Supreme Court Wants More Equality in Spanish Divorces
It has left us all wondering how come a ruling clearly favouring men has not been used, as a political weapon, by the sectarian feminist brigade and in fact, has gone almost unnoticed. The reason? Because the deciding magistrate was a woman.
I am talking about the latest Supreme Court decision that rules that divorcees will both pay the mortgage on the existing home in proportion to their share of ownership. So, whereas before the mortgage was deemed to be part of the monthly payment the better off divorcee (or separated spouse) had to pay the worst off, thereby being shared in accordance to their earnings (the appealing ex-husband was paying 80 per cent), it is now considered to be a debt generated by the spousal financial agreement, signed prior to marriage, and thus shared equally.
Most opinions I’ve listened to coincide in one thing: this new trend will help ease off the strain recent case law has created in couples in respect to the perceived advantages women got when divorcing, in a seemingly endless gender struggle. This subject, always susceptible to being interpreted by male extremists as the price to pay for living in a country famed for domestic abuse/violence (one would be surprised though to know what statistics published in other countries say) will no doubt be debated thoroughly in the months to come, if new similar rulings see the light, in particular one seen as the “war of sexes time bomb”: the shared children custody.