Very interesting.

I'm a married man and I do almost no housework. Worse, I'm rarely aware that I do close to bugger all. The Spanish version of me is about to experience a shake-up, but one that I think is necessary and, actually, one that will on the whole be welcomed rather than resisted.

Hanging out the washing might be a good start. Seeya.

Dayum, I'm moving.

But what are the penalaties for breaking this law? Sixteen lashes with a wet noodle?

Dayum, I'm moving.

But what are the penalaties for breaking this law? Sixteen lashes with a wet noodle?

Just so long as *she* does her part in keeping the chrome on the Camaro polished.
Yet another reason for men to avoid marriage - no rights, all obligations...

If everyone had a girlfriend like mine, we wouldn't need legislation like this.

MartianBachelor,
House work is constant and daily and exhausting, especially if you have kids and a husband who does not help around thw house. How does that comparable to polishing the chrome on the Camaro?! “Yet another reason for men to avoid marriage� Well, who wants to get married to such men anyways!? What you need is a housemaid not a wife.

I'm a little torn on this one. Part of me says this is a noble attempt to equalize domestic relations, but the other part of me says that this is silly and something that couples need to work out for themselves. It also leaves me with a lot of questions...

1. If one partner is a stay-at-home parent and the other works for pay, should the latter still be required to do 50% of the housework? How is that fair?

2. How do you prove that your spouse did not do their share of the work over the course of a marriage when you're getting a divorce?

3. What happens when it is the wife that doesn't do her share of the household chores (like my lazy ass mother-in-law)?

4. If the language of the agreement is not gender-neutral, how will this affect gay and lesbian married couples?

5. Are couples left to determine what constitutes 50%? Is it a matter of rotating each chore (you wash dishes this week, I'll do them next week) or a trade off (I'll do the dishes and clean the kitchen if you cook)?

If it takes government intervention to get your future spouse to do their fair share, then you probably shouldn't be getting married.

And I think sharing the household chores includes EVERYTHING necessary to care for the home, children, pets, vehicles, finances, etc.

I think it's a noble gesture, but I won't hold my breath to see if domestic duties really do become equalized in Spain. It may take a generation or two to see real change in attitudes...

Still, the mere fact that a "guys, you too" clause is being written into civil vows is a hopeful sign. Even though civil marriage is technically out of his jurisdiction, I can't wait to see what Pope Rottweiler...er, Benedict XVI, has to say about this development. ;)

Manda said:
1. If one partner is a stay-at-home parent and the other works for pay, should the latter still be required to do 50% of the housework? How is that fair?

I say:
How ISN'T that fair? Just because our culture sees one kind of labor (the kind that had traditionally been performed by men) as having literal /value/ while treating another kind of labor (the kind that has traditionally been performed by women, and is still primarily performed by women) as literally /worthless/, doesn't mean we should agree.

A stay-at-home parent /has/ a job - raising their children. And while it's great that pretty much all stay-at-home parents I know do manage to work household tasks into their daily routine, there's a big difference between that and giving a partner who works for pay a Get Out Of Housework Free card.

If you wouldn't expect a nanny or daycare worker to do your laundry or your dishes or cook you dinner (certainly not without paying him or her extra!), then how come it's all right to expect that of one's co-parent? Or is it a matter of proximity, in which case the same rules should apply to any person who works within the home, whether they're getting paid or not?

Bad enough our government and our culture consider the work of parenting as having no value, unless it's done by people who /aren't/ a child's parents - let's not build that kind of patriarchal super-capitalist mindset into people's relationships.

Thanks, Thorn. I really did do a crappy job with that question.

I did not mean to imply that a working parent gets a "Get Out of Housework Free" card, I just didn't follow through on my point. What I should have said was that the amount of work one does at home should be leveled with the amount of work they do at their job. For example, if one partner spends 40 hours a week at their job (be it providing for their children as a SAH parent or working for pay) and the other spends 60 hours a week at their job, then is it fair that they split all other household work 50-50?

"But what are the penalaties for breaking this law? Sixteen lashes with a wet noodle?"

If Spanish divorce laws are similar to American No-Fault divorce then such legal commitments are mere rhetorical flourishes. Unlike any other contract, marriage under a No-fault regime is the only contract that can be unilaterally breached with no corresponding legal result.

One consequence of such a law is that it makes trust among the parties the paramount consideration. (and henceforth: leads to less marriages)

No matter what the provision are of a contract (fidelity, housework, economic labor) If that contract has no enforcement mechanism its no contract at all.

"Well, who wants to get married to such men anyways!?"

That's the question that always pops into my mind whenever the housework question comes up, too.

Wow, this is actually rather sad. How exactly are they going to enforce this and all the other problems others have brought up?

Simply raise your kids doing housework without letting either slack, provide a good example and in a few generations this shouldn't be needed. IMO, this doesn't reflect well on Spain or it's patience for the required time to pass before sharing housework is common place.

Whew! Thanks for clarifying, Manda. That makes a lot more sense.

I'm not sure what the answer is. On the one hand, marriage is a partnership, and I think if any marriage is to survive, there are going to be times when one partner "carries" the other, be it financially, emotionally, through household maintenance or otherwise. I mean, that's just the way things go, and I don't know that it's any of our business to get into the middle of that sort of thing.

On the other hand, when couples do arrive at that "bargaining table", too often men are in a position of greater power, and so how do you guarantee that those kinds of intramarital agreements are truly fair?

I'm not sure what the answer is. I think it's great that Spain is shining some light on this issue, though as others have mentioned, I'm really not sure how enforcement is possible, nor even if it's desirable. I mean, if we're busy telling the government to stay out of people's bedrooms when it comes to gay rights, do we really want to invite them back in to make sure everyone's doing their fair share of the housework? I just don't know.

This reminds me of Tuesday's Daily Show, where Jon Stewart interviewed Gary Hart about his new book, which is essentially a treatise outlining what the Democratic party should stand for. The saddest thing of all was not what Hart put in the book, but that it had to be written at all; it's a little sad when the "loyal opposition" has to be reminded what exactly it's standing for.

I see the same thing here. On one hand it's a good thing that someone is saying something. On the other it's sad that it has to be a government institution, and that this is apparently not something that the Spanish government feels will be worked out by the couples themselves.

I have to say that I hope it's not enforced or even followed literally; nothing could be worse for a relationship than nit picking, down to the minute, how much time or how often someone does the housework. I mean... if one party feels extremely put out, then a discussion needs to take place. But I think if my husband and I obsessed over how many times each of us took out the garbage, emptied the dishwasher, or cooked dinner, we'd want to kill one another. Like so many things in a relationship, this doesn't seem like something that can be legislated.