This behavior is degrading to marriage. Marriage neutering advocates rightly point that out. They erroneously go on to say that this fact somehow justifies neutering state marriage licensing.
Associated Press entertainment writer Anthony McCartney covered the King story.
The 76-year-old host of CNN's "Larry King Live" filed hours before Shawn King filed her own petition.He is an old 76. She is a young 50. I don't have a problem with that, except...
They have two sons, ages 11 and 9.Waiting until 40 was risky on her part. On his part, I consider it immoral to bring a child into such a situation. A man should not be fathering kids at age 64 or 65, especially not a man with heart problems.
[More after the jump.]
Larry King is also asking a judge not to award his wife any spousal support and to invalidate an agreement in which he transferred property to her, court records show.I don't understand that. They filed in California, a community property state. Absent a valid legal agreement otherwise, the person who earned more during the marriage generally will owe alimony, under current law. Also under current law, being married for over ten years could obligate him to pay alimony to her until he dies or she remarries. As far as the property, if he agreed to something he should have to stick stick to it. I would definitely say the same thing if the sexes were reversed.
"His major concern is the welfare of his children," said Howard Rubenstein, a spokesman for Larry King, adding that the talk-show host would not comment further on the divorce.
That's a fine thing for a guy to say after he got married with such high odds of getting a divorce, then dragged kids into that situation - in which their father would be old and frail.
I am open to the idea of a state putting further limits on marriage licensing and divorce, such as denying further marriage licenses for someone who has initiated divorce X number of times, or at least mandating a certain number of years before the person would be eligible again. Perhaps a civil union could be offered instead – or not.
PW.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post - Like same-sex "marriage" multiple divorcees on this level engender universal condemnation in polls. People routeenly express that we have "way too much divorce" & "People dont take marriage seriously enough these days".
All thats neccesary now is for the cultural conservatives and people who are concerned with marriage to make their case that some laws should be changed.
A presumtion of joint custody of children is one proven way to bring down divorce rates. Women more often file for divorce in part because they are too confident that they will win sole custody of the children.There are multiple other
Your post brings to mind an idea that I think is worthy. Absent death and remarriage a person could be limited to the number of times he can marry and still receive certain benifits under the law. Like say three times divorced and you no longer get X or Y...
Just one idea but probably worth talking about in the public square - because just talking about it would engender a stigma agaist multiple marriages.