The inhabitants of Reddit’s Men’s Rights subreddit seem to have developed a sudden crush on the authoritarian Chinese government. Why? Well, it seems that the lovable tyrants have decided to crack down on evil golddigger bitches. According to an article in The Telegraph, linked to in the subreddit,
In a bid to temper the rising expectations of Chinese women, China’s Supreme Court has now ruled that from now on, the person who buys the family home, or the parents who advance them the money, will get to keep it after divorce.
“Hopefully this will help educate younger people, especially younger women, to be more independent, and to think of marriage in the right way rather than worshipping money so much,” said Hu Jiachu, a lawyer in Hunan province.
The ruling should also help relieve some of the burden on young Chinese men, many of whom fret about the difficulty of buying even a small apartment.
Never mind that the lopsided demographics in China today — where young men greatly outnumber young women, making it harder for young men to find wives — are not the result of excess feminism, but the result of a toxic mixture of cultural misogyny and the authoritarian regime’s “one child” program. As William Saletan explains the logic in Slate:
Girls are culturally and economically devalued; the government uses powerful financial levers to prevent you from having another child; therefore, to make sure you can have a boy, you abort the girl you’re carrying.
The result? 16 million “missing girls” in China. Ironically, the skewed ratio of men to women gives young women considerable leverage in chosing whom to marry – and that’s what the Men’s Rightser’s seem to see as the real injustice here.
As Evil Pundit wrote, evidently speaking for many (given the numerous upvotes he got):
Wow. I’ve always disliked the authoritarian Chinese government, but for once, it’s done something good.
I may need to reconsider my attitude.
IncrediblyFatMan added:
China wants to become the next superpower and world leader. They aren’t going to do it by allowing the kinds of social decay that rot away at the competing nations.
Revorob joked:
If they brought that in over here, most women in Australia would be living on the street.
“Or,” Fondueguy quipped in response, “they could learn to work.”
At the moment, all the comments in the thread praising the Chinese government for this move (and there are many more) have net upvotes; the only comment in the negative? One suggesting that the Telegraph isn’t exactly a reliable source.
Speaking of which, here’s a more balanced look at the issue on China.org.cn that examines some of the consequences of the new ruling for Chinese women.
Let’s look at some of those. According to one Beijing lawyer quoted in the piece:
“[H]ousewives, especially those in the rural areas who have no job and are responsible for taking care of their families, will be affected most by this new change,” she said. “If their husbands want a divorce, they are likely to be kicked out of the house with nothing.”
Luo Huilan, a professor of women’s studies at China Women’s University in Beijing, agreed.
In rural areas, she said, men have the final say in family matters. All essential family assets, such as home, car and bank deposits, are registered in the men’s names, and women fill the roles of only wife, mother and farmworker.
“Their labor, though substantial, hardly gets recognition. Without a good education, they have to rely heavily on their husbands,” Luo said. “In case of divorce, a woman is driven out of her husband’s life, home and family, and finds herself an alien even in her parents’ home. No wonder the new interpretation of the Marriage Law has aroused concern among women.”
And no wonder it’s drawn cheers on the Men’s Rights subreddit.
Brandon: I begin to suspect you don’t have a very clear idea of how marriage/divorce work. You are not likely to be paying alimony, because at present the percentage of divorces which lead to grants of spousal support is 15 percent.
Alimony (or spousal support) used to be given to ex-wives to allow them to live in the same style as when they were married. These days, courts more often award maintenance to economically disadvantage spouses, regardless of sex, to help them acquire skills to be self-supporting. Courts can also order support to homemakers to compensate for faithful service.
According to Gayle Rosenwald Smith a Philadelphia Lawyer, alimony is awarded in only 15 percent of divorce cases.
The basic factors to determining if, and how much alimony a spouse receives are the following:
1. The actual need and ability of the spouses to pay
2. The length of the marriage
3. The physical, emotional health of the spouses, as well as their age
4. The standard of living established during the marriage
5. The earning capacity and educational level of each spouse
6. The reasons for the dissolution of the marriage – fault-
As to the rest… 1: You completely misunderstand the nature of the SSA, and how it’s administered.
2: It isn’t as easy as that to deal with the situations I discussed, because they are not issues of simple power of att’y. Take the issue of guardianship in the event of mental incapacity. That is stautorially determined. A simple POA can’t overide it. You have to draft a specific one to cover that. The same for general medical. End of life issues is a separate one, etc.
3: The Question of pension/401K is an inheritance issue. A simple grant is contestable, if you’ve not made it plain that you are doing it in direct intent to overide the statutory defaults.
All of which is why marriage is not something one can trvially replace with a couple of POAs and good intent.
It’s why Civil Unions, which are supposed to be the same in all but name, aren’t, not in any place which has parallel systems in place (France and England have made them specifically the same, which has angered many of the people who are cuckoo for connubial-puffs).
@Sharculese: Human relationships only become more business-like after marriage. Right now, I very much enjoy spending time with my girlfriend and it is fun and loving and completely not business-like at all. Marriage would turn it into a business which I want to avoid. There is a place for business and a place for love and intimacy. I don’t think it is good to intertwine them.
@HellKell: Glenn Beck is an idiot that doesn’t know shit other than to say the communists are taking over America…BTW….they aren’t.
@Magpie: Socialized medicine would further erode the need for marriage since everyone would have access and no one would have to “piggy back” on to their wives or husbands for coverage.
@captainbathrobe: What does politics have to do with marriage?
@Elizabeth: There were a few panics at that time where men like JP Morgan came in as the lender of last resort. It was also an attempt to corner the market on United Copper. This failed and caused a run on the banks. The book “Reminiscences of a Stock Operator” was about a trader that lived through those panics. An interesting read.
Kee-rist on the Concorde, NWO, we are NOT gonna go over your complete lack of numeric sense again.
I just wanted to know, Brandon, are you a Truther?
Brandon – a relationship between two people who love each other and chose to get married only becomes business-like if the people who are in the relationship treat their relationship like a business…there is nothing inherent in a marital relationship that requires the two people involved to treat their relationship as something less than the loving relationship it was prior to marriage.
@Pecunium
“According to Gayle Rosenwald Smith a Philadelphia Lawyer, alimony is awarded in only 15 percent of divorce cases.”
And that’s 15% too many times. I kow you’ve been indoctrinated to believe women should be rewarded for divorcing their husbands, but it’s false.
If I quit my job, will I be rewarded? I mean I broke a contract.
If I don’t pay my morgage, will I be rewarded? I broke a contract.
There’s only one contract where a person, (woman) is rewarded for breaking. The marriage contract.
Glenn Beck is an idiot that doesn’t know shit
Oh, so you don’t support buying gold?
So, NWO, in your scenario, the woman is ALWAYS breaking the contract, i.e., initiating the divorce?
What if she gave up her career in order to raise kids and her husband wanted a divorce? What if she never really had a career to begin with?
@hellkell
“Kee-rist on the Concorde, NWO, we are NOT gonna go over your complete lack of numeric sense again.”
Awww, c’mon. I mean we “know” rape isn’t reported 90% of the time. I think it’s a pretty damn good assumption child abuse is under-reported to a greater extent. Don’t you?
There was more to it then the attempt to corner the market-that was just the trigger, also the prior panics were not solved by one man like the 1907 panic was. (Although the 1869 gold ring was caused by one man but I digress.)
The funny thing to me that you would rely on insurance to solve your home being damaged while hating on something that was created because of insurance being unable to help someone repair damage to their home. Next you will tell us we should go back to the gold standard.
@Pecunium: If I get married I have a 15% chance of paying alimony. If I don’t I have a 0% chance…again not seeing the benefit. I am not worried about palimony since my state has never had a case that someone was granted palimony…so I don’t see that as a problem.
1) While I am speculating, with the current debt problem this country faces…I doubt that I will ever see a social security check in my life. Since I am not depending on this, I can take proper precautions to save for retirement.
2 and 3) Even if it was 10 contracts, I STILL think it is better than getting married, Sometimes the extra work is worth it in the long run.
Again, I do not care if people get married, nor do I insult them for making that choice. I just think it is a bad one to make. Sometimes I talk about marriage and debate it with people, I tell them and they are free to take it or leave it. I am not going to lie to them and say “Marriage is great”.
In the long run, I would like to see all the benefits that everyone has claimed marriage provides, decoupled from marriage completely and those benefits and rights belong to all citizens not just married couples. Anything less is discrimination IMHO.
If I quit my job, will I be rewarded? I mean I broke a contract.
If you’re fired, we have this thing called severance pay.
You can’t even come up with bad analogies correctly.
Brandon, so you agree that we are all interdependent and that sometimes things go wrong. Then you list all the things that people should do to stop things going wrong. OK – you’re missing the point. You cannot control everything. You are as ‘independent’ as you are now partially because of luck – all the good investment strategies in the world, diversification etc., can’t help you if all of the things you’ve invested in go bad at once…like with the market at the moment where pretty much any investment is risky. Sure, probabilities dictate that if you diversify that you’ll do better, but all you do is decrease your chance of things going wrong, you do not stop them altogether. Also, being white and childless also makes for an easier life in terms of getting loans and jobs and paying of mortgages etc.
Now, you’ve argued that marriage is bad because it fosters dependence, and I’ve argued that we are all dependent on one another to some degree so this is not an adequate reason for getting rid of marriage.
Now, I think that people should all have a right to get married, and that there are measures we can take to ensure that things are as fair as possible to all parties, both within the marriage and after it (though, I’d venture that I think that the measures which protect women and children from being made destitute are more important than you do). I personally don’t want to get married because of the centuries of oppression of women associated with the practice, and because my parents are divorced and I feel like there are enough reasons to stay together when you are unhappy in a long term relationship, people don’t need marriage as another reason to feel guilty/bad about breaking up. This, however, does not mean I want people to stop getting married, nor am I going to judge anyone for doing so.
@Pecunium: If I get married I have a 15% chance of paying alimony.
That’s it, he’s a sockpuppet for NWO.
I realize I’ve accused *everyone* of being a sockpuppet today, but I refuse to believe that there are two people in the world with that bad of a grasp on statistics.
For reals, Brandon, why are you so convinced that, if you get married, your girlfriend will inevitably divorce you? Why do you trust her so little?
Also, I hope everyone took note of this:
Not financial equal. Equal. If you make less money than him, you have less value as a human being.
That’s funny, I don’t recall signing a contract when I got married. I signed the marriage license, but there wasn’t any contract. I definitely would have remembered that, as there is generally lots of initialing involved.
@katz
“If you’re fired, we have this thing called severance pay.”
Severance pay? Gee katz, we’re not all bankers where when we get fired we get a juicy package of a few hundred grand. Normally when you get fired it’s because you fucked up and deserve to get fired. That’d be accountability, the enemy of feminism. Maybe the State gives severance pay since they just defer to cost to the serfs, in the real world it doesn’t work that way. Man I hope I get fired soon so I can get a severance package. HAHAHA.
@captainbathrobe
“That’s funny, I don’t recall signing a contract when I got married. I signed the marriage license, but there wasn’t any contract. I definitely would have remembered that, as there is generally lots of initialing involved.”
If it’s not a contract, alimony couldn’t exist.
If you get fired you get unemployment.
There are many benefits to men to get married…more so then for a woman-which is why society has to pressure women into getting married and make it seem yucky to men.
Economically, socially, health wise…just better all around for men to get married.
CB-that marriage license IS the contract…which is why you cannot just pinkie swear.
How do you figure, NWO? Parenthood isn’t a contract, yet child support exists.
who the fuck is important enough to have an employment contract but not important enough to demand severance pay. owlslave are you making up nonsense hypotheticals again?
Alimony is not a contractual right, it is an equitable remedy; i.e., it is a remedy based on was is fair and just for the people and the situation involved.
@Katz: What does Glenn Beck have to do with gold? Is he trying to get people to own gold? The guy is for the most part a big sensationalist twit and I don’t really pay attention to him or his TV or radio show.
I support buying gold for one reason and it has nothing to do with Glenn Beck. Gold is maintaining it’s purchasing power while the US dollar is becoming worthless. Why would I hold on to ever increasingly worthless money when I can prevent my savings from going down the drain?
@Elizabeth: What am I hating on that prevented people from fixing their homes? Marriage has been around far longer than the idea of insurance. Or are you talking about The Fed? The main problem with The Fed is that by increasing the money supply with TARP, QE1 and QE2, The Fed has lowered the overall value of everyone’s dollar. This causes inflation which is nothing but a hidden tax that harms people who save their money and the poor. What Bush, Obama, Bernanke, Geithner and the rest of both administrations did was a damn travesty against the poor and the lower middle class.
I am not sure of the gold standard as it was back during Nixon, but I would like to see money get pegged to something so that one private bank can’t just cut all our money’s value in half because they can just print more money.