Document 40: "Plank 13: Homemakers," from National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year, The Spirit of Houston: The First National Women's Conference (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978), pp. 57-59.
p. 57
PLANK 13
HOMEMAKERS
The Federal Government and State legislatures should base their laws relating to marital property, inheritance, and domestic relations on the principle that marriage is a partnership in which the contribution of each spouse is of equal importance and value.
The President and Congress should support a practical plan for covering homemakers in their own right under social security and facilitate its enactment.
Alimony, child support, and property arrangements at divorce should be such that minor children's needs are first to be met and spouses share the economic dislocation of divorce. As a minimum, every State should enact the economic provisions of the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act proposed by the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and endorsed by the American Bar Association. Loss of pension rights because of divorce should be considered in property divisions. More effective methods for collection of support should be adopted.
The Bureau of the Census should collect data on the economic arrangements at divorce and their enforcement, with a large enough sample to analyze the data by State.
The Federal and State governments should help homemakers displaced by widowhood, divorce, or desertion to become self-sufficient members of society through programs providing training and placement and counseling on business opportunities, advice on financial management, and legal advice.
Background:
"…legal realities of a marriage contract degrade and demean the wife's role."
The low value that our society places on the homemaker's role is reflected in support laws, property laws, divorce laws, and inheritance laws. If our children, sons as well as daughters, cannot expect that work in the home will be recognized as of equal value and as deserving equal dignity with work done outside the home, the institution of the family and society itself will suffer.
When a man and a woman enter into a marriage, they often believe that they are entering a cooperative partnership, but the legal realities of a marriage contract degrade and demean the wife's role.
Wife as chattel The low value placed on the wifely role has its roots in English common law. In his 1765 Commentaries on the Laws of England, William Blackstone wrote that "a wife is a superior servant to her husband … only chattel with no personality, no property and no legally recognized feelings or rights." Property laws, inheritance laws, and domestic relations laws in the United States grew out of the same principles.
While many changes have been made as a result of the women's movements in the 19th and 20th centuries, many discriminatory laws remain, For example:
In 1977 in Georgia, the house occupied by a family, if titled in the husband's name, belongs only to him, even if the wife is the wage carner and makes all payments. In 1977 in Arkansas, a husband can dispose of all property, even jointly owned, without his wife's consent. In Maine joint business profits belong solely to the husband. In 43 out of the 50 states a women cannot charge her husband with rape even though they are living apart and he forces her to have sexual relations with him.
Homemakers' lack of security The full-time homemaker who works at home unpaid—to attend to the family's day-to-day maintenance has no economic security. She receives no pay. She has no health or disability insurance in her own right. She has no retirement plan and receives no social security payments in her own right. If she "loses her job" through widowhood or divorce, she is ineligible for unemployment insurance.
The assumption is that her husband will support her, but the courts have been unwilling to interfere with the "sanctity" of the marital relationship, and in most States there is no way to enforce support unless she files for divorce or separation. When living under the same roof, the husband may give his wife as little as he wishes to run the home regardless of his income. He may be required to pay any bills she incurs, but merchants will be quick to deny credit to a wife if they believe they may have to sue her husband in order to collect.
Not only does the law assume a wife's work is not worth much, but it also assumes that the money belongs to the man who earned it even though the woman may have managed and saved it.
A homemaker does not legally have an equal share of the couple's economic assets except in eight community property states: Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Washington. Even then the wife may not have real control. In Louisiana the husband has total control and charge of all community property, including the wife's earnings.
Homemakers and social security Homemakers who have
not worked in employment covered by social security have no protection in their
own right. Divorced women married less than 10 years (20 years for benefits
prior to January 1979) cannot collect social security benefits based on their
husband's earnings. (The Bureau of the Census reports
p. 58
Alimony and child support The best evidence of the worth ascribed to the homemaker in the law can be found in property settlements at divorce, the awarding of alimony, or maintenance and child support. With the Bureau of the Census now reporting one divorce for every two marriages, divorce has become a major source of economic hardship for women.
The National IWY Commission's Committee on the Homemaker found many divorced wives and their children living on welfare, even when the husband was under a court order to support them. The women and children were living on an average of $218 a month, while the men were living close to $800 a month. (The National Commission has published reports on the legal status of homemakers in each State.)
The RAND Corporation surveyed one-parent households in California and found that three out of five were on welfare, and almost all were headed by women.
There are not enough data available on economic arrangements at divorce to analyze them on a State-by-State basis, but all available evidence indicates that alimony is granted in only a very small percentage of cases; that fathers by and large are contributing less than half to the support of children in divided families: and that enforcement of alimony and child support awards is very inadequate.
Child support is actually awarded in only 44 percent of all divorces, and one study found that after three years, only 19 percent of divorced fathers were paying any support at all. Most court-ordered support payments fall below welfare in amount, according to an Alabama report. Judges have almost total discretion in making awards. In only a few States, such as Alaska, New Mexico and Washington, is there a recommended schedule of payments based on net salary of the parent paying support.
Alimony is awarded in only 14 percent of all divorces, and no more than seven percent of divorced men actually make such payments. The courts in many States, including Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Texas, are not empowered to award any continuing alimony. No alimony at all is awarded in 90 percent of Iowa divorces. In Washington, D.C., South Carolina, Virginia, and Louisiana, wives found "at fault" in divorces may receive no alimony although men "at fault" are not penalized by having to make larger payments.
When it comes to dividing up the assets of a marriage at the time of divorce, most States do not require the courts to take into consideration the value of work in the home.
The exceptions are: Colorado, Delaware, Indiana, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and Ohio. In Kentucky a homemaker's services must be considered, but even here they are downgraded. The general rule of thumb is that the wife receives approximately one-third of the jointly held property if she has been a homemaker and up to a maximum of one-half if she has been a wage earner.
Until recently, Pennsylvania State law did not require that a homemaker's contributions be considered when dividing up the household goods of a marriage, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court determined that under the State's Equal Rights Amendment, a women's work in the home must be considered as much of a contribution to the marriage as a man's job and that she is entitled to an equal share of the household goods.
Economic provisions of Uniform Marriage and Divorce
Act: Many of the
economic inequities that erode the
lives of dependent spouses and children would be corrected if each State were
to enact the economic provisions of the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act.
Some of the more important provisions of the act are:
The contribution of the spouse as homemaker must be considered when dividing property.
The courts are authorized to order child support from either or both parties and must consider five relevant factors, including the standard of living the child would have enjoyed had the marriage not been dissolved.
Procedures would be established for payments of support or maintenance orders through a court officer and for enforcement by the appropriate prosecuting attorney.
The courts may order the person obligated to pay support or maintenance to assign part of his or her earnings or trust income to the person entitled to receive payments.
A decree ordering maintenance of support could be modified only as to installments accruing subsequent to the motion for modification and only upon a showing of changed circumstances so substantial and continuing as to make the terms unconscionable.
Some needed reform is not included in UMDA: It does not have a section requiring disclosure of assets. It does recommend that in community property States the family home or right to live therein may be awarded to the spouse having custody of any children; however, this recommendation is not included for common-law (non-community property) States, an omission that may be of great importance in families where the only property owned is the home.
Wisconsin has enacted a new divorce law that may be one of the best in the nation. Some features are improvements on UMDA. Copies may be obtained from the Wisconsin Commission on the Status of Women, 30 West Mifflin Street, Madison, Wis. 53703.
p. 59
Legislation Displaced Homemakers: Legislation provided 50 centers for counseling, training, and placement of displaced homemakers was introduced by Representative Yvonne Burke (D-California) and Senator Birch Bayh (D-Indiana). House and Senate hearings have been held. The bill, which has 100 cosponsors, is expected to be included in the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), to be renewed in 1978.
Social Security coverage for homemakers: Representative Donald M. Fraser (D-Minnesota) introduced legislation in the 94th Congress to bring homemakers into the Social Security system. More recently, Representative Martha Keys (D-Kansas) has cosponsored the Fraser bill, which was reintroduced in the 95th Congress. The bill, which has 60 cosponsors, would amend the Social Security Act to establish individual records for both partners in a marriage. Both husband and wife would be credited with the family income on social security records, and those records would stay with each throughout life. The effect would be to give divorced women a social security record. The bill would also provide disability coverage for both spouses and would lower the age at which the surviving spouse could collect benefits to age 50, which is the time most widowed women with children lose benefits because their children have come of age. Hearings were held in July 1977, and further hearings were expected to be held in July 1978.
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