Till Court Do Us Part

By Linda Jane

As the result of a report recently released by the Federation for Community Planning, the Cuyahoga Court of Common Pleas is taking positive steps to eliminate inequities in divorce settlements. The report, entitled "Divorce Awards and Outcomes," is based on a study of court records for divorces in Cuyahoga County in 1965, 1972 and 1978. Initiated by Cleveland Women's Counsel in 1978 and supported by the Cleveland Foundation, this study is the first of its kind anywhere in the United States.

The objective of the study was to provide a comprehensive overview of the patterns of divorce awards and orders in the hopes that the data would form the basis of needed changes in laws, procedures, and attitudes. Among the major findings were the following:

-Divorce cases today involve more families with young children and more property.

-Mothers almost always receive custody of the children. Few fathers seek custody, although there was a slight increase in those requesting it. Fathers are awarded custody in one out of twenty cases, usually by mutual agreement.

-Child support is usually ordered if the children are under 18. The amounts ordered tend to remain permanent, and although they have increased, they have not kept up with inflation.

-The number of wives receiving alimony has significantly decreased. Alimony is awarded in only 16 percent of divorces and is generally time-limited.

-A large percentage of child support and/or alimony payments are in arrears. One-fourth of all 1972 child support orders had arrearages subsequently reported on them.

---Divorces in marriages of 20 years or more have doubled in proportion to the total number of divorces.

-Visitation rights are more frequently written into settlements and have become more restrictive for fathers.

The study also looked at the impact of the 1974 Ohio legislation which gave couples the simpler and less expensive options of marriage dissolutions and no-fault divorce (previously, one spouse had to charge the other with some form of misconduct). In 1978, 22 percent of couples seeking divorce chose dissolutions, and 16 percent chose no-fault divorce (the parties must have been separated for over two years). Whether there were children involved seemed to have no bearing on the option chosen. For those who chose dissolutions, the agreements generally divided property 50-50, gave less alimony for shorter periods, and provided more child support than divorce agreements. Also, fewer payment arrearages were reported within the first year. Fathers seeking custody of their children were six times more likely to obtain it in dissolutions, by agreement, than in a divorce.

The most disturbing, although predictable, finding of the study is that divorce places an inequitable financial burden on the wife, whether or not she is employed. In 1978, on the average, the husband retained 80 percent of his former income after the divorce: Even when the wife had custody of four or more children, he usually retained at least two-thirds of his income. The report describes the typical 1978 divorce as involving employed spouses with two children and a joint annual income of $23,145 before the divorce. After the divorce and alimony and/or child support payments have been set, the former husband had a net annual income of $14,124, and the working wife had $13,267 annually to support herself and two children. The wealthier the family initially, the greater the disparity afterwards. The nonworking woman can expect to receive only about one-fifth the annual family income after the divorce.

In other words, at best a divorced mother can expect to live under greatly reduced circumstances, and many will be forced to go on welfare.

How this information will affect the courts has yet to be determined, but already hope glimmers for the divorced woman. Judge James D. Sweeney, Administrative Judge of the Domestic Relations Division, Common Pleas Court, sees the study as a "concrete step in our efforts to make this a progressive, compassionate court." Already, he says, the court has initiated "policies and programs which we feel assist in eliminating any inequities which may exist and we plan to continue working with the Federation for Community Planning and Cleveland Women's Counsel as we move forward in our efforts to remain informed of changing needs in the community." Among the court's concrete steps has been the deci-

sion to raise child support, based on guidelines which Cleveland Women's Counsel is helping to formulate. . Other plans hopefully will include incorporating cost of living increases in child support awards.

Mt is likely to be an uphill struggle, but progress is occurring on other fronts. "We recognize that we have to move at a very slow pace," says Cinthia Shuman, Executive Director of Cleveland Women's Counsel, "and child support awards are the most noticeably inequitable." Cleveland Women's Counsel, a research and advocacy organization dealing with divorce, has submitted a six-month planning proposal to the Cleveland Foundation. This funding would enable them to continue working with the Domestic Relations Court to institute reform, as well as to disseminate research findings locally and nationally and to establish educational programs to educate the public on the legal and economic impact of divorce. If you are interested in participating in this worthwhile project, contact Cinthia Shuman at Cleveland Women's Counsel (321-8587).

Sexism in the Church

By Lorine M. Getz

In responding to the ongoing oppressive official stance of the Roman Catholic Church on the nature and role of women, the Cleveland Women's Ordination Conference held its annual meeting on May 1 and 2 at St. Joseph's Academy in Rocky River. Participants sought to address the. Church's ideological and practical sexism and to explore a theology of mutuality based on feminist tenets. The national Women's Ordination Conference, founded in Detroit in 1974, and its local branches including Cleveland, are committed to belief in women's essential equality with men, women's right to admission to sacramental priesthood, and the need for the recognition of and full development of the various ministries of women in the Roman Catholic Church. Charging that the Church's denial of the full range of religious and social rights to women is sinful, the Ordination Conference seeks to maintain the dialogue between concerned women and Church policy makers.

Keynote speaker for the Cleveland event was Theresa Kane, RSM, who publicly addressed Pope John Paul II in Washington, D.C., on October 7, 1979, with regard to the intense suffering of Roman Catholic women denied access to their full rights as human persons, including the right to participate officially as ordained priests. Kane spoke with missionary zeal, gently but firmly, of her hope for the radicalization of the Church from capitalism (especially in the U.S.), elitism, paternalism, classism, racism and clericalism to mutuality, reverence, solidarity, humanism and community through the corrective vision of feminism. Kane's lecture focused on four aspects of Church-supported sexism: 1) the global implication of this most deeply rooted "social sin;" 2) the relationship of sexism to all other forms of discrimination, especially racism; 3) the role of anger and women's rage for justice; and 4) feminism as the directive vision which can move the Church from male clerical domination to human mutuality.

A panel comprised of Jean Alvarez (Psychology/Sociology, Siena Heights College), Mary Ann Getty, RSM (Scripture, Carlow College), Robert Hovda (Liturgy, St. Joseph Church, Greenwich Village); James Provost (Canon Law, Catholic University) and Rosemary Radford Ruether (Theology, Gassett-Evangelical Theological Seminary) responded to Kane's speech, generally supporting her premises and amplifying points from their own experiences and particular areas of expertise. Provost pointed to expected changes in the Church's Canon Law, which are to be issued next year, as potentially divisive or creative elements, depending on how

women receive them and how they are implemented. Alvarez stressed the futility of any critique of the Church's chauvinism which looks only to structural problems without raising issues of power-who is in control; how can women get into power positions within the institution? Ruether addressed the question of norms for authority. She pointed out the hazards for women of accepting the ancient norm of "truth" as that which has been continuously taught. For example, slavery was traditionally_taught in the Old Testament and is closely related to sexism in the New Testament where both women and slaves were under the domination of the master of the house. Getty viewed the feminist critique of the Church as analogous to sand which moves the oyster to form a pearl, a thing of great beauty. Hovda pointed to the vast liturgical change which he expects because the women's movement is not supportive of the sterile, cerebral worship forms which have evolved under isolated male control. At the conclusion of the discussion, Kane responded to questions from the panel and the floor. She closed with an admonition to women to move assertively and with integrity, learning from the history of male domination in the Church what not to do.

Following the panel discussion, each of the respondents conducted a small-group seminar based on the insights and techniques of their areas of expertise. The workshop conducted by Rosemary. Radford Ruether, author and editor of many works on women and religion, including Religion and Sexism (on the teachings of the Church Fathers) and Women of Spirit (on the mostly hidden works of the Church Mothers), explored the historical confict between theologies of exclusion (masculine) and theologies of inclusion or mutuality (feminine). Maintaining that there is always a dialectical struggle between the two, Ruether charted the major victories of exclusive theology. These include the concept of the patriarchal order as, the order of both nature and divinity; the patriarchal law code and its accompanying claim that God wrote it; a definition of God which is ! suspiciously male and ruling class; the concept of woman as morally subversive; and the socializing of women into self-fear and self-hatred. Inclusive theology, which Ruether equates with equality and redemption in its true sense, holds an egalitarian doctrine of creation in which both sexes equally reflect God's image; redemption as restoration of sexual (and other) equality; and renewal of society through prophetic empowerment. Although historically in-. clusive theology has lost its battles (though a few examples survive, such as the Quakers, contemporary

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June, 1981/What She Wants/Part 3