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This report was prepared under contract with the Center for Women Policy Studies, Washington, D.C., which commissioned an authority in each State to write a paper on the law of that State from the viewpoint of the homemaker. Opinions and points of view stated in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of any Federal agency, the National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year, of its Homemaker’s Committee, or of the Center for Women Policy Studies.
This paper may be reproduced, published or translated in whole or in part. The Homemaker’s Committee asks that statements not be quoted out of context in such a way as to mislead and that credit for gathering this information be given the Homemaker’s Committee of the National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year.
This leaflet is based on the laws and judicial precedents in effect in North Dakota in 1976.
December 1976
The legal status of homemakers is of most direct importance to the minority of women whose husbands neglect to make a will or fail to be honorable and decent in their relationships with their wives and children, for these are the women who experience the effects of the law most directly. The legal status of homemakers, however, has great significance for all women, for the parents of daughters, and for the society at large.
The rights of homemakers under support laws, property laws, divorce laws, and inheritance laws are the concrete evidence of the value society places on the homemaker’s role. If women’s work is not valued in the home, it has a low value outside the home. If our daughters (and sons) cannot expect that their work in the home will be recognized as of equal value and deserving equal dignity with that of the spouse who works outside the home, the institution of the family and our society will suffer. The laws in most States are not grounded in this evaluation of the homemaker’s role.
The laws under consideration in this leaflet apply to all wives (and in most cases to husbands) whether they work at home or outside the home. This paper, however, has been written from the viewpoint of the homemaker not employed outside the home, because she (or he) is the most vulnerable to economic inequalities.
Because divorce is usually the only way a wife can enforce support rights, property settlements at divorce, and awarding of alimony (or maintenance), and child support provide the best evidence of the worth ascribed to the homemaker in the law. With 1,000,000 divorces in 1975, the economic impact of divorce on women and children is important to the society.
There is very little information of any kind available on economic arrangements at divorce and none that can be analyzed State by State. All available data, however, point to the conclusion that alimony is granted in only a very small percentage of cases, that fathers, by and large, are contributing less than half the support of the children in divided families, and that the enforcement of alimony and child support awards is very inadequate.(1)
One 1972 nationwide study of 133 couples divorced since 1968 concluded, “Probably because children usually remain in the maternal family after a separation, the economic status of former husbands improves while that of the former wives deteriorates.” This statement is based on the status after alimony and child support payments are made.(2)
A poll of 1,522 women conducted in September 1975 at the request of the National Commission indicated the same pattern with respect to relative economic status and also indicated that only 14 percent of divorced wives are entitled to alimony by award of the courts or through a voluntary settlement approved by the courts. Of the 14 percent, only 46 percent collect it regularly.(3) Only 44 percent of divorced mothers were awarded child support and 47 percent were collecting regularly.
Women have never received alimony on a large scale. In 1922, the last year in which the U.S. Government collected national data, alimony was awarded or agreed to in 14.7 percent of divorces. The proportions varied widely by State ‑‑ from 0.5 percent in Pennsylvania and 0.7 percent in Texas to 48.2 percent in Wisconsin. In 1916 alimony was awarded in 15.3 percent of divorces and was no higher in earlier years.(4)
Collection of alimony and child support is clearly a problem of national proportions. At my request in 1974, as Chair of the Subcommittee on Fiscal Policy of the Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress, the General Accounting Office reviewed a sample of recipients of aid to families with dependent children in seven States and found that many fathers were not under any court order or voluntary agreement to pay child support; that the amounts supposed to be paid had little relationship to the father's ability to pay; and that less than one‑half of the amounts due were being collected.(5)
The National Commission has recommended to the President that data be collected by the Bureau of the Census on economic arrangements at divorce, including the proportion of the support of children that is being contributed by each spouse and by the State through welfare programs. Part of the desired information is being collected in the 1976 Survey of Income and Education, and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare plans to collect the remainder in 1976.
In addition, the National Commission, through its Committee on the Homemaker, is spending a large portion of its resources to secure these analyses by States, with examples, of how the laws affect homemakers during marriage, at widowhood, and at divorce. The Committee contracted with the Center for Women Policy Studies for the preparation of this leaflet and similar leaflets for all other States and the District of Columbia.
Since the primary purpose of the Committee are to make recommendations for reform in areas where homemakers are inequitably treated, and to inform the public about little known aspects of domestic relations law, our papers in this series emphasize those laws and judicial precedents that fail to give proper recognition to the value of the homemaker and the welfare of children and those about which there is little general knowledge. The cases are chosen to illustrate these problems. The authors were asked to include any available statistical information or factual studies on the topics covered, but there seems to be even less available locally than is available nationally.
Based on these analyses of State laws and presentations by experts, the Committee on the Homemaker has proposed and the National Commission has endorsed several specific recommendations to improve the status of the homemaker and raised a number of questions for further study. The recommendations and questions are quoted following the discussion of State laws.
The Commission’s Report "...To Form a More Perfect Union..." includes these and over 100 other recommendations with supportive information. Copies are available from the Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20401.
I hope concerned readers will urge organizations interested in the status of women and preservation of the family to make detailed studies of the State laws covered in this leaflet and their application and of the recommendations of the Commission. Other publications that may be useful in such a study are listed on the last three pages of this leaflet.
Where permitted, “court watching” is an effective technique for learning how laws are actually applied in divorce cases, what changes are needed, and for sensitizing judges and other court personnel to the legitimate needs of dependent spouses (usually women) and children. It is easy for judges to over‑emphasize the needs of the chief wage earner (usually husbands) and fail to even think about how the wife and children will live on what is left over after his needs are met. Court watching may reveal that there are not enough judges and supporting staff to give adequate consideration to each case, or that the quality of judges and other staff needs to be improved.
Most importantly, those concerned with the status of women and the family should insist that State legislatures and the U.S. Government give a high priority to the revisions in State and Federal law needed to recognize the homemaker’s role as having equal value and deserving equal dignity with that of the spouse who works outside the home.
| Martha Griffiths, Chair Committee on the Homemaker |
The laws of North Dakota like those of most other States treat homemakers very inequitably. Marriage is not treated as a full partnership; the contributions of a homemaker are not recognized as having the same value and dignity as that of a wage earning spouse.
North Dakota derives its legal system from the common law of England. Under this system, when a woman married, her husband became the sole manager of all her property. The wife could not sell her land, or determine, individually, how she would spend her money. The wife was viewed as a nonperson for all legal purposes, unable to make contracts or carry out the most simple business transactions.(6) Fortunately, these aspects of the law have been changed in North Dakota as well as in most other common law States. Through the enactment of the Married Women’s Property Act, married women are finally viewed as independent persons in several respects. The law in North Dakota, which is North Dakota Century Code, Section 14‑07‑05, provides that a married woman has the same rights in making contracts and owning property as if she were single.
Though the Married Women’s Property Act alleviated many of the disabilities of married women, several common law inequalities still exist in North Dakota law. One of these discriminatory common law remnants is that the husband is the head of the family and he may choose any reasonable place or mode of living, and the wife must conform to it.(7) The statute on domicile does not recognize that in this modern day, a husband and wife enter into a partnership upon marriage, not a dictatorship. Therefore, the law arbitrarily determines who will be the head of the household. The law ignores the mother’s right to have an equal say about the environment in which she must raise the children. Not only must a wife conform to the home chosen by her husband, but if she fails to do so, her husband can divorce her on the grounds that she deserted him.(8) The wife may not be entitled to alimony under such circumstances, because North Dakota courts take into consideration the fault of the parties in awarding alimony and dividing property.(9)
An example of how the domicile rule can inflict hardship was experienced by a young college woman in Fargo who was a senior attending North Dakota State University. She married a man who was attending Macalester College in Minnesota. Since their graduations were only a few months away, the couple decided to continue at their separate colleges. The arrangement was working well until the wife registered for her last quarter of classes at N.D.S.U. She was then informed that she would have to pay out of State tuition. Because she had married a Minnesota resident, she was now herself a Minnesota resident, even though she still lived in North Dakota.(10)
Perhaps one way for a woman to maintain her residency would be to enter into a contract with her future husband, before she is married, which states that she may maintain a residency different than her husband’s residency. However, the status of this type of contract is not well‑defined in North Dakota cases and a court may not recognize the contract. Therefore, the better solution would be to change the law or challenge the constitutionality of the statute through court action.
If a married woman has chosen the role of homemaker and mother, she must look to her husband for support. North Dakota support laws provide that a husband must support his wife out of his property or by his labor. A wife must support her husband out of her separate property only if the husband is too ill to support himself and he has no funds to do so.(11)
Though this law may appear to adequately care for the needs of a dependent homemaker, a wife’s “right to receive support” is the only interest she has in her husband’s earnings and property,(12) and it is the husband alone who decides in what manner and to what extent he will provide that support. If the husband does not give the wife adequate food, clothing and shelter, a court may order him to do so, but only to the extent that he keeps her life from danger and discomfort and protects her health from injury.(13)
Even though North Dakota law theoretically provides a wife with the right to support, in all the cases brought under this statute, the wife was also suing for divorce or annulment.(14) Therefore, it appears that a wife in an on going marriage may not be able to bring a separate action for support when she continues to live with her husband.(15) This conclusion could also be drawn from the fact that several North Dakota cases refuse to permit a division of property while the owners were married to one another.(16)
Therefore, if a husband owns all the family property, such as the house and car, in his name alone, and the money is kept in his separate bank account, the wife has no rights in the property or the bank account. The law ignores the fact that the wife contributes equally to the family unit through her labor as homemaker and mother. Consequently, a woman, who stays at home with the family, thereby making it possible for the husband to earn the money and buy property, acquires no right to the property nor does she have an equal say in how the money or property will be used.
As one can see, the status of North Dakota laws is not one of equality where support and property rights are concerned.
Serious problems for married women, divorcees, and widows have arisen from the fact that credit accounts, even joint accounts, have been customarily carried in the husband’s name by creditors and consumer reporting agencies. Thus when a wife, widow, or divorcee with her own property or independent income, applies for credit in her own name, her application may be denied because she has no credit history of her own. Some creditors will not take the risk of extending credit to someone, who according to all records available, does not have a history of satisfactory payment.
Regulation B, issued by the Federal Reserve Board to implement the Federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act, attempts to remedy the situation. The regulation provides that after June 1, 1977, creditors must determine as to each new account whether both spouses will be contractually liable, or whether the applicant’s spouse will be permitted to use the account (if the account is for open end credit). If the answer is yes, the creditor must report the account to the credit bureau in a manner which will reflect the participation of both spouses. For accounts already in existence on June 1, the regulation requires that creditors must determine from a review of their files whether an account is one which should reflect the participation of both spouses. Alternatively, the creditor must mail a notice to all account holders, notifying them of the right to have the credit information so reported.
In requiring credit designation and credit reporting in this manner, even when the wife is not contractually liable, the Board recognized that often a homemaker who uses an open end account will play a significant role in maintaining the account‑‑by making the monthly payments or by budgeting income and expenditures. Thus, the payment history may be as much a product of her contribution as that of the wage‑earning husband.(17)
A wife may bring charges against her husband for assault and battery if he beats her, but many times these cases are not taken seriously by the law enforcement officials. Prosecutors hesitate to take complaints from wives who have been beaten by their husband, stating that they "do not want these women coming to us, expecting us to settle their marital squabbles."
If a woman wishes to protect herself from a violent husband, there are few, if any, places for her to seek protection. The desperate state in which some women find themselves is illustrated by a case in Grand Forks. The woman and her husband had recently moved to the city. When the husband became drunk and began to beat his wife, she managed to escape, but she had no friends and no money. She tried several agencies to see if they could find her lodging until she could get an attorney who could obtain money from her husband through a court order. The Salvation Army and the City Mission housed only men and could not help her. Since the woman had no children, she was unable to get help from the Social Service Office. She finally ended up in a rundown hotel for several days until her attorney was able to get the funds she needed and a temporary restraining order protecting her from her husband.(18) Therefore, if an abused woman does not have friends or resources, there may be no place for her to go.
In addition to these problems, a homemaker is almost unique in our society in that she alone is not covered by some sort of insurance, either private or through social security, for disabilities which may keep her from performing her job. If a husband becomes disabled, social security or private insurance will almost always replace all or a part of his wages. But, if a homemaker becomes disabled, she and her family will find themselves in a very difficult position: a fulltime housekeeper will cost a minimum of $400 per month. Today, homemakers and their families find it very difficult and very expensive to insure themselves against that risk.
Though many marriages run smoothly by having all the property owned, controlled, and managed by the husband, the real extent of the inequities become apparent when there is no longer a marriage in existence. Upon death many women who felt secure and well to do are suddenly thrown into the deepest poverty.
Until July of 1975, North Dakota law permitted a husband to completely disinherit his wife.(19) A woman could spend her entire married life raising the family and making it possible for her husband to build up a sizable estate only to discover at his death that he left nothing to her.
Under the present probate law, if a husband has a will, the wife is given a choice of taking what is given to her in the will or taking one‑third of the total estate. If the husband does not have a will, the wife will receive the entire estate only if there are no children and the parents of the husband are deceased. If there are no children, but one or both of the husband’s parents are still living, the wife only receives $50,000 plus one‑half of the remaining estate. Should the husband happen to have children by a previous marriage then the wife’s share of the estate is reduced to one‑half.(20)
Although a wife can no longer be disinherited by her husband, the change in the law does not protect a woman whose husband has no estate. Many times a widow discovers that her husband has squandered the family earnings and all the property is mortgaged or has other encumbrances. Under present law, very little property passes to the widow free of creditor’s claims. If the widow remains in the family home, it will not be subjected to the debts of the deceased husband. However, if the widow were to set up a home elsewhere, particularly if she were to remarry, the property could then be used to pay the previous husband’s debts.(21) Other than the family home exemption, the widow of a debtor can claim only $5,000 worth of personal property which would be exempt from creditors,(22) plus a total of $500 per month for one year as a family allowance.(23) Therefore, when a husband dies, the wife can be left with virtually nothing.
Another problem widows experience is that since there is no requirement that a husband name his wife as beneficiary on his pension plan, there is no guarantee that the wife will receive the pension when he dies. A wife whose husband is covered by one of the pension plans provided by many employers may be entitled to a “survivor’s annuity” on the death of her husband. A husband, however, may elect not to provide a survivor’s annuity for his wife and thereby receive a larger pension. He does not have to notify her of his decision.(24)
A wife whose husband is covered by social security is entitled under certain conditions to a benefit based on his employment when he retires, dies, or becomes disabled. A wife divorced after fewer than 20 years of marriage loses all eligibility for such benefits.
Even if she is divorced after 20 or more years of marriage, she would not be eligible for a benefit until he retired or died and would lose all eligibility on remarriage.
While Federal estate and gift tax laws have recently been revised by the Tax Reform Act of 1976 to reduce their impact, particularly on farm and ranch families, the laws still provide for estate and gift tax in transfers between spouses contrary to the recommendation of the National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year (see page 20). Furthermore, the law does not assume that the contribution of a homemaker has economic value.
Many women in North Dakota do not recognize the unstable nature of their financial dependency because they think that they will always have a husband to support them. But the divorce rate in North Dakota shows a different picture. In the two year period between 1972 and 1973, 1 out of 6 North Dakota marriages ended in divorce.(25)
Under present law there are eight grounds for divorce; adultery, extreme cruelty, willful desertion, willful neglect, habitual intemperance, conviction of a felony, insanity, and irreconcilable differences.(26) Most divorce actions are brought on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. This ground provides for “no‑fault” divorce because the divorcing person only needs to show that there are substantial reasons for not continuing the marriage and it appears that the marriage should be dissolved.(27) Therefore, there is little a wife can do under North Dakota law to prevent the husband from divorcing her. It is not uncommon for a professional man to divorce his wife after she has worked to put him through school because the husband claims that he no longer has any common interests with his wife who has a lower educational background.
Because a wife can do very little to prevent her husband from divorcing her, she finds her best course of action is to try to obtain the necessary support for herself and her children. In many cases, however, child support awards given by North Dakota courts are not substantial. One attorney who had been practicing law for 25 years stated that a woman whose husband is earning a gross annual income of $15,000 would “be lucky” if she received $200 a month per child for child support. Child support payments can be changed only if the party seeking a modification can show that circumstances have substantially changed since the time of the divorce. Also, it is rare for a child support or alimony decree to provide for increases in the cost of living.
Divorced women experience other drawbacks in receiving child support or alimony. If a woman receives separate payments for child support and alimony, she will have to pay income taxes on alimony. To avoid this result, some women prefer a combined payment, called “child support and maintenance.” However, one must realize that once the children become independent, the husband no longer has an obligation to pay child support and maintenance. The result is that a woman, who is now middle‑aged, will be without any income at all when the children are gone. She may be left with little or no employable skills, competing with young people in an over‑crowded job market. Statistics show that there are 10,000 families in the State which are headed by women. Though the average income for North Dakota families is $9,086, for female headed families, the average is $5,657, a difference of nearly $3,500.(28)
Even if a woman has some job skills, there is no guarantee that she will be able to obtain employment when she needs it. An example which vividly illustrates the shaky position of many dependent homemakers involves a middle‑aged mother of three children. This woman had not only taken on all the homemaking responsibilities, but she also helped in her husband’s business by doing the bookkeeping. She received no earnings for her work and the business was entirely in her husband’s name. She tried to keep the marriage together for several years, but eventually she sought a divorce. The wife received, as is the usual case, most of the family furniture and child support in the total amount of $150 per month. Not only did the wife receive nothing for her “gratuitous”" labor in the husband’s business, but she was forced to look for a job to meet the family expenses. The only work she could find was a job as a nurse’s aid earning $1.60 an hour. To make matters worse, the husband refused to pay child support. When the woman finally turned to a Federal assistance program she was told she was not eligible for aid because she had a job. The woman quit her job and applied for assistance again, waiting three desperate weeks while her application was processed. Through Federal assistance, the woman was enrolled in a business college and is now employed as a secretary, earning $415 a month, enough to meet the bare necessities for her family.(29)
Women also need too protect their interests in terms of child custody. Though the majority of lower courts’ decisions award custody of minor children to the mother, the cases appealed to the State Supreme Court and reported in the North Dakota Century Code, show a different picture. Roughly one‑half of the custody decisions in the higher court award custody to the father.(30) If the husband is determined to fight custody, the fitness of the mother is then put in issue. It is usually an emotional and financial drain for a wife to fight a custody battle, even if the husband fails to prove that she is unfit. In one case, a wife filed for a divorce. The husband became enraged and disappeared with the infant daughter for over a week. It took three more weeks before there could be a hearing where the court ordered the husband to either turn over the child or go to jail. Though the wife eventually obtained custody, she suffered a month of anxiety and helplessness.(31)
Another problem women frequently encounter after they are divorced is that their husbands will not pay the child support which the court has ordered. If this happens, there is little legal effort extended to help solve the problem. Although the State’s attorney has the authority to bring the nonpaying husband into court for nonsupport,(32) these types of complaints receive low priority. One North Dakota State’s attorney stated that his office had so many complaints to enforce the payment of child support that if the office were to seriously pursue them his time would be spent prosecuting nothing but nonsupport cases. One woman told of going to the State’s attorney’s office once a week for an entire year trying to get enforcement of a child support award of $150 per month for three children. The ex‑husband lived in the same county as the ex‑wife and yet no action was ever taken to make him pay the money, though he was operating a prosperous business which the wife helped him set up. The wife had to pay $300 in legal fees for the divorce and she did not want to hire an attorney to help her collect the support; she feared she would only end up with more legal fees and still be unable to get any support from her husband.(33)
In one case, a woman divorced her husband, a chronic alcoholic. The divorce decree awarded the wife custody of the child, child support and all the household furnishings. The husband was awarded the car and also agreed to pay the numerous bills which had accumulated primarily because of his drinking and poor money management. Soon after the divorce, the husband disappeared. He paid neither child support nor the family debts. It was not long before the creditors began to request payment of the debts from the wife, tinder North Dakota law, both husband and wife are liable for family debts which are for food, clothing shelter, fuel and education for the minor children.(34) The wife had no job skills and had never worked outside the home. She was able to find a job paying $2.10 an hour and was barely getting by when she was informed that a bank intended to repossess her furniture. Before the divorce, the husband had used the furniture as collateral to finance his car. When the husband disappeared, taking the car with him, he defaulted on the car payments. The bank now wanted to repossess the furniture, which included almost everything the woman was granted in the divorce decree, including her refrigerator, beds and sofa.(35)
The Federal government has stepped in to aid in collection of child support, and in some cases alimony. Concerned about the effects on welfare costs of the failure to collect support payments, the Congress in late 1974 amended the Social Security Act to strengthen collection of child support payments both for families on Aid to Families with Dependent Children and other families (Public Law 93‑647). The law also authorized garnishment of Federal wages, pensions, and other remuneration of persons defaulting on alimony or child support payments.
The child support collection program, usually referred to as the “IV‑D” program, provides financial penalties for States unless they establish by January 1, 1977 an efficiently operating unit to help in collecting child support payments for all families. The units are to establish paternity, secure court orders for child support, locate defaulting parents, and collect the payments. A charge is made for collecting for families not on welfare. The Federal government was directed to establish a parent locator service to help in finding defaulting parents, and it is now in operation.
The new program is not yet operating effectively in all States. Women in North Dakota needing the help of the unit should write or call:
| Child Support Enforcement Social Service Board of North Dakota State Capitol Building Bismarck, North Dakota 58501 Phone (701) 224-3580 |
Women concerned about this problem should monitor the performance of the Child Support Enforcement service and see to it that mothers on welfare are justly treated and protected from harassment and that the collection of support for families not on welfare is included in the program as intended by the Congress.
Questions concerning the national aspects of the program can be addressed to:
| Office of Child Support Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Washington, D.C. 20201 Phone (202) 245-8717 or 245-1943 |
or to your representative in the Congress.
The new law also authorized garnishment of salaries and pensions of Federal employees, including military personnel who have defaulted on alimony or child support payments. This provision also authorizes garnishment of Social Security benefits paid to the person on whose employment they are based.
The U.S. Civil Service Commission has been directed by the President (Executive Order No. 11881) to prescribe regulations for implementing the garnishment provision. The regulations are expected soon but have not been issued as this went to press. Information can be secured from:
| Office of Public Affairs U.S. Civil Service Commission Washington, D.C. 20415 Phone (202) 632-4588 |
or by writing your representative in the Congress.
For many North Dakota women, Federal assistance becomes their only answer after the loss of a husband. One social worker who works with the Aid to Dependent children program stated that the biggest reason women end up on a welfare program is that women are not expected to plan for their futures. Movies, television, books, and often their parents and teachers train them to assume they will be supported by a husband. She stated that most of the women she deals with depended upon their husbands to take care of all the finances and the management of the property. Many cases familiar to this social worker involve a wife who has cut short her education in order to put the husband through school. She then becomes dependent upon the husband for support because the wife has no money producing skills. After a few years of marriage and two or three children, the marriage ends in a divorce, but the husband, who is not well established in the work world, will not be able to afford enough child support payments to cover even daycare expenses for the children. Therefore, the small child support payments, if they are received at all, will not meet even the bare essentials. The woman is consequently left without a job skill, a family to raise and no funds to make ends meet. Welfare becomes her only answer.
It is apparent that change is necessary before a homemaker is truly an equal partner in a marriage. One solution to these inequalities would be to enter into a contract before marriage. The agreement could provide that property obtained during the marriage would be held in joint ownership, or that the wife would have some of the property in her sole ownership. This would give the wife an interest in the property and without the wife’s signature the husband could not sell or mortgage the property or use it to secure his debts. However, there is some question as to the validity of these contracts. Another drawback is that if only one of the spouse’s money is used to obtain the property, the share of the outer spouse is viewed as a gift, so gift taxes must be paid. This result is unjustified, because in most cases the wife’s labor in the home makes it possible for the husband to earn the money. Therefore, this discriminatory law should be changed. Other laws which should be chanced are the laws which make the husband the head of the household and which change a married woman's residency.
Women could also protect themselves by becoming more actively involved in the family financial matters. Many women do not know what the family income is, if their husbands have a will, life insurance, a pension plan, nor do they know the extent of his property holdings.
Societal attitudes are also in need of change. It is no longer feasible for society to raise female children without educating them with employable skills. The life expectancy of women has now reached a point where most women will have at least 20 years of adult life which will not be spent in child‑rearing, even if they retain sole responsibility for child‑rearing. In North Dakota, 33 percent of the labor force is made up of married women.(36) The United States Department of Labor predicts that 9 out of 10 women living in the United States will work outside the home at some time during their lives. Therefore, it is no longer practical, nor is it justified, to view women exclusively as homemakers and mothers. Women should be adequately educated with skills which can be applied outside the home if circumstances make this necessary.
Married women should be legally protected when they fulfill the worthy role of homemaker and mother so that their financial dependency does not lead them to disaster. Laws should be enacted which give the wife an equal interest in the marital property. Until the labors of the homemaker are viewed as contributing equally to the growth of the family resources, a homemaker will always be one man away from economic ruin.
The IWY Commission recommends that the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code relating to estate and gift taxes be amended to eliminate taxation on all transfers of property between husband and wife at death, and on all gifts between husband and wife during their lifetimes.
The Commission further recommends that State legislatures amend their tax laws to eliminate laws that provide for inheritance or gift taxes in transfers between husband and wife.
The IWY Commission recommends that the homemaker be covered in her own right under Social Security to provide income security for the risks of old age, disability, and death. The Commission further recommends that the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare be directed to give a high priority to developing an administration proposal for achieving this purpose.
The IWY Commission recommends that State inheritance laws on disposition of property when a person dies without a will (intestate) be amended to provide that the surviving spouse’s share is:
(1) if there is no surviving child or parent of the person who dies, the entire estate;
(2) if there are surviving children all of whom are children of the surviving spouse also, the entire estate;
(3) it there are surviving children one or more of whom are not children of the surviving spouse, one-half of the estate.
The Commission recommends further that State Bar Associations, especially women members, and the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in order to provide greater considerations of equity review and redraft (a) the provisions when there are no surviving children but there are surviving parents, and (b) the provisions for a “forced share”, or “widows election”.
The TWY Commission urgently recommends that State, county, and city commissions on the status of women, and other organizations concerned with the welfare of children and dependent spouses, actively seek amendments in State divorce laws where necessary to assure that as a minimum the economic protections of the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act(***) for dependent spouses and children are included.
The Commission further recommends that State legislatures review and revise their divorce laws, adopting as a minimum the economic protections of the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act.
The Commission recommends also that in addition to the protections of the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act the following additional items be seriously reviewed and considered: (a) an effective proviso requiring disclosure of assets, such as that in the New York law (Section 250 of the Domestic Relations Law effective September 1, 1975); (b) authorization of child support until age 26 for children who are attending school; (c) the property divisions provisions that were in the 1970 version of the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act; (d) specific mention of loss of pension rights as a factor to be considered in distribution of property; and (e) inclusion of a statement of intent such as that in Assembly Bi11 995 introduced in the Wisconsin Assembly in 1975.
The statement of intent reads as follows:
It is the intent of the legislature that a spouse who has been handicapped socially or economically by his or her contributions to a marriage shall be compensated for such contributions at the termination of the marriage, insofar as this is possible, and may be reeducated where necessary to permit the spouse to become self-supporting at a standard of living reasonably comparable to that enjoyed during the marriage. It is further the intent of the legislature that the standard of living of any minor children of the parties be maintained at a reasonable level, so that insofar as is possible, the children will not suffer economic hardship.
The IWY Commission recommends that the Administration endorse H.R. 10272, known as the “Equal Opportunity for Displaced Homemakers Act,” which provides for establishing multi‑purpose service programs for displaced homemakers to help them through a readjustment period so as to become self‑sufficient members of society.
The IWY Commission strongly urges that the 1976 Survey of Income and Education(****) which is to be conducted by the Census Bureau include questions which will provide answers to the following:
- How are children of divorced parents being supported, i.e., what proportion of the support is being contributed by each parent and by the Government as welfare?
- In what proportion of divorces is alimony awarded and in what amount?
- In what proportion of cases is child support awarded and in what amount?
- How is property divided?
- To what extent are alimony and child support awards being collected?
- To what extent are fathers getting custody of children? Are mothers paying child support in such cases?
- What are the relative economic situations, after divorce, of the spouse with custody of children and the other spouse?
- What is the economic status of women who are divorced after many years of homemaking and little labor force experience?
The commission further recommends that such data be secured in each decennial census.
The IWY Commission recommends that Sec. 455(2) of Public Law 94‑88, which requires the termination on June 30, 1976 of Federal support to administrative costs for child support collection services for non‑AFDC mothers, be amended to eliminate the deadline.
Goff v. Goff, 211 NW 2d 850 (1973). Kucera v. Kucera, 117 NW 2d 810 (1962). Noakes v. Noakes, 185 NW 2d 486 (1971). King v. King, 61 ND 422, 237 NW 854 (1931). Custody awarded to the father were in the following
cases: Silseth v. Levang, 214 NW 2d 361 (1974). Jordana v. Corley, 220 NW 2d 515 (1974). Gress v. Gress, 148 NW 2d 166 (1967). Ferguson v. Ferguson, 202 NW 2d 760 (N.D. 1972).