I was talking to a young mother that I work with last weekend, and she was telling me about the bitter divorce between her folks. There was initial talk of sharing a lawyer and splitting the assets 50-50, but the dad lost his cool and cruelly insulted his wife, her father and whole family. Now the wife, who has a boyfriend, is livid and has retained an attorney that is going for blood.
In Mavellonialist ethics, I have not dwelled much on divorce, but it should be that marriage is sacred and for life, but if they need to divorce, it should be a last resort, but a legal, available recourse.
Once divorced the ex-partners should be able to remarry, or cohabit, or whatever.
As life insurance is intended to ensure that the surviving spouse is not financially devastated while being emotionally wrecked when losing her partner, married couples getting divorced should be ethically trained to see the rupture as a business breaking up between two partners wishing to split up: they should conduct an amiable divorce without greed, passion, ego, revenge or hatred driving their financial reasoning. The assets should be split 50-50, and they they can quietly go on their merry, separate ways.
And law schools should train lawyers to serve as conciliatory assistant, facilitating a quick, quiet, equitable divorce. A prolonged, bitter, exhausting quarrel enriches the lawyer as the family assets are bled out of the family and towards the law office. That is not right and must not continue.
Another thing that combatants in any fight need to understand: the enemy is proud, and, once sufficiently aroused, will fight you to the death, and show no mercy and no compromise. To drive your wife to that point that she is now a vile, unyielding, permanent enemy is to fight her for years in the courts depleting your estate, your financial and emotional well-being. You enriched the lawyers and destroyed each other. What a waste.
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