If we value the contributions of stay-at-home parents, then alimony should exist and should be gender-neutral. If we value the contributions of married people who have been stay-at-home parents, and having finished that job and lacking capital to invest in a career, turn to volunteer work and community activism, then alimony should exist and should be gender-neutral.
Presupposing that marriages are good for society and good for children, this is a place for the state to encourage them by offering legal protection of some kind for a spouse who, in exchange for the economic security of marriage, abandons part or all of his or her potential for individual success and throws his or her weight behind the career of another person, which tends to benefit from the ability to focus one’s attention.
Not to mention that it is a disincentive for adultery and spouse-abandoning among those of independent means. You get what you pay for; if alimony has become an *incentive* for divorce, the conditions for it probably need to be adjusted.
No-fault divorce has always been a bad idea, and it undermines what could be a justly designed alimony system. I agree with the commenter who said they’re incompatible, even if I’m a bit disturbed by his comments about his own wife.
Discussions like this only serve to reinforce my belief that people ought to marry more carefully and, once married, avoid divorce like the plague that it is.
