Why does the female in a marriage usually get most of the belongings when they divorce? I can imagine that this is true, but is it actually legally spelled out and motivated? Or is it just what tends to typically happen, for &quot;other reasons&quot;? I've never been married and thus not divorced, so I'm just going by what I've perceived as well as a text I just read which was talking about the economics of moving between houses, where it's casually mentioned that the ex-husband &quot;just gets to keep a mattress and the TV&quot;. Is this actually a legal thing? Something which is in a legally binding &quot;marriage contract&quot; (I don't know if that even exists)? If so, what's the reason for this?
united-states In the United States, divorce is a matter of state law, and each of the 50 states has slightly different laws. But in general, it is not true as a matter of law that divorced women are awarded everything but &quot;a mattress and a TV&quot;. A small number of states, of which the largest are California and Texas, are community property states. In such states, all property acquired during the marriage is generally divided equally according to the value of the assets. The majority of states, however, follow what is called &quot;equitable distribution&quot;. In such states, assuming the divorce goes before a judge (most divorces don't), the judge must determine a fair distribution of the assets acquired during the marriage. As an example, in the state of Illinois, this division should be based on factors such as: the effects of any prenuptial agreements the length of the marriage each spouse's age, health, and station in life whether a spouse is receiving spousal maintenance (alimony) each spouse's occupation, vocational skills, and employability the value of property assigned to each spouse each spouse's debts and financial needs each spouse's opportunity for future acquisition of assets and income either spouse’s obligations from a prior marriage (such as child support for other children), contributions to the acquisition, preservation, or increased value of marital property, including contributions as a homemaker contributions to any decrease in value or waste of marital or separate property the economic circumstances of each spouse custodial arrangements for any children of the marriage the desirability of awarding the family home, or the right to live in it for a reasonable period of time, to the party who has physical custody of children the majority of the time, and any tax consequences of the property division. (The exact legal phrasing of the statutes can be found in 750 ILCS 5 if you're curious.) In practice, this may result in a partner who has stayed home with the kids for 10 years getting a larger share of the shared property; such a person may have difficulty re-entering the workforce because of their lack of recent work experience. Similarly, if it is desirable to have the couple's children remain in the family home, and one partner will be receiving primary custody (perhaps because they have spent many years at home bonding with the children), then the family home may be awarded to that partner. In such circumstances, the judge may also award the other partner a larger portion of the assets than they would otherwise receive, to compensate for the loss of equity. In practice, given gender norms within Western societies, it is more likely that a woman will stay home with the children, have worse economic prospects after divorce, and be awarded primary custody of any children. An equitable distribution would therefore favor the woman under the above criteria. But the law itself does not discriminate by gender. If a heterosexual couple divorced where the woman had been the primary wage-earner and a man was the homemaker, the distribution of assets might well favor the man.
As Tom says and these guys reiterate (I'm quoting those guys), "Employment relationships are presumed to be “at-will” in all U.S. states except Montana. The U.S. is one of a handful of countries where employment is predominantly at-will". Montana (Dept. of Labor and Industry) also states that they are the only ones in the US like that. Montana Code 39-2-904(1)(b) states that a discharge is unlawful if "the discharge was not for good cause and the employee had completed the employer's probationary period of employment". (2)(a) then states that "During a probationary period of employment, the employment may be terminated at the will of either the employer or the employee on notice to the other for any reason or for no reason". There is a presumptive 6 month probationary period in case an employer say nothing, but it could be longer or shorter (it can be 7 years for university professors, and I don't find anything in the code preventing an employer from setting the probationary period at 50 years).
The legal system is set up to alleviate the problem or conundrum of intimidation by perpetrators. In the US criminal system, the State is the plaintiff, not the individual. In the extant described situation, very likely all you would have to do is sign an affidavit that the recovered phone is your phone, and that it was removed from your possession by unknown means on or about a certain date. From your description given here you don't know if it was stolen...you appear to have perhaps dropped it or left it somewhere, and someone picked it up/found it. Clearly it didn't belong to them, but this is more like "recovered lost property" rather than "received stolen property." The craigslist poster might be entirely un-chargeable with a crime, though they might have to give up the phone to you.
It primarily depends on the title that you have to the house: are you &quot;joint tenants with right of survivorship&quot;. This could have happened when you bought the house; it also could have been done after the fact in various ways. In that case, the house is outside of your wife's estate (which, under the circumstances, is divided between children and you). The lender might be confused about the status of the property, but they might be right, so the question is, what is your legal &quot;interest&quot; in the house, that is, does the title document say &quot;tenants in common&quot;? Assuming that the property is not recorded as JTWROS, then there are two matters to attend to. First, the lender may need to be satisfied, somehow, that they aren't taking a risk by refinancing when you aren't really the full owner. The second is clarifying actual ownership. Estates Code 201.0002-.003 govern intestate succession with a surviving spouse, where the dividing question is whether it is a community estate or not, which then implies shares for children. In that case, the children are part-owners, so you need their consent to e.g. sell the house (that is, this is a complication that needs to be fixed). Basically, you have to get a lawyer, and straighten this out.
Between your mother and you the bank does not care where the payments come from. If they do not get them, they can sue you, or your mother or (most likely) both of you and they will chase whichever of you has the most money and ultimately repossess the house to satisfy the debt. What matters between you is the contract or deed that you signed with your mother where you documented that you would each pay half of the mortgage. Unfortunately, agreements between family members are presumed not to be contracts. That is, the courts will not get involved to decide how much each of you owe - you have to sort that out for yourselves. A signed agreement will usually overcome that presumption. Other evidence may overcome the presumption - for example, evidence that you split the payments 50/50 for some period of time. Talk to your mother. And a lawyer.
Even in a community property state like Washington, a person is not liable for the premarital debts of a spouse (but is responsible for postmarital debts). During the marriage, jointly-owned property is accessible to creditors, but after divorce, there is no risk to the non-debtor. Though, you would be responsible if you were a co-signer on the loan.
This may be true of the Nooksack tribe, in a sense. There is a category of Indian land known as trust land, which is held in trust by the US Government for the benefit of a tribe (there is also land that is just plain owned by the tribe). A tribe can thus set rules regarding use of the land that they control, which could mean that nobody can live in a particular place (not uncommon). The tribe could rent out land, and the rental agreement could contain a tribal membership clause. This complaint by the Nooksack Indian Housing Authority alleges that defendant is not a member of the tribe, and that the rental agreement requires defendant to be an enrolled member of the tribe. Defendant was disenrolled, and the eviction action followed. Non-member evictions are not the most popular actions that a tribe undertakes, so finding those rules online is not going to be easy.
You are not legally responsible for your spouse’s acts or omissions. However, in most jurisdictions most assets of a married couple are legally jointly held which means any judgement against your spouse exposes the jointly held assets.