Marital Property/Divorce, your opinion
In property class we are starting to study stuff about marital property and in the USA there are two competing rules.
1) Majority Common law rule (aka English system): which basically says husband and wife have separate property, ownership is given to the spouse who acquires the property. At divorce, husband takes what was originally his and stuff acquired during marriage is divided "equitably". But if one spouse dies before the other the one who dies first can give his/her property to whoever is in his will (not always the wife, estate tax must be paid).
2)Continental system, minority rule: only in a few states, all but two of which were originally Spanish or french colonies. this basically says the husband and wife are a marital partnership and should share assets equally. During marriage each partner has power over other partners property. In divorce all property is divided up equitably, and at one spouses death all property automatically goes to the other spouse no matter what is in the decedents will (this avoids a federal estate tax).
This is clearly a very basic definition of the two and there are tons of exceptions and stuff. But which one would you rather live under and why? And which one do you think is fairer? Also, out of curiosity if a wife and husband are married and one goes to medical school with the other one paying the bills in the mean time and 20 years after the person gets their degree should the person with the degree have to pay the other person the value of half that degree?
A woman goes to the doctor to figure out why she is having breathing problems...The doctor tells her she is overweight. She says she wants a second opinion...the doctor says, "your ugly".
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Originally Posted by Matra et Alpine
