Since there seems to be no automatic guarantee that heterosexuals getting married accept that means “the exclusive and life-long union of one man and one woman” – no surprises there, since the oldest written statutes about marriage included provisions for divorce (including some for the disposition of slaves) – how best to minimise the problems?

Is a compulsory prenuptial agreement about any post nuptial circumstance too simplistic?

A bit like building into a marriage contract the parties' agreement (before psychopathy sets in) of the provisions for a 'divorce contract'.

Or else a version of my grandmother's method of settling arguments between my brother and me over a piece of cake – "he cuts, you choose."

In a disputed divorce the court draws random lots and one party writes two complete settlements including provisions for custody and maintenance each of which applies to a single parent, and

The other party selects which one they want for themselves!

However this would not alter the fact that the only people responsible for a breakdown of 'traditional marriage' are the man and woman involved – both of whom should have made a better decision in the first place.

RObert <"Suzie's continued refusal to pay attention to the results when both genders are asked about partner violence seems to be based on on getting "one side of the story" as a nurse."

That's not fair Robert. As a nurse I HAVE seen both sides of the physical problems of domestic violence... with both men and women coming in to hospital bloodied and injured after beating the c**p out of each other.

And I'm not naive RObert. I have met/cleaned up violent women who I would sooner keep away from, in preference to many of the violent men!
I wasn't discussing that aspect in my previous comment however.

This thread is about an apparent 'conspiracy' by the Government to create a 'fatherless society' and my reluctance to believe that predominantly male politicians and judiciary staff are being led by an apparent feminist lobby.

The family court system was devised for a reason, and that was to protect vulnerable people from angry, controlling and/or violent relatives who may seek to have physical, financial or mental advantage during and after relationship breakdowns.
And yes, I include both genders in this description.

There will always be upset people when the court rulings don't go their way. Then it is up to the courts to deal with them.
It's not a perfect system of course, but it is vastly superior to the 'good-ol-days', when women and children were considered a man's property, and were treated accordingly in many cases.

A perfect summary of a somewhat untidy thread. Well done, connie2.

>>...the supreme irony is however to be seen maybe when all the boat people take over, rescue us from ourselves, and circumcise our grand-daughters in twenty-sixty. We'll still be able to recognise Julia in a burqa however with those prominent physical features. To all and sundry, I hope you've been practising saying your "Allah is Great" if you wish to go on living. Study history all you ignoramuses! Otherwise, read Enoch Powell's speech of 20th April, 1968.<<

It is my guess that every poster who supports the views of Warwick Marsh would be the first to endorse connie2's contribution. If I am wrong, I'm sure that they will quickly come forward to disown it, and and to put it firmly back in its religio-paranoid box.

connie2 warns us that "the boat people" will take over Australia, and by 2060 they will be subjugating us with Sharia laws. Classic! No need for any references to demographic data, immigration statistics or the strength of our own laws, just good, solid, straightforward dog-whistle fear-mongering.

I loved the reference to good ol' Enoch Powell's spittle from over forty years ago. Here it is, in its glorious entirety:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643823/Enoch-Powells-Rivers-of-Blood-speech.html

The analogue of connie2's paranoia is Powell's imaginary constituent: "In this country in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man." More than double that estimate has passed, and the country is still firmly in the hands of "the white man". Take a look at Mr Cameron, if you need reassurance. Here he is standing next to the President of the United States.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/03/14/david-cameron-and-barack-obama-watch-basketball-in-ohio_n_1343851.html

"As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood."

Yeah, right, Mr Powell.

But I guess what puzzles me most, is why so many folk seem to get their kicks from promoting unmitigated doom. They must live terribly circumscribed lives, with their every waking moment overshadowed by fear of "the other".

How very, very sad.

Suzie its far worse than "not a perfect system", its corrupt to the core and provides far to much power to the unethical to play the system. I dont think out pollies ever take the time or effort to come to grips with the picture, no one rally seems to unless they end up on the wrong side of it.

An unholy aliance of traditional views of the family, single mums groups playing on gender stereotypes and sista's sticking up for each other

Your constant attacks on and dismissal of men who've suffered at the hands of this corrupt system is what is not fair.

Robert

48 hours? Badge of honour Mr. Marsh.

The idea on it's face is absolutely impossible to believe - we're to deny the reality of the body, sexual difference and its psychic equivalents? There is no way to do this apart from a soft totalitarian coercion and censorship. For that to be worth it requires an explanation.

When the state is everyone's schoolmaster and employer it's hard to snap your fingers at its ideology (terminal liberalism). Under this ideology the state is suspicious of anything not amenable to liberal managerial technocratic control. Natural meanings, traditional loyalties, voluntary groups that operate on nonliberal principles are dissolved and opened up to state control in the name of providing 'choice' and overcoming 'discrimination'. Now rational discrimination between men and women as irrational prejudice is clearly monstrously false, so a very malignant Power must be at work. The other jaw is the logic of money - (the systematic dissolving of barriers to its entry and opening of new markets - submission of all aspects of human life to contract and commodification) which works hand in glove with state expansion and colonisation of every dimension of our lives. This is our current plutarchy - the 'market-state'. And it is this that can make us believe that mums and dads, men and women are interchangeable - essentially the same!

The beast is hungry. I hope we can agree that the family, mums, dads and childhood deserve to be spared. Others have said it more eloquently than me:

http://johncwright.livejournal.com/483868.html UNISEXUALITY
http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=1815 LIBERALISM
http://www.youtube.com/user/girlwriteswhat FEMINISM (tool of liberalism)

Pericles said
“Connie2 perfect summary of the thread... Boatpeople invasion, female circumcisions, Sharia Law, Enoch Powell...”
Are you medicated, because it doesn't seem to be working.
But do keep making shite up though, perhaps you'll be offered a job in the PM's office.

Suseonline
The family court system is … designed to protect vulnerable people from angry, controlling and/or violent relatives who may seek to have physical, financial or mental advantage during and after relationship breakdowns.
Please desist from beclowning yourself.
It's really embarrassing especially after the truth has been pointed out to you.

The divorce regime is much more serious than simply "unfairness" or "gender bias" against fathers in custody proceedings. It is the government's machine for destroying the principal check on its power – the family – and criminalizing its main rival: fathers. The most basic human and constitutional rights are routinely violated in family courts. The lives of children and parents are in serious danger once they are, as the phrase goes, taken into "custody." Systemic conflicts-of-interest among government and private officials charged with child custody, child support, child protection, and connected matters have created a witch hunt against plainly innocent citizens.

Malcolm X once described a family court as modern "slavery,...the power of family court judges is almost unlimited."

Predictably with unlimited power, the family courts of this country are now out of control. They are not tribunals for redressing injustice; they are more of a racket headed by a judiciary itself so crooked that the Family Court is little more than a system of organised crime for plundering fathers and funnelling money into the pockets of lawyers. Though their lips are dripping with the words "best interest of the child," they are in fact using our children as weapons and as commodities for the increase of their own power and profit

Our divorce system is a racket that enriches lawyers and makes children and communities poorer. Divorce scars children and leaves them emotionally disfigured. The family violence amendments that legalise perjury supposedly to protect “victims” are perverse and they are destroying children and our society.