One of the problems men face in court is ingrained human nature. When you’re facing a judge who has 15 or so minutes to decide the fate of your family, it can present some serious problems. Perhaps the most common of these is the instinctive tendency of humans to have a protective attitude toward women, and a dismissive attitude – even containing some elements of humor – toward female on male aggression. People are so unconcerned about female aggression that radio show hosts will crack jokes about men having their penises cut off and ground up in the garbage disposal.
The upshot of this is that a man facing a judge who goes on the offensive against a woman will be disliked on an instinctive level, whereas a woman who does the same will be indulged, and possibly even garner some sympathy, even if her claims verge on incredible. It’s a pernicious problem, and due to the American legal system, which is adversarial, it is tacitly encouraged.
There’s really nothing new about this, and for centuries there was a safeguard, known as spousal privilege, that barred spouses from testifying against each other in court. Spousal privilege still exists in law, but is greatly modified from its roots, and is now generally restricted to protecting the confidentiality of private communication between spouses during a marriage. However, as family law stands today, there is now a fairly strong incentive to smear one’s spouse.
The problem for men is that that incentive doesn’t really apply to them. In fact, it’s in a guy’s best interest to soft-pedal even serious issues, such as a wife’s addiction issues, her parenting skills (or lack thereof), or her general irresponsibility. This may seem counterintuitive, but judges just won’t like you if you stand in front of them and attack your wife, no matter what kind of nasty person she may be. The wife, on the other hand, incurs very little risk when she engages in character assassination, and often gains the upper hand through such tactics.
Given the law as it exists today, there’s little men can do about this but try to eat it calmly, and hope that the attacks go overboard and into the “obviously false” category. After a certain sustained volume of these kinds of allegations, judges will begin to grow annoyed, and eventually may lose patience entirely. But you certainly can’t count on it — the sad fact is that luck always plays a big role in these matters.
As for how this problem could be dealt with, it might be worthwhile to re-examine the concept of spousal privilege, strengthen it, and suspend it only in cases of violent or property crime against a spouse or children. If a spouse wants to trash her husband, she’ll have to go all the way and accuse him of a crime — at least that way he’ll have due process and a public defender. As for denigrating his habits, parenting skills, political views, etc., this should all be inadmissible. Let a parenting evaluator come and make a determination, and that can be entered into evidence. This would eliminate much frivolity and save families a great deal of money during the very expensive process of separation and divorce.
Furthermore, it would go some ways toward leveling the playing field for fathers, and that’s something everyone ought to support for the good of children and families.
