I was recently in Court waiting to be heard when a client and I overheard a very unhappy gentleman complaining loudly that family law favors women and men don’t stand a chance.From what we heard, he was upset that one of his children was being emancipated, but that his remaining child support obligation for the un-emancipated child was not reduced as much as he thought it should be. Under his theory, since he had two (2) children and one (1) was being emancipated, his child support obligation should be cut in half and thus, the children’s mother was “bilking” him for more support than she was entitled and it was all the law’s fault because—circling back as he did many times—the law favors women/mothers.

This is a common misconception, but not at all true. The divorce statute, the alimony statute, the equitable distribution statute, the child custody and child support statutes are all written in a gender-neutral fashion. They apply equally to both genders. There is nothing in any of those statutes I just listed that says that if you are the woman/mother you win or conversely if you are the man/father, you lose or, vice versa. Rather, the applicability of the statutes depend on each particular individual’s circumstances—whether they are the  supported or supporting spouse, the primary caretaker of the secondary caretaker, the custodial or non-custodial parent and so on.

In the above example, if roles were reversed and the gentleman was the primary custodial parent to whom the mother paid support, her child support obligation would not have been cut in half either. So, as much as he believed the law to favors women, the truth is the law is gender neutral and just as many non-custodial mothers in the same position as this gentlemen would have been equally unhappy.