Bad law corrupts
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Elin Nordegren could be paid more than $50 million extra for sticking with Tiger Woods - Telegraph.
If Elin Nordegren divorces Tiger Woods, I shall be impressed. She is a wronged woman. He has humiliated her. If she has fallen out of love, she cannot be blamed. If she takes the money her pre-nuptial agreement entitles her to, I can't blame her for that either. Her children are the children of a wealthy man and - while there is no reason to suppose Tiger Woods would not look after them properly - she's entitled to make sure.
That she has been consulting lawyers about a possible divorce in California - a state with which she has only a tenuous connection - suggests she is considering a more aggressive approach. Perhaps, in her humiliation, she is looking to hit her husband harder. Yet, such are the puritan sensibilities of his sponsors, a divorce will (ludicrously) cost him hundreds of millions. So greed would seem a more likely motivation than punishment. Neither is particularly edifying.
That her husband's lawyers are offering her bribes on his behalf to remain married is disgusting. A marriage in which such offers are possible is already dead. There is no respectable justification to make such an insulting offer and certainly none to accept it.
Matrimonial law in the West pollutes male/female relationships. It insults women by suggesting - despite all the struggles of feminism - that they are mere dependants. It ignores their abilities to earn and undermines their obligation to take responsibility for their own lives. By presuming that custody of children should usually be given to the mother, it pressures loving fathers and tempts mothers to make use of access to infant children (which should be an absolute right for all family members - grandparents as well as fathers) as a negotiating point.
It makes rational men afraid of commitment, especially if they are wealthy or high earners. Tiger Woods is a talented man with huge earning capacity. Erin Nordegren is an ex-nanny. He had to spoil their romance by negotiating a pre-nuptial agreement. He would have been a fool else, but such an action can only make a marriage more likely to fail. It plants seeds of doubt when all should have been sweet, confident bliss. The long-standing position of the English Common Law that prenuptial agreements were void for the "public policy" reason that they undermined marriage acknowledged that. As a libertarian, I don't think the state should intervene in private arrangements such as marriage at all, but if it does get involved it should certainly not be to undermine them.
The law in its current form risks making whores of respectable women. Arguably, it risks making something worse. In the discussions about this high profile divorce case, I have seen it suggested that prostitutes have a higher moral code, because they respect their customers' privacy and do not sell their stories to the press. That is unfair to many honourable women who have been sincerely in love with married men, but it is suggestive of the unfortunate attitudes that such laws promote.
Good laws forbid bad behaviour and encourage good. By this test, our divorce laws are very bad indeed.
James... whatever...
Posted by: Moggsy | Wednesday, December 23, 2009 at 08:18 AM
Matrimonial law in the West pollutes male/female relationships. It insults women by suggesting - despite all the struggles of feminism - that they are mere dependants. It ignores their abilities to earn and undermines their obligation to take responsibility for their own lives.
You're so right and the rest of your post I posted similar sentiments on.
Posted by: jameshigham | Monday, December 21, 2009 at 07:04 PM
You say "Matrimonial law in the West pollutes male/female relationships. It insults women by suggesting - despite all the struggles of feminism - that they are mere dependants. It ignores their abilities to earn and undermines their obligation to take responsibility for their own lives"
If a woman gives up work to look after a couples children, or more unusally, a man does because again more unusually, the woman is the bigger earner. Then they definately "take one for the team" careerwise, earnings wise. They may also actually become financially dependant. So less of the "suggesting" for many women and a few men that is actually the case.
It does not ignore their ability to earn. but that ability in many cases has been permanently hamstrung by getting out of thier carreer. in some cases practically destroyed. So to give up work can be an act of investment and trust in the relationship and the partner.
In the case of Tiger Woods I don't think there is any doubt he wanted his wife and family to avoid publicity and probably that would seem to rule out a return to modelling anyway. Like a professional footballer I guess a model's career has an early sell-by date on it. By taking the family route and more importantly the give up your career route she will have sacrificed some of her best earning years.
You say "...respect their customers' privacy and do not sell their stories to the press" Well I don't think either Mr or Mrs Tiger were rushing to sell their stories to the press. The lack of that is part of what's fuelling all this BS speculation.
I agree with JMB, most of what you are beefing about is leaked lawyer tricks, traps and rumour.
And not wanting to be mean, but lawyering is not always moral. Not nearly as moral, or honest, as prostitution in many people's books.
It often uses technicalities and twists, tricks, "forms of words" and loopholes to get it's ends achieved. The first advice you always get is never admit anything, never concede anything, and such.
Question.. How did the divorce laws get to be the way they are? Framed by Lawyers elected to make legislation mostly, and then legal precident made them even more arcane and that would be down to the legal systems. More judges and lawyers all earning tidy little sums off people's hurt.
No lawyers going to get poor out of the Woods' marital problems, more newspapers either I guess. Lets have less high talk of prostitutes and moral codes please.
PS. I like your new Header ^_^
Posted by: Moggsy | Monday, December 21, 2009 at 12:44 PM
Mr Paine, I trust you are settling in well to your new home.
I think that you raise some very interesting points in your post, and am delighted that you are dangerously drifting away from from your libertarian roots here....
However, one point that I think is missing from the analysis is the moral position in one particular sense; very few people seem to be discussing this with the starting proposition that Tiger should not have done what he did. He made a moral commitment to his wife to remain faithful to her, and he broke that promise. She and their two children should not have had to suffer his breach of his commitment. I wonder whether we should be holding each other to our promises a little more....
I tend to agree with your basic theme though- the 'legalisation' of marriage and its breakdown is a bad law, and creates distortions of the underlying relationships in so many ways.
In relation to the other comments, i don't see a huge conspiracy theory here. TIger Woods, in that particular American way, set himself up as the 'All-American' family man, and it was enormously lucrative for him. When this came crashing down the 'brand' was irretrievably tarnished, and that is why the sponsors are leaving him. I do wonder if his colour has anything to do with the speed of his downfall- if so, it does not reflect well on those who have hastened it, but don't forget he, and he alone, could have stopped any of this from happening!
Posted by: Navigator | Monday, December 21, 2009 at 09:19 AM
I still think all the lawyers are driving this show and as everyone knows when you go to negotiating table your first position is outrageous, on both sides. With so much money involved in this particular case the numbers thrown about are incomprehensible to the ordinary person.
Plus this is the US where litigation has been taken to the most ludicrous extremes.
Only people who are wealthy negotiate pre-nuptial agreements on the whole. But the law should be there to protect the rights of both parties in the event of a divorce which is after all the legal dissolution of a marriage.
Matrimonial law in the West pollutes male/female relationships. It insults women by suggesting - despite all the struggles of feminism - that they are mere dependants. It ignores their abilities to earn and undermines their obligation to take responsibility for their own lives.
You think? Many are mere dependants for many years of child rearing and sometimes beyond and their ability to earn has been compromised by that. Where there are no children this is another matter and I cannot agree more that those women should take responsibility for their own lives.
By presuming that custody of children should usually be given to the mother, it pressures loving fathers and tempts mothers to make use of access to infant children (which should be an absolute right for all family members - grandparents as well as fathers) as a negotiating point.
Interestingly enough although I have no statistics on this, it seems that today many young couples have joint custody of their children after a divorce and I certainly see that around me in the younger divorced people I know.
Posted by: JMB | Sunday, December 20, 2009 at 08:33 PM
I have had my suspicions about this "Tiger" Woods business for days. I smell rats, and wonder who's trying to destroy him so thoroughly that he almost can never werk at doing anything again.
All these young women, who seem to look identical, have emerged out of the woodwork at, in media terms, one moment in time. The MSM appeared primed and ready for them. There are indeed so many of these persons that it smacks to me of a managed PR campaign - what in my day we called a "research-backed, strategically-focussed and opportunity-targetted programme of announcements and events"...I worked in two of these outfits in quick succession in the late 1980s....
Occam's Razor suggests it's his sponsors, straitened for cash by the banking crunch, trying to get out of future deals with hyper-expensive people. if so, expect it to happen to more guys in more sports. Comments by financial analysts would appear to substantiate this hypothesis.
Alternatively Occam thinks it's his wife, in an attempt to up her Pre-Nup. I think it's unlikely she'd go about it in this way, though, nor that she'd trash his car with a golf-club.
Or, it could be just really really well-co-ordinated planning by a number of young "cocktail waitresses" and "night club promoters", and the more powerful big-men whom they "know", to conduct a synchronised financial bear-raid on a targetted person. This also seems unlikely to W Occam, as it would require the co-ordinated efforts of many who might not like each other much. Rather like the 9/11 conspiracy theories, which would have required probably 25,000++ people to co-operate in the loop for some years, and be silent ever after.
I'd never heard of "Tiger" Woods before, and finding who he was I just assumed he's a harmless golfing fanatic. (You're not a golfer, are you, Tom? I don't want to offend.) So why would any firm want or need to pay him all that money, just for wearing their stuff? People on the street do it for nothing, and buy the kit too....
I think there's more going on here than meets the eye, but I can't think what.
Surely, "Tiger" can't be his real name? I mean, it's just _asking_ for trouble!
Posted by: David Davis_libertarian alliance | Sunday, December 20, 2009 at 02:29 PM