{"product_id":"the-marriage-buyout-9780814725320","title":"The Marriage Buyout","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom divorce court to popular culture, alimony\u003cbr\u003eis a dirty word. Unpopular and rarely ordered, the awards are frequently\u003cbr\u003einconsistent and unpredictable. The institution itself is often viewed as an\u003cbr\u003ehistorical relic that harkens back to a gendered past in which women lacked the\u003cbr\u003eeconomic independence to free themselves from economic support by their spouses.\u003cbr\u003eIn short, critics of alimony claim it has no place in contemporary visions of\u003cbr\u003emarriage as a partnership of equals. But as Cynthia Lee Starnes argues in The\u003cbr\u003eMarriage Buyout, alimony is often the only practical tool for ensuring that divorce does not treat\u003cbr\u003etoday’s primary caregivers as if they were suckers. Her solution is to\u003cbr\u003eradically reconceptualize alimony as a marriage buyout.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStarnes’s buyouts draw on a partnership model of marriage that reinforces\u003cbr\u003ecommunal norms of marriage, providing a gender-neutral alternative to alimony\u003cbr\u003ethat assumes equality in spousal contribution, responsibility, and right. Her\u003cbr\u003equantification formulae support new default rules that make buyouts more\u003cbr\u003ecertain and predictable than their current alimony counterparts. Looking beyond\u003cbr\u003ealimony, Starnes outlines a new vision of marriages with children, describing a\u003cbr\u003eco-parenting partnership between committed couples, and the conceptual basis\u003cbr\u003efor income sharing between divorced parents of minor children. Ultimately,\u003cbr\u003eunder a partnership model, the focus of alimony is on gain rather than loss and\u003cbr\u003eequality rather than power: a spouse with disparately low earnings isn’t a\u003cbr\u003esucker or a victim dependent on a fixed alimony payment, but rather an equal\u003cbr\u003estakeholder in marriage who is entitled at divorce to share any gains the\u003cbr\u003emarriage produced.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cynthia Lee Starnes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48094673109243,"sku":"9780814725320","price":45.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0779\/3917\/9771\/files\/CoreSourceHub_c877c842-b8fd-4ce4-ab4c-5983a98c35ac.jpg?v=1770447985","url":"https:\/\/indiepubs.com\/products\/the-marriage-buyout-9780814725320","provider":"IndiePubs","version":"1.0","type":"link"}