needs when they can't express them well verbally.

I was going to give a well reasoned reply, until I read the above utter crock of crap you wrote.
Your very words denote a bias against mens ability to display / feel emotions as well as women, and you state your naturally inclined to favour the women...... so any discussion with you is void by your vey biased nature.

reply to post by Dan Tanna


I expected replies like this.

I tried to outline that I said that not as a personal bias, but as a conclusion I reached based on the inherant differences between men and women. They ARE there, even though it's politically incorrect to think so.

Just below that I also said that all women are not fit to parent. I would not have done that if I were biased. I also linked to some examples of women who were found to be unfit as the sole custodial parent, made to pay child support, and punished if they did not. Another thing I would not have done if I was biased.

But I guess your opinion of me is already formed, so why argue?

Originally posted by asmeone2
I would like to begin an open discussion about something I hear bantered about, but infrequently examined: That is the bias against men in general, and specifically fathers in the divorce court.

There is a bias against both. It is reminiscent of the joke picture that I once saw: The man is tugging at a cow's tail, the woman is tugging at the cow's horns... and the lawyer is underneath, milking it.

As a general rule, the men get more money out of a divorce and the women get the children. This is a measurable phenomenon.

I think the reaction that is growing relates to this: men complain about paying through the nose while getting custody denied. Women routinely jerk the fathers around all the while hypocritically "pissing and moaning" about not getting more money.

Are males more often perpetrators of violence? Yes. Just as male drivers get in more accidents than female.

The problem is that these trends are then applied to individuals who are really trying to do the right or best things. I was one of those children who was raised with my mother bad-mouthing my father. That is incredibly damaging as well, but there is no way to prevent this.

So, I think both sides of this argument break down very quickly in individual situations.

The solution is not to fix divorce laws, but to build marriages that last, and teach children to marry for the right reasons. Strong families are the only way to remedy this problem.

The Courts are indeed biased against men.

During a Divorce, it is important to make her sound worse than you will sound after her and her lawyer get through with you.

When she accuses you of assault or even if you think she might - you must pre-empt her and file a police report followed by a restraining order.

If you do this and the woman is your wife, you have a better chance of getting a fair deal within the court system.

It is also important to visit All of the divorce lawyers in the city (all the good ones at the very least) especially if your marriage is on the rocks.

Then the wife will not be able to use any of the lawyers you have visited due to a conflict of interest.

You really can't afford to take any chances in such a biased environment.

I recommend you see a doctor about the psychiatric issues you have developed due to her emotionally abusing you - he can then testify on your behalf.

I dunno about the general statistics of marital murder, but I do know from first hand experience that the courts are biased in favor of women in divorce court.
Esp when it comes to children/alimony, assets.. In my case, she gets 70% of my income, 65% of my retirement, and 100% of the assets. On top of that, she racked up 200k in credit card debt (cash advances) of which I am on the hook for 50%. Absolutely no justice in that. Marriage is a contract between you, your partner and the state in which you live. Anyone comtemplating marriage should re-think, cuz the f-ckin you get aint worth the f-ckin you get.

Originally posted by asmeone2
Another thing that annoys me is fathers complaining about the support they have to pay. It is rarely set at more than 25%, which is paltry compared to the 75% or more that would have, in some way, gone directly to the child's welfare before the divorce.

Yes, but as mapsurfer_ points out, often the children are taken away from the father without his consent, then he is bled of income. I think that we all are very aware of the fact that "child support" is used by the mothers to support themselves a lot (if not most) of the time. So, the woman decides she is not happy for some reason or other, she takes the kids, jerks the father around, and bleeds him of his income.

This is by far the most common scenario that I have ever seen. The second most common is where the father is nowhere to be found. But in all these situations, the mother's attitude is almost invariably, "well... at least I got the kids." In that way, the system is biased overwhelmingly, and this is measurable.

If women were constantly threatened with having their children taken away at their husband's whim, do you think that wife-on-husband violence would increase? I imagine it would, exponentially.

Family court is obscenely biased against men.

It's a simple fact in America that mothers are de facto granted custody of children. There's no dancing around the issue. Women are granted custody automatically. The father can wage an expensive legal battle to prove a mother unfit, but she's gotta have an extensive criminal record or someone has to have photos of her snorting lines off the kid's back for that to happen.

What do fathers get? Weekends or alternating weekends. They generally get to spend 4-8 days a month with their children. If the child is young, that time can be more easily measured in hours per month.

This is, of course, assuming the mother complies with the visitation order. Many don't because nothing happens to them if they keep the kid away from the father. Of course the father can't withhold support payments if he's being denied access to his children because the court can and will take the money.

Explain to me how this is not biased. Please.

And let's talk without extraneous claims of domestic abuse. Those situations are completely separate from the inherent mother-bias in our court system. I'm talking about the average couple who've parted ways without any punches being thrown, as those situations are the vast majority.

For added spice, I'm not a bitter father. I'm a mother, I'm the daughter of divorced parents, and I can see the bias.

Originally posted by anachryon
And let's talk without extraneous claims of domestic abuse. Those situations are completely separate from the inherent mother-bias in our court system. I'm talking about the average couple who've parted ways without any punches being thrown, as those situations are the vast majority.

For added spice, I'm not a bitter father. I'm a mother, I'm the daughter of divorced parents, and I can see the bias.

And with respect to this, I am going to bring up a flamebait topic.

This is an example of where the notion of "I should be able to do whatever I wish as long as it doesn't hurt anybody" becomes the empty notion that it is. As a father in this culture, you are frequently marginalized and ridiculed. In the media, fathers are overwhelmingly portrayed as (a) bafoons, (b) weak and to be dominated by the women in their lives, or (c) abusive monsters. The sexual revolution has given women "sexual freedom" which means that they are effectively high-maintenance sex toys whose shelf-life is short (as demonstrated by all the bitter 50-something women who nobody wants to touch with a 10-foot pole). In this environment, the only "sin" is getting pregnant, and this can be "rectified" through the sacred liberal sacrament of abortion.

So, let me ask: from the point of view of a man, why would one desire to marry a woman or be a father? *Especially* since there are so many younger and prettier women who will spread their legs for just about anyone?

Originally posted by ScienceDada
So, let me ask: from the point of view of a man, why would one desire to marry a woman or be a father? *Especially* since there are so many younger and prettier women who will spread their legs for just about anyone?

Not from a male point of view, but...
Biological drive to reproduce combined with the ingrained societal norm to get married would be my guess. It's real hard to ignore one's biological instincts no matter how "evolved" we are. We're animals. When it all comes down to it, humans on a base level just want to eat, fight, or f....ornicate.

Originally posted by anachryon

Originally posted by ScienceDada
So, let me ask: from the point of view of a man, why would one desire to marry a woman or be a father? *Especially* since there are so many younger and prettier women who will spread their legs for just about anyone?

Not from a male point of view, but...
Biological drive to reproduce combined with the ingrained societal norm to get married would be my guess. It's real hard to ignore one's biological instincts no matter how "evolved" we are. We're animals. When it all comes down to it, humans on a base level just want to eat, fight, or f....ornicate.

It was a rhetorical question, and if I can paraphrase: men really have no incentive to marry other than ingrained societal norms since "women's lib."

For all the women who read this forum and want a man to stick with you out of some state of adoration for how great you are, or to love you "just because you are who you are" you need to mature and get off your high horse. You almost certainly aren't that remarkable. If you are trying to attract men with pheromones and a bulging labia, then come to terms with the fact that your "goods" are going to expire one day, and you are going to end up as a pathetic and self-consumed "used goods" package. Thus, your power is only for a limited time, and for most men, it just isn't worth the trouble when they can find much more humble.

Marriage is in fact an agreement of joint ownership, where you own each other and jealousy is entirely appropriate. Both men and women are territorial, and the marriage bed is seen by the vast majority as sacred. You cannot destroy the sanctity of marriage with pre-marital fornication and serial polygamy, then expect that men as a whole are going to take the rap. You are proud of being a woman who has the freedoms of a man? Then "be a man about it," stop whining and feeling sorry for yourselves.

Before the 1960's and "women's lib," divorce statistics were significantly lower and women had greater respect from their husbands. Sure they got their butts smacked by their bosses and it was degrading. So, now you have greater respect in the workplace and you get to work when you feel like crap and you don't get the day off when your menstrual cramps get bad. Now you get to be mothers and work like men. Lucky you... was it worth it? Most women likely think not, and many are bitter because they were suckered into believing in a cause that has severely backfired. But now you almost cannot survive in a single income home as a result of the change in economics. So now we all have to suffer.

You have almost destroyed the traditional family in the process. Every revolution has unintended consequences. The sexual revolution is no different. And now that Pandora's box is open, now traditional marriage has to accept the fraud of homosexual "marriage" and fraudulent families who can only exist be artificial means, i.e. somehow getting a hold of heterosexuals' children (their hearts and minds through public schools, and their bodies through artificial insemination or adoption).

Anathema. I weep, mourn, and lament for this nation, because each does what is right in their own eyes. Good, hard working people who are trying to do the right thing are getting trampled by such bad ideas as "reproductive freedom." Well, are we free? No. We are slaves to the consequences of the revolution.

Oh my God. Like I needed to see this thread. I could fill a hundred or more pages with my personal experiences with 'family' court but I'm going to try and constrain myself to just some 'highlights'.

My ex and I split back in '91. She took my kids (1 and 4yrs at the time) and moved into her parent's local home while they were in their FL home. Before she left she maxed-out all our accounts. I was out-of-work at the time but left with all the bills plus now child support. I was able to sell the house (in a real estate market that was almost as bad as this one).

I could not afford an attorney since she had taken all our money but she was able to use that money to hire one. She got everything she wanted out of the house including personal property that I had owned well before we had ever met. Even Christmas ornaments that had been in my family since I was a child. She got all the proceeds for the house sale. I was financially wiped-out and came as close to bankruptcy as possible.

Because I was out-of-work the court required me to report every week and fill out my job search activities for the week. I was a manager-level employee and engaged in an all-out job search (I didn't need the court to tell me to look for a job). As all other manager-level people, I applied for positions via a resume and cover letter. That wasn't good enough for the court. I had to fill-out job applications and provide the name/phone of the person that took the application. Never in my field has there been a job application until AFTER I was offered the position. I tried to explain this reality to the judge but he told me that either I fill out applications or I would go to jail. So after that I had to do my real job search and find time to beg every MacDonalds, 7-11 and retail store persona I could to allow me to fill out an application. My ex, of course, didn't have to look for work cause she had to care for the kids (although she had worked fulltime the entire time we were married).

She remarried and built a horsefarm with her new husband. She moved the kids out-of-state without permission (a violation of the divorce order) and had the kids calling her new hubbie'dad' (another violation of the court order). He's a drunk, btw. Meanwhile I was driving up every Friday to get the kids and bringing them back every Sunday. No meeting halfway.

She was regularly asking the court for more money. I was also covering the kids' medical/dental insurance as well as contributing to college accounts for each. At each visit to court I was required to fill-out a multi-page financial disclosure document. She scribbled basic info on two sides of a single sheet. I learned years afterwards that my kids (then 10 and 7) were coming home to an empty house cause their mother was working.

Last year, after a catastrophic loss of business, I went to court for a reduction in child support. Again I had no attorney. I was required to provide copies of 5yrs worth of tax returns, bank statements, assets, the whole shebang. Although by law she was supposed to provide me with the same, I got less than 20% of the required documents. Her attorney back-dated correspondence and outright lied. I got enough to learn sghe had tens of thousands in investment accounts and that she earned $17k/yr working 30hrs/mo. The rest of her time she spent pursuing her dream of being a lounge singer. In the pretrial, the judge sternly warned me that I better be able to provide clear evidence of my income situation that required a reduction or he'd force me to sell my assets including my home if necessary. He also suggested that he miught force me to close my business and enter a court-ordered job search. Up to this point I had been paying over $27,000/year in child support PLUS insurance and incidentals. No warning to my ex thoug. No interest at all with what SHE was doing to help support her kids (keeping in mind that at this point my youngest was 17) since the days of the alleged stay-at-home-mom were long, long past.

I am now in a desperate scrambled to pay for my daughter's freshman year in college. My ex refuses to help in any way. Including the $5k specifically put aside for college and with the kids' names on the accounts. My kids have never gotten any of the support money. Never an allowance. My ex made loans to them (with interest) when they needed cars. Both worked from early in highschool, do their own laundry, buy their own clothes and are essentially self-sufficient. The 'child support' is entirely unaccounted and has basically paid the mortgage and lined their investment accounts. I have no retirement put aside. How could I? I'm 56, btw.

My ex has had no financial accountability. As far as the court was concerned she could have been putting the support money up her nose. She has worked part time for the last 17yrs and I've financed her extended vacation. My oldest watched his step dad arrested and cuffed in their yard for DUI and failure to stop. He had to go down and bail him out. A few years after our divoce she went back to school to get her teacher's certification. She's never used it. She worked for over 7yrs as a cartographer making good money. Either would allow her to help support her kids. Does the court care? But if I decided to work part time and go back to school I'd be thrown in jail.

So, asmeone, before you post something as ignorant as your OP again I suggest you learn something about your subject matter first. My experiences are by no mean atypical. I know a number of divorced dads that have run the same gauntlet. The idea that family court is 'fair and balaced' is outright ridiculous and smacks of sheer ignorance. I could provide far more gruesome details of how my ex has used the system to do her wet-work over the years but I'll spare the ATS community that. Child support is a windfall and entirely inequitable. It's tax-free income to her that she can spend any way she pleases with no accountability at all. I have to pay taxes on that money (it's not deductible) and SHE gets the deductions for the kids.

I would do anything for my kids and have. But the system IS biased and that fact is self-evident to anyone that has been through it. Men are treated as deadbeats the moment they walk through the door. The court is ONLY interested in our financial affairs and not at all with those of the mother. The judge has told me outright that my support obligations are based upon my 'demonstrated earning potential'. But that is NOT the case as far as my ex goes.

I apologize to the ATS community for the length of this post but this thread is an outrage.

Originally posted by TruthTellist
The Courts are indeed biased against men.

During a Divorce, it is important to make her sound worse than you will sound after her and her lawyer get through with you.

When she accuses you of assault or even if you think she might - you must pre-empt her and file a police report followed by a restraining order.

If you do this and the woman is your wife, you have a better chance of getting a fair deal within the court system.

It is also important to visit All of the divorce lawyers in the city (all the good ones at the very least) especially if your marriage is on the rocks.

Then the wife will not be able to use any of the lawyers you have visited due to a conflict of interest.

This is so hypocritical of you to say.

This exact 'manipulation of the system' is the--filing false abuse charges, creating a legal conflict--is the kind of behavior that we are calling woman out for getting away with, yet it's okay for the men to do that?

Please. That's a disgusting double standard.

Yes, but as mapsurfer_ points out, often the children are taken away from the father without his consent, then he is bled of income. I think that we all are very aware of the fact that "child support" is used by the mothers to support themselves a lot (if not most) of the time. So, the woman decides she is not happy for some reason or other, she takes the kids, jerks the father around, and bleeds him of his income.

This is by far the most common scenario that I have ever seen. The second most common is where the father is nowhere to be found. But in all these situations, the mother's attitude is almost invariably, "well... at least I got the kids." In that way, the system is biased overwhelmingly, and this is measurable.

If women were constantly threatened with having their children taken away at their husband's whim, do you think that wife-on-husband violence would increase? I imagine it would, exponentially.

I'm at a loss as to how to prevent the mothers from spending it on themselves, but certainly not all of them do that. I think it's as unfair to say that all mothers misappropriate the child support check as it is to say that alll the fathers don't pay it.

I stand by what I said: In my opinion I think that it is good that mothers get primary custody most of the time, because of biological differences, especially when the child is young, and I can see the courts appointing the weekday/weekend arrangement during the school days, in order to ensure continuity. That does not mean the father should be cut out of their lives, though, unless there is a documentable reason to do so.

It's difficult to say what would happen in the situation you described. Violence might increase, or it might not--I imagine more woman than not would be afraid to raise a fist because of the fear of losing their children.

reply to post by anachryon and


Hi Anachryon and jtma508

This spirit of my OP wasn't so much that there is no bias, but that the bias is there because of, and perpetuated by, the men's own actions.


In most of those "typical" divorce stories there is something that was or was not done, that could have prevented the entire debacle from happening.

Most often is trusting the ex to act fairly.

Someone I knew naively trusted his ex and gave her a debit card to put gas in her car, because she said she needed to take the child to school. You can guess what happened. He became that typical "I can't afford a lawyer because she stole my money!" dad going through a divorce--but only because he did not have the foresight to take her off of his bank accounts. Through his naivite he handed her the "biased" judgment against her.

Another person I knew had an enforcible custody arrangement order, but he chose not to enforce it when Mom did not follow it. Why? He was afraid of looking bad. Same thing about when this person was going through his divorce. He said Mom was doing too many drugs to be a fit parent, but chose to present no evidence to support that, because of how it would damage his character. She presented her evidence and was given custody. This man did not do what he could/should have to represent himself, but instead he went on about a 'court bias.'

Originally posted by asmeone2
Someone I knew naively trusted his ex and gave her a debit card to put gas in her car, because she said she needed to take the child to school. You can guess what happened. He became that typical "I can't afford a lawyer because she stole my money!" dad going through a divorce--but only because he did not have the foresight to take her off of his bank accounts. Through his naivite he handed her the "biased" judgment against her.

Wow, if you can't trust your wife, who can you trust? I think the problem perceived by many of the men who claim this bias is that fact that they are betrayed by their wife then subsequently taken to the cleaners.

In divorce situations, the court should be more equitable, especially when the wife commits adultery, then divorces her husband to shack up with the other guy. But "no-fault" divorce makes this irrelevant. Note: I am only using examples of men being victims because it is along the topic of the thread, and in no way mean that women don't get screwed over.

Horse pastries. The courts are biased against men. If you'd ever been 'through the system' it wouldn't even be up for argument. Want some equity in the courts? How about accountability of BOTH parties as a start. You don't think my ex is typical? I wish that were close to true.

Understand that the economic dynamics are very much different depending upon where the parties fall in society. 'The system' was designed to protect the lower-income cohort where women were less educated and had few marketable skills thereby relying primarily on the man's income for economic survival. The courts, in their infinite wisdom, decided to just use the one-sized-fits-all approach across the entire economic spectrum. At the highest end, the lawyers for the two parties get together and write one, large check --- end of story.

But for the vast sea of two-income, middle and upper-middle class families, the 'rules' are anything but equitable. Property issues aside, both parents should be equally responsible for the financial support of the children (allowing for the need to be at home for pre-school children). Custody should be based solely on who can provide the best and most stable home for the children --- not gender. I have been, hands down, the better parent from the get-go. Child support should be tax deductible. The children's deductions should be given to the parent shouldering the majority of the financial support. Support should be based upon each household's income. The way it is, the father's (most commonly the non-custodial parent) figures are based upon his household income and the mother's just her own. So, if both parties remarried and the father's HHI was, say, $65k (both he and his new wife) and the mother's HHI was $650k (but the mother only earned $17k cause new hubby only wants her to work parttime) her income, for the purposes of child support calculations would be $17k. 100% of the father's household assets and money (including his new wife's share) would be up for grabs.

This is the way it is. And the system is played but these women like an organ. When my wife first left I met with a lwayer. One of the first things she told me was to be prepared for allegations of child abuse. I laughed at her until she told me she was absolutely serious. She said it was a common practice for lawyers to pull that out if they didn't like the way things were going. I said, 'Even if they know it's untrue?' and she said, 'Yes.' Nice. It's bullcrap. I don't know how the system ended-up like this but I can tell you after 16yrs in the system it's a scam.

Originally posted by jtma508
Horse pastries. The courts are biased against men.

I think that men who hire good lawyers can have a different take on things. I am not saying that the court is not biased against men on average. But this can vary by locale, so it is difficult to claim that the bias is across the board. For example, Indiana courts may tend to be more fair than Illinois or Vermont.

I do agree with one very important issue that you raised: women often can leave the state with the child and the father gets screwed. I have seen this happen a lot even with good lawyers. In these cases, the courts will still garnish the wages of the father while he is still denied visitation.

But the root problem is not even the courts. It is the problem that families are disintegrating constantly with no accountability. This hurts children. And it infuriates me that in the midst of all these problems (which are bad for society as a whole) there is this constant pushing of social agendas that promote single parent families, and even adoption by either single or so-called "married" homosexuals.

This system just puts pressure on those families who sacrifice a lot to stay together and raise their kids right. Also, the system has now gotten so that women who want to stay home with their children almost cannot because the cost of living is such that you just cannot make ends meet. And I am not referring to having two hummers in the garage and an in-ground swimming pool... I mean just paying the gas bill, putting food on the table, and buying clothes.

reply to post by ScienceDada


I can't say I agree with you about who should or should not be able to raise children. I believe it has more to do with the individuals involved and less to do with the social more.

Personally, I think one major contributing factor to the dissolution of families and marriages is that it has become way too easy to do so. Why should a woman try to work it out when she can take her husband's money, hire a lwayer and get 50% of everything her husband owns to 'start over' on her ideal life.

My first wife came into the marriage with very little and benefited immensely by divorce. My current wife came into an even more lucrative situation with even less and would make out huge if she decided to divorce me. I, on the other hand, would lose significantly in either case. So why would women even want to work out a situation and keep the family together when they know (the lawyers will tell them) that they can win the lottery by going to court? Remember those LA billboards put up by the divorce law firm? There you go. Want to keep families together? Make it more difficult to split them up. Even the odds.

I do agree with one very important issue that you raised: women often can leave the state with the child and the father gets screwed. I have seen this happen a lot even with good lawyers. In these cases, the courts will still garnish the wages of the father while he is still denied visitation.

The legalities of this are tricky.

If she leaves before the divorce is filed, then it is not illegal. She can take the kids where she wants, as she is the parent.

The flip side of that, is that the father can take the kids away from her if he wants--they just rarely do.

But the root problem is not even the courts. It is the problem that families are disintegrating constantly with no accountability. This hurts children. And it infuriates me that in the midst of all these problems (which are bad for society as a whole) there is this constant pushing of social agendas that promote single parent families, and even adoption by either single or so-called "married" homosexuals.

As a side note, Statistics show that the divorce rates are higher in the states that have higher numbers of religious people, and presumably value marraige more and take a firmer stance against homosexuality. What is your opinion on that?