Alimony Becoming a Requirement

Today's alimony guidelines are very different from before. A judge will usually grant alimony to one spouse only if it can be proven that one spouse was financially dependent on the other.

However, in the past, paying alimony was required even though alimony law was vague on the subject. A woman was unable to support herself. She was to tend the home, and the man was supposed to earn enough money to put a roof over his family's head, clothes on their backs, and food on the table. Men who did not work or feed their family were often considered failures. Since alimony guidelines made alimony a requirement, almost every single woman who divorced received alimony, unless she was at fault for the marital problems. However, divorce was rare in those days, so the issue of alimony law almost never came up.


When a couple divorced, men were responsible for paying alimony. During the marriage, women were responsible for making sure that they did nothing that could hold them at fault for the divorce. Alimony guidelines followed the rule of a man supporting his ex-wife unless she had committed a wrongdoing that ended the marriage. Men who did not want to pay alimony would sometimes accuse their wives of . A man's word was often believed over a woman's, so there were times when alimony law would grant a woman nothing if she was accused of adultery.


Alimony guidelines have changed drastically over the years. A man used to be required to pay alimony because of a woman's inability to support herself. In modern times many women make as much, if not more, money then their husbands.