Men tend to be the main breadwinners in most families and they often fight tooth and nail to retain as much of the assets as possible in a bitter divorce. But two recent cases in Singapore show how high-earning women can fight their corner just as ferociously. The women, both leading executives earning around $30,000 a month, ended up in court to stop their ex-husbands from getting more than their share of the family assets.
The two cases heard by the High Court recently involved the women squaring off against husbands who ran their own businesses. The women both earned substantially more than the men, paid for most of the household expenses and were their children’s main caregivers. Indeed, the husband of one woman not only relied on his ex-wife for loans to fund his business, he also used her money to pay for his many extramarital flings. Not surprisingly, as he spent most of his time away from the family, the court gave him only a 10 per cent share of the matrimonial assets and left the rest to the ex-wife. In the other case, the man, who earned $5,000 a month, was awarded 30 per cent of the assets because the court found that his ex-wife had contributed more financially while also taking care of the family.
Although many people believe the matrimonial law – the Women’s Charter – favours wives over husbands because of its name, the reality is that the outcome of any asset division is based mostly on the evidence of each party’s contribution. Moreover, as the law views marriages as equal partnerships, non-monetary contributions by housewives who spend more time taking care of their kids matter as much as the incomes earned by their husbands. So if a wife is the main breadwinner as well as the children’s caregiver, her contribution will naturally be deemed to be a lot higher than the husband’s, as these two cases show.
