Katz S N
Boston College Law School.
Future Child. 1994 Spring;4(1):44-62.
Over the past 30 years, the legal status of husbands and wives in marriage has undergone major changes with the result that wives are now beginning to have more of an independent legal identity than in the past and, to some extent, more of an equal relationship with their husbands although full equality has not yet been achieved. At the same time, divorce laws and policies have consistently moved toward a view of marriage as an economic partnership and away from the concept of marriage as a status totally regulated by the state and dominated by the husband. This trend has produced significant changes in the statues, which have, to a certain extent, limited judicial discretion regulating the assignment of marital property and the awarding of alimony upon divorce. These changes have given more consideration to the contribution of wives to the marital enterprise and to the financial needs of children. In addition, recently there has been a movement toward legislating how couples divorce, particularly with regard to their ability--with or without the assistance of counsel--to conclude their divorce with minimal official action. This article explores the trends toward the equality and legal autonomy of husbands and wives in marriage and in the divorce process with particular emphasis on methods of allocating marital property and on new and simplified procedures for divorce.
在过去30年里，婚姻中夫妻的法律地位发生了重大变化，结果是现在妻子开始比过去拥有更多独立的法律身份，并且在一定程度上与丈夫的关系更加平等，尽管尚未实现完全平等。与此同时，离婚法律和政策一直朝着将婚姻视为经济伙伴关系的观点发展，远离了婚姻是一种完全由国家规范且由丈夫主导的身份的概念。这一趋势在法规方面产生了重大变化，在一定程度上限制了法院在离婚时对婚姻财产分配和赡养费判给的自由裁量权。这些变化更多地考虑了妻子对婚姻事业的贡献以及孩子的经济需求。此外，最近出现了一种针对夫妻如何离婚进行立法的趋势，特别是关于他们在有或没有律师协助的情况下，以最少的官方行动完成离婚的能力。本文探讨了婚姻中和离婚过程中夫妻平等及法律自主权的趋势，特别强调婚姻财产分配方法以及新的简化离婚程序。
