Interspousal property division and financial provision on divorce

Divorce has become an established phenomenon in an "age of discontinuity."* Together with altered patterns of family behaviour, new forms of wealth and modes of consumption, and the apotheosis of the individual and his right of self-determination, it has focused the attention on the de iure sorting out of financial or property issues between autonomous ex-spouses. The law can do nothing to artificially sustain the marriage, but it can assist in the adjustment which individuals must face in the event of divorce.This thesis is mainly concerned with the economic adjustment, which the spouses to a disintegrated marriage face, following divorce and how the law of matrimonial property functions to accomplish a just and fair result. The ex post facto solution reached is based on the cognizable trend in modern matrimonial property laws of limited sharing of less property adapted to the individual circumstances.Throughout the treatment of the subject matter, extensive historical, critical and analytical references are made to the law of major Western countries--Canada, England, France, Germany and the U.S.A.--in an effort to deduce a coherent guide to the discretionary redistribution of marital means between husband and wife upon divorce. ftn * P. Drucker, The Age of Discontinuity (1968)