Divorce

Even after reading Lorna Medway’s letter (Feb. 17), I can’t work up much sympathy for the plight of divorced women in this state. Take a hypothetical case. This young man marries his sweetheart; they pledge a lot of things to each other at the altar; after the honeymoon is over she turns out to be a bore and a lazy slob. Also, she is fooling around with other men. (Naaah, you say, this is pure fiction. But let me continue). For a few years he is trying to make his marriage work; after all, he remembers his vows. Finally he gives up, files for divorce.

Do not despair over the fate of the poor abandoned waif. The Goldiggers Act of California takes care of her. She will receive half of everything her hubby worked for, and if he did not document carefully his holdings before he got married she will lay her paws on that half, too.

Then with the help of a well-paid lawyer and a sympathetic judge she will receive half of her ex-husband’s income, to “maintain the style she is accustomed to,” on the income only her husband worked for, because she never worked a day in her life. I know, I know, she took care of the house, or rather whatever was left to be done after the housekeeper, the cleaning lady and the gardener were gone.

In other words her existence was supported for little more than providing “connubial comfort” for a man. Don’t we have a name for this occupation?

A. D. BORONKAY

Santa Ana