AKA "10 Best States for a Guy to get Divorced In"
So I added weights to my analysis of states, and considered relative merits of the factors I had, and theorized and considered, and here is what I finally came up with:
Factors Considered in Order of Weight (Most Important to Least) and Why:
Major Factors: (181% to 70% Weighting)
Joint Custody Recognized: (47 States) – almost everyone claims to recognize joint custody - but if they don’t even claim to support joint custody, I figure they must be beyond the beyond. Note that custody drives child support, and sometimes alimony, and that children are usually considered your most valuable possession.
Child Support not a percentage of Income: (34 States) – I counted this as more important than alimony because states often (but not always) load the heaviest financial burdens on men here, and child support is not tax-deductible.
Alimony Ignores Standard of Living: (11) – There are only 11 states that claim not to consider standard of living – the rest of the states enslave men. Nuff said.
Secondary Factors: (40% to 20%)
College not Considered in Support: (33) – Although it is nice to pay for your kids’ college, for the state to mandate such a huge expense is inappropriate.
Only Marital Property Divided: (32) – Certainly being able to retain some of your family inheritances, pre-marital assets, and gifts as yours alone has significant value to men, even if it is difficult to do in practice. Especially with couples marrying later in life, this is relatively important.
Shared Parenting Offsets Support: (28) – Imagine paying a huge support number, even if you have the kids most of the time. Also having a law about this indicates that the state occasionally does allow joint custody and/or occasionally gives custody to the man.
Custody not a Factor in Alimony: (24) – Child support should be child support and spousal support should be spousal support. Blending the two seems like a bad idea, and a sign of murky thinking.
I added in a few other factors – consideration of fault in a divorce I actually weighted negatively, as I have seen enough of the court system to know that fault would generally be weighted against the man, there are 10 ‘community property’ states out there, and I weighted that against them (15%) – (division of marital property exclusion handled most of that already), the 12 states recognizing common law marriages got a minor strike against them (7%) (would be nice to be able to live in sin without having to be enslaved) and the 9 states making all income community property for tax purposes got a really minor tap (2%).
With all that said, here is my current ranking of the states in terms of friendliness to men in marriage, from best to worst. Reviewing the data, you can see that although some of the states that are known abusers of men have lower marriage rates, there is no great correspondence between abuse and low marriage rates in terms of the laws and weightings in this table. Still, this table may be of interest to those contemplating marriage, although it says nothing about the actual way the laws are applied - I apologize for the lack of lovely format, struggling with html inside the blogger is not worth my time.
State, Wtd Rank, Rank%, Marriage Rate 2001 as % of range, excluding NV and HI
West Virginia 1 100% 30.30%
Wyoming 2 100% 54.55%
Oklahoma 3 98% 0.00%
Maine 4 97% 41.41%
Indiana 5 95% 8.08%
Kansas 6 95% 27.27%
Idaho 7 90% 65.66%
Maryland 8 86% 22.22%
North Carolina 9 86% 29.29%
Virginia 10 86% 41.41%
Delaware 11 85% 18.18%
Nebraska 12 85% 32.32%
Ohio 13 85% 24.24%
Colorado 14 83% 38.38%
Kentucky 15 83% 42.42%
Florida 16 80% 48.48%
Louisiana 17 79% 37.37%
New Mexico 18 78% 30.30%
Pennsylvania 19 78% 11.11%
Michigan 20 78% 18.18%
Vermont 21 78% 50.51%
New Jersey 22 77% 17.17%
Rhode Island 23 74% 37.37%
Missouri 24 74% 27.27%
Mississippi 25 74% 18.18%
Utah 26 73% 57.58%
South Dakota 27 73% 42.42%
Montana 28 70% 23.23%
Oregon 29 70% 28.28%
Arizona 30 68% 31.31%
North Dakota 31 67% 17.17%
South Carolina 32 66% 44.44%
Minnesota 33 64% 19.19%
Nevada 34 61% 708.08%
Connecticut 35 61% 7.07%
Georgia 36 59% 14.14%
District of Columbia 37 59% 19.19%
Hawaii 38 56% 156.57%
Wisconsin 39 55% 16.16%
Tennessee 40 53% 90.91%
Illinois 41 50% 24.24%
Alabama 42 50% 47.47%
Iowa 43 48% 23.23%
Alaska 44 46% 33.33%
Massachusetts 45 44% 15.15%
Texas 46 44% 45.45%
New Hampshire 47 40% 37.37%
California 48 40% 17.17%
Arkansas 49 38% 100.00%
New York 50 29% 30.30%
Washington 51 26% 23.23%
My best to all: -M
Data for my study came from abanet .
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