A Marriage Settlement

The Knowledge Every Man Needs for a Successful Divorce Each year 500,000 men will face divorce, and most of them make at least one crucial—and often irreversible—mistake. These errors might seem minor, such as moving out while things get sorted out, or thinking of “temporary” orders as being truly temporary. But when they get to court, these men discover they have put themselves in a terrible position. They may have to give up their house, pay impossibly high alimony, or even lose custody. You could be one of these men. But you don’t have to be. Joseph Cordell, the founder of the nation’s largest law firm focusing on men’s divorce and the creator of the Dads Divorce website, has seen the consequences of the mistakes men make. Drawing upon the huge number of cases that Cordell & Cordell has handled, this book identifies the 10 most common mistakes that end up hurting men in divorce. Cordell demystifies the divorce process, explains what judges consider in making their final decisions, and lays out a road map for positive actions men can take to achieve the best possible outcome. No man should face divorce without this book.

The history of the family has become an area of great interest, yet the property arrangements entered into upon marriage, a crucial aspect of the process of familial wealth transmission and distribution in the landed classes in early modern England, have never been systematically studied. In the light of evidence provided by hitherto unused family muniments, Dr Bonfield analyses the legal, social and economic aspects of these settlements, and discusses the development and impact of the strict settlement.

High rates of divorce, often taken to be a modern and western phenomenon, were also typical of medieval Islamic societies. By pitting these high rates of divorce against the Islamic ideal of marriage,Yossef Rapoport radically challenges usual assumptions about the legal inferiority of Muslim women and their economic dependence on men. He argues that marriages in late medieval Cairo, Damascus and Jerusalem had little in common with the patriarchal models advocated by jurists and moralists. The transmission of dowries, women's access to waged labour, and the strict separation of property between spouses made divorce easy and normative, initiated by wives as often as by their husbands. This carefully researched work of social history is interwoven with intimate accounts of individual medieval lives, making for a truly compelling read. It will be of interest to scholars of all disciplines concerned with the history of women and gender in Islam.

The compassionate guide to every aspect of the divorce process is now updated with vital information on changes in the law and norms for divorce cases, as well as important new insights into step-family issues and post-divorce conflicts.