But for 20 years, she was financially trapped, controlled by her abusive partner. It was this relationship which ultimately led to her losing everything.
But what are the details of her case? She admits that she grew up "in a bubble of private schooling and scholarships." So no financial abuse there. She then quickly became successful in business:
I lived in a very beautiful castle, where I had staff working seven days a week looking after my personal needs while I also ran a game park business. I worked intensely seven days a week, had everything I wanted.
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| Her Scottish castle |
She lost the castle when interest rates rose and her business collapsed. Looking back she believes she was a victim of abuse by her partner of the time:
"My motivators were my natural entrepreneurial spirit and a driving desire to take on new challenges, and it was these motivators that Bob used to great effect to control me," she explained.
"They always resulted in me being the only one who worked, often seven days a week.
Bob, it seems, did not go out to work and so did not contribute to the finances. According to new guidelines on domestic violence, this makes him an abusive partner.
The guide lays out what constitutes financial abuse -- a wide spectrum which includes refusing to help with household expenses
(In the guide to "financial abuse" one of the indicators of abuse is "refuses to contribute financially to their partner".)
Further blame is heaped on Bob because after Beth divorced him she had to pay him spousal maintenance:
It took Beth five years to find a better job and divorce her ex-husband, which also cost her $150 a week in spousal maintenance because he refused to work.
I hope readers know where I am going with this. If you are a man you will be scratching your head because usually it is men who are in Beth Mathison's position. Usually it is a wealthy husband who buys the grand home, has a so-called trophy wife who doesn't go out to work and who therefore doesn't contribute to the finances, and it is usually the husband who, on divorce, has to pay the wife large sums in alimony and child support.
What Beth Mathison discovered is that the masculine role in life is not as privileged as she might have imagined it to be. A man can go out to work, earn the money and yet look back on a marriage or relationship feeling that he was the one who was exploited.
The response to Beth Mathison's situation is confusing. How can "not contributing to the finances" be defined as domestic violence? This would put the traditional family outside the law. And why is there only sympathy when a woman like Beth Mathison is put in the same position as tens of thousands of men?
In other words, if we are supposed to sympathise with Beth Mathison, shouldn't we then sympathise with what the majority of men go through when they are divorced by their wives?
Mr. Richardson
ReplyDelete"This would put the traditional family outside the law."
Right here you have hit the nail on the head. Marriage and Men hold women back from being "fully human". That is what is really behind Domestic Violence, it's not about violence it's about women not getting things 100% their own way.
Mark Moncrieff
Upon Hope Blog - A Traditional Conservative Future
How can "not contributing to the finances" be defined as domestic violence? This would put the traditional family outside the law.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling that the people behind this would see that as a feature rather than a bug.
"(In the guide to "financial abuse" one of the indicators of abuse is "refuses to contribute financially to their partner".) "
ReplyDeleteWhat guide are you referring to? Financial Abuse is a legal term for illegal or unauthorised use of an others property, wealth or assets or the fraudulent acquisition of power of attorney. The mere refusal to work in gainful employment does not meet the definition. The former husband must have been involved in some form of fraud.
Why should we sympathise with such people, men or women? Examine most of these cases by viewing the legal facts and not the distorted media hype and you will find that the majority of people who end up in this situation are the architects of their own demise through recklessness, impulsiveness or sheer folly. One must ask the obvious question of this woman: why did she marry this man in the first place knowing that he was a workshy freeloader who had opportunistically latched on to her and what did she expect him to do later on in the marriage? A leopard does not change its spots. She brought this situation on herself.
"why did she marry this man in the first place knowing that he was a workshy freeloader"
DeleteCharming, bad boy, stud?
Liberals can only mount their progressive tyranny on non-liberals through the power of the state.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good example of that very effective strategy.
Liberals can only mount their progressive tyranny on non-liberals through the power of the state.
DeleteI'm not sure I agree with that. Liberal tyranny has been exercised mostly through their control of the culture. The state has merely responded to this by tamely going along with the liberal cultural agenda.
As Vox Day likes to point out, politics is downstream of culture.
Yet liberals do not control culture in the same sense that they (or others) may have control of the state apparatus.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the state has gone along with liberalism so much as it has been co-opted by liberals. Chicken-and-egg. Generations of building a liberal judicial system has been especially harmful, with effects much less fluid and slow to change than in the culture at large. At some point, without effective resistance, it becomes a positive feedback loop.
I don't think the state has gone along with liberalism so much as it has been co-opted by liberals.
DeleteI think it's happened because the state has become value-neutral. Politicians, bureaucrats, judges, etc don't really have any strong beliefs in anything other than power and money. They're willing to serve any ideology that happens to be in power. There are exceptions of course, there are genuine ideologues in the institutions of state power, but mostly it's just people who want to get their snouts into the trough and get a taste of power.
If these people live in a society in which the dominant ideology is liberalism then they're good liberals. If they suddenly found themselves in an absolutist monarchy they'd become good monarchists. If they suddenly found themselves in a fascist state they'd become good fascists.
This is not always the case with state functionaries. I think it's likely that in the days of Imperial China most Chinese bureaucrats and judges were sincere adherents of the precepts of Confucianism. It's possible that in western Europe up to the 18th century you could still find bureaucrats and judges with sincerely held beliefs. The 19th century saw a catastrophic collapse in belief, not just belief in religion but also belief in honour and morality. Bureaucrats no longer served the nation or even the state, they served the bureaucracy.
This is of course a source of potential weakness. State functionaries serve liberalism because liberalism is powerful and successful. If liberalism starts to look weak and ineffectual these people will be like rats deserting a sinking ship. That's how the Soviet Union collapsed. Overnight tens of thousands of good communist bureaucrats miraculously became good democrats.
No contradiction because double-standards are normal when only government has rights and it chooses which groups are entitled to which privileges or penalties. Women are generally non-productive but very dutiful pro-government voters, so government has an interest in making men support them while handling any problems, like a nightclub that lets women in for free and hires bouncers to toss out men at the slightest female complaint
ReplyDeleteGee, only $150 per week in spousal maintenance paid to her ex-husband? That won't keep him in any sort of style, his lawyer must be a dud. I'm gonna need more reward when I become a gigolo!
ReplyDelete