Divorce and poverty are often synonymous
A summary
In his article Divorce and poverty are often synonymous; David (2010) argues that ever since the first batch birth of baby boomers, the world and the society at large has undergone unprecedented changes more so divorce and poverty contributed by religious, legal, social and extended lifespan factors. Whereas in the 20th century the lifespan was fifty years, medical science has pushed it to more than sixty years; a blessing and a curse. Divorce has replaced death in married couples and with an emotional pain next to a loved one’s death.
A huge aging population calls for will depend on the young population’s financial resources for sustenance. Soaring divorces ushers in elderly people’s poverty; justifiable divorces judged based from an economic viewpoint have developed and standardized from state-to-state. The marital wealth acquired during marriage is divided between the divorcees with unbalanced allocation which mostly favors the wife in some states- an act that mostly doesn’t cushion the wife against future poverty and offers little economic security- while in other states on an equal basis.
Goals and methods
The author chose this topic with the goal of describing the synonymy between divorce and poverty. In their respective order, he aims at showing how one leads to the other. His aim was also to show future implications of an increased lifespan. Subsequently, he aims at showing how an increased lifespan has shaped marriage life which in turn has shaped marriage rights. He delves into how over the last sixty years there has been an upsurge of divorces and links this to an increasing backlog of poverty in elderly population. He also cites (non-)community states that execute judging on divorces in dissimilar ways where there is both a disproportionate and an equal basis of marriage wealth. Lastly he glimpses into the future lives of the divorcees, their poverty level and uses this to base his view that a favor to a wife in a divorce does little to secure an economically stable future.
Critique
This article by Joseph N. Ducanto, “Divorce and poverty are often synonyms” from American Journal of Family Law 24.2 (Summer 2010): p87, just as the title explicitly reflects, argues that there is a close relationship between divorce and poverty regardless of the marriage wealth basis through which the divorcee parties (mostly in favor of the wife) are allocated during the legal process.
According to the author, the poverty among the elderly population-mostly women as they have a longer lifespan compared to males- is a kind of chain-link where the root cause is an increased lifespan where medical science has played a vital role. The result of the aging population, as the author points out, is a situation whereby there will be less rich old people who will have to rely on the young poor population. Consequently, he points out that an extended lifespan had lead to increased divorces, of which the legal process divides the “equitable distribution” under either unbalanced division in favor of the wife or an equal basis. The author concludes that the in the equitable, any basis of divisions accounts very little in the financial stability status of the wife.
The increase of lifespan can’t be refuted. Similarly, I endorse the author’s perspective that an aging population plays a vital role in bringing about poverty. However, there are so much half-truths, speculations and assumptions. First, the author seems to have centered his article on the U.S population, yet, he is generalizing his research globally; a half-truth. He does so, simply because, in his opinion, he wrote that “the world and the people within it…” He seems to have no knowledge that development has not caught up with every corner of the world. In U.S. it can’t be refuted. Therefore, even though his opinion is obvious, it could have been crystal clear if he said of the world and people as “much have” rather than “the…have”.
Second, in his article, Joseph claims the surging number of divorces in the last sixty years is contributed by the aging population caused by the increased lifespan. Therefore, he leaves the reader to speculate that absolutely all divorces are occurring to people who are out of the age bracket before the increased lifespan, that is, people aged or over sixty. Since divorce cannot merely be a preserve of spouses over sixty, since there are or younger than forty-old divorcees, it takes that notion out of the context. It’s a baseless fact. The third disagreement with Joseph’s perception is his conclusion. In fact, even in the first place, Joseph’s insertion of “equitable distribution” is irrelevant; and if it’s relevant, that reader has got to have an assumption. The wealth acquired during marriage can be enormous or very little. Therefore-¬even though I (a reader) settled on the wealth being enormous-still had got to grapple with the idea that it could be very minimal.
In my conclusion, I disagree with Joseph’s conclusion. He draws his research from the U.S, yet, at the end he talks of women in general; his center of discussion is centered on increased lifespan and the synonymy of it to increased divorces, yet, based on the his concept of ‘generalizing of women’ it’s not to a global extent where lifespan has increased. Lastly, inserting “equitable distribution” to prop his research is irrelevant and supposed to be out of context since “equitable distribution” (wealth acquired during marriage) could be very little or nothing at all.
References
Joseph, D. N. (Summer 2010). Divorce and poverty are often synonymous. American Journal of Family Law, 24.2 , 87.