What are the biases shown in family law?
Every human bias imaginable can affect a family law case, but the ones that I find most common and most troubling are (in no particular order):
- Women are better parents than men (this opinion is changing slowly).
- Sole custody is better for children than joint custody (this is rapidly changing and soon people will wonder why we ever presumed sole custody to be better[1])
- Children need time with their mothers more than they do with their fathers (this opinion is changing slowly).
- Women can’t survive without support from their husbands, regardless of whether the woman is the cause of the divorce.
- Men, by virtue of being men (by virtue of women being women), are better able to absorb and pay off debt than are women.
- Husbands commit more domestic violence than do wives, and women rarely, if ever, lie about domestic violence.
- Claimed expenses of operating a business are almost always grossly inflated.
- Legitimate expenses of operating a business are almost always presumed to be grossly inflated.
- Claimed living expenses are almost always grossly inflated (although it is often true that living expenses are grossly inflated).
- Joint custody cannot work for children unless the parents agree to it.
I used to say that men are the cause of more divorces than women are. While that may still be true, women are quickly reaching parity with men on this.
My biggest knock on men generally in divorce (and I know this isn’t politically correct, but it’s my honest, opinion as objectively stated as I can make it):
- they tend to lie about their income more easily and more often than do women.
- they lie about the level of involvement they had with their children pre-divorce filing because they are terrified that the court will think they were absentee parents.
My biggest knock on women generally in divorce(again, I know this isn’t politically correct, but it’s my honest, opinion as objectively stated as I can make it):
- Women lie more easily and more often than do men in divorce because people are more willing to believe women than men about divorce issues, especially child custody issues.
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[1] There was a good reason for this belief back when women were primarily full-time, stay-at-home parents and men were primarily the breadwinners working outside the home.Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277