Boston
Paul and Theresa Taylor were married for 17 years. He was an engineer for the Boston Public Utilities while she worked in the accounting department of a publishing house. They had three children, a weekend house on the bay and a suburban house on a leafy street called Cranberry Lane. In 1982, when they divorced, the separation was amicable. She got the family home; he got the second home. Both agreed to “waive any claim to previous, present or future maintenance payments”.
But recently, more than two decades after the divorce, Ms. Taylor, 64, a Massachusetts magistrate, said she had no work, retirement plans, or health insurance. Earlier this year, the judge ordered Mr. Taylor, now 68 and remarried, to pay $ 400 a week to support his ex-wife.
“This is insane,” says Taylor, adding that the payments cut his after-tax pension by more than a third. “Someone can just come back 25 years later and say, ‘My life went down the bathroom and you’re fine – so now I want some of your money’?”
The nature of marriage has changed dramatically over the decades. Today women make up almost half of the American workforce. But alimony, a term anchored in old law, has remained remarkably constant. Now the idea that a husband should support his wife forever, even after the end of their marriage – which has long been a cornerstone of divorce law – is being questioned. There is growing pressure to change a practice that some consider outdated and unfair.
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