McCartney vs. McCartney

Speaking of willing executioners, which we were a few weeks ago…why is there no outrage over the news that Heather Mills McCartney has rejected 30 million pounds as a divorce settlement, and stands a good chance of getting a court to give her instead 200 million pounds, of Paul McCartney’s worldly goods?

After all, what has she done to earn this money? Nothing; had he not married her, Sir Paul would still surely be worth the same amount, or, more likely, somewhat more. She has devoted her time to her “charity work,” her pet causes.

It is Mr. McCartney’s unique genius, his hard work, and his risk taking in investments, that has earned that money. That the British government proposes to seize up to half of it and give it to someone else, against his will, is a clear violation of his fundamental right to the possession and enjoyment of property.

But this is an injustice that goes on many times every day, now, in North America and Europe; and nobody raises a voice against it. What, by the same token, has a doctor’s wife done to make her contribution more valuable than a butcher’s wife? What could be more hypocritical of the “women’s movement” than not to object to this obvious violation of their stated principle of “equal pay for equal work”? Indeed, in the general run of things, the butcher’s wife has probably contributed substantially more to the wealth of her family, and worked harder, than has the doctor’s wife. Why does she get far less?

No, the only fair settlement in a divorce, given the current freedom of women to work, and indeed their special privileges in the world of work, is this: each party takes out of a dissolved marriage everything they took into it; plus a portion of the remainder corresponding to their financial contribution. That is, their income during the marriage relative to the income of the other partner.

Only this can protect citizens from marriage by fraud and divorce for gain.

The one problem with this proposal is that it means a woman who stays at home during the marriage gets nothing other than what she brought into the marriage. In one way this is fair enough: given the current social and employment climate, her decision not to work can be assumed to be entirely voluntary; and the rest of us do not get paid for staying home either. Moreover, her husband has been penalized by this decision, in terms of a lower standard of living, and the greater responsibilities of being sole breadwinner; it is manifestly unjust to expect him to pay more again now for his wife’s having asserting this privilege.

But on the other hand, it is in the interests of children to have a mother stay at home. Therefore, there is perhaps a case for the state to step in at this point, and award the stay-at-home mom some compensation from government funds, if there were children in the marriage. This might amount to a reasonable income for a fixed period, giving her time to retrain. It might be financed from a general divorce tax, which would also serve the useful purpose of discouraging divorces.