Here Is Something To Ponder Over The Weekend,

in marriage if one partner works and the other looks after the house, 

 cleaning, washing clothes, cooking, you get the idea, does all of this housework count in a divorce? apparently in Portugal it does, illustration, GraphicaArtis/Getty Images, Portugal’s Supreme Court of Justice has ordered a man to pay his ex-wife 60,000 euros, at today's rate £51,945 or $71,891 in compensation for the cleaning and cooking she did during their three-decade-long marriage, “The demand for equality has long been inherent to the idea of ​​justice, so it is not possible to consider that all or much of the housework in a house, of the members of the de facto union, corresponds to the fulfilment of a natural obligation, founded on a duty of justice,” the ruling stated, “On the contrary, such a duty calls for a division of tasks as equal as possible, without prejudice to the possibility that the members of that relationship freely agree that one of them does not contribute to the provision of domestic work, in the logic of specializing the contributions of each one.” it was proven that for the 30 years that the couple were married for, the wife was the one who took care of the house and prepared the partner’s meals. The Supreme Court argued that this led to the enrichment of the couple member who did not participate in domestic work, since it allowed them to benefit from the result of these activities without costs or contributions, the ruling, which came on January 14 and was covered by Portuguese media in February, ended a long trial in which the two ex-spouses fought in various courts around Portugal. Originally, the wife asked for at least 240,000 euros for all the work she did for free during their marriage, but her claim was dismissed by a court in Barcelos, which ruled that she was not entitled to any kind of financial compensation, “As the work spent in the home is not legally required under the de facto union, its provision as a contribution to the common economy is configured as a spontaneous fulfilment of a natural obligation”, the Judge in Barcelos wrote in their ruling, so how was the amount calculated? the court determined the financial value of the domestic work performed by the woman by using the national minimum wage as a criterion, multiplying it by 12 months, for the 30 years of marriage. A third of the sum was them subtracted as the woman’s expenses during that period, of course I am not a lawyer, so I have to ask would this ruling be the case in say the UK or the USA?