LETTER: Some Choice

As a second-year law student completing a course in Family Law, I would urge all those making the choice advocated in Reshma Yaqub's column extolling the virtues of the privilege of "[subordinating] career to family" (DP 4/15/92) to not only consider the bothersome statistic that a working woman juggles it all including 70 percent of the housework, but the dose of reality that the "choice" to be a homemaker may leave you "subordinate economically" in a time of 50 percent divorce rate that leaves women with a 73 percent decline in standard of living, while men enjoy a rise of 42 percent. Yaqub may not worry about such consequences because she may never get divorced, but after studying the disadvantages of many woman after they have devoted their lives to their families, I can't help but urge anyone who contemplates assuming the noble position of primary homemaker to consider the realities of the millions of women who have gone before us believing their marriage would never dissolve, or trusting that if it did, their partner would do right by them. The effect on your beloved children is implicit in the resulting disparity between men and women after divorce. The remarriage rate is higher for men who may assume new family responsibilities -- which some courts may consider in reducing his financial obligations to his first family! -- while women, traditionally the custodial parent, usually experience social dislocation, a move to an inferior neighborhood and fewer funds for recreation and leisure. The economic disaster of divorce for women translates into on-going economic impact on their children. Although men who choose to work full time may suffer later with the denial of custody of their children because they were not the primary caregivers, women who stayed at home to enjoy their children may be denied custody because their standard of living after a lifetime of unpaid work may not be in the "best interest" of the children, a standard used by many courts. Approximately only 17 percent of spouses are awarded alimony, and what is known as "rehabilitative alimony" -- paying support until the spouse becomes self-supporting -- does not compensate for the years that the dependent spouse has lost in the job market. Unfortunately society does not make it easy for women to leave and re-enter the workforce, never mind never entering and trying ten years later when their skills are rusty or outdated. I certainly look forward to the day when there has been enough change to allow women and men to equally experience the joys of family and child care, and equity for a spouse who assumes the responsibility of primary homemaker in cases where the home they were making later dissolves, but until then I cannot deny a semester of reading frustrating results for women who after making the choice of being a homemaker are left with very limited choices when it didn't work out, and I cannot help but caution against the simplicity of Yaqub's article. For curiosity, I recommend Yaqub glance at a not-too-distant case, Masek v. Masek, which supports her idea of what makes a good homemaker, in which a mother who taught music part time lost custody to a full-time working father because "the mother slept until 9 a.m. on Saturdays, failed to prepare breakfast for her husband who left for work at 7 a.m. and on occasion had run out of jam and cookies." So much for choice. DEIDRE GIBLIN Law '93