From Courtship to Courtroom : What Divorce Law is Doing to Marriage

By Jed H. Abraham

Attorney Jed H. Abraham explodes the myths about divorce in this candid, often caustic, book about the ways in which divorce laws are unfair to men. Drawing upon his extensive experience, Abraham... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0819706922
• ISBN13: 9780819706928
• Release Date: December 1999
• Publisher: Bloch Pub Co
• Length: 169 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 1.0" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

A Must Read for Every Male

This isn't a 5-star book - it's a 6-star one. Abraham presents the reality of how the legal and judicial systems art stacked against men. Anyone saying otherwise is either ignoring the facts or... a woman.His book is short, to the point and does not contain footnotes. I do wish he had named names for both the good and the evil. For instance, although Abraham describes her study, he never mentions Dr. Lenore Weitzman, the Harvard professor whose highly flawed study and follow-on book, "The Divorce Revolution," created much of this mess. He did the same when reporting how Weitzman's study was flawed and how bureaucrats, politicians, judges and the press responded - something covered in depth by Dr. Sanford Braver's book, "Divorced Dads." There is a selected bibliography with many of these listed.Abraham occasionally slips into sarcasm, so if you're not careful, you may think he believes something when he's really mocking it. The one area where I completely disagree with Abraham when he speaks of how mothers discipline their children and fathers don't want to. Dr. Warren Farrell's book, "Father and Child Reunion," explains why single-mothers are afraid to discipline the children they have custody of (I refuse to say "their children" since these children are not theirs). Perhaps Abraham was being sarcastic and I missed it or maybe he believes that since mothers are responsible for 90% of all child abuse, this means they are disciplining the children. He pegs men's beliefs to a tee. "My case is different." "This woman is nicer." He let's men know what needs to be done (changing the laws) and how to start doing this.This book is mandatory reading for every male, especially High School and college men.John SmithAlliance for Non-Custodial Parents' Rightsancpr.org

A very scarey book

I think it would be arguable in a court of law that if an American man reads this book and gets married and has kids anyway, he has demonstrated his mental incompetence. A married man has a 50% chance of getting divorced (usually initiated by his wife) and when that happens, this book makes it plain how he will be stripped of his children, his dignity, and most of his assets and income. A divorced man can even be forced to pay for his noncustodial children's college educations when they are over 18 years of age, when married men have no such legal obligation to their adult children.If you're male, and living in the USA, and thinking about getting married some day, you absolutely must read this book. It will cost you only about 3 1/2 minutes worth of a divorce lawyer's hourly fee.

A MUST READ FOR MEN

THIS SHOULD BE REQUIRED READING FOR ANY MAN CONTEMPLATING MARRIAGE! Abraham is right on target with this easy to read book. From my own personal experiences and those of friends who have gone through divorce, the situation Abraham presents about what happens when your marriage breaks down is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. In fact the case he presents in general is run of the mill. Expect worse if your ex has filed on you. Clearly the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction, pushed by feminism and the preponderance of misleading and incorrect reports of deadbeat dads and the decline in women's standard of living following divorce. It just ain't so. The loving, considerate woman you thought you married has now become vengeful and vindictive and, aided and abetted by a legal system that thrives on an adversarial approach and won't hesitate to trample any rights a man has to parenthood or private property in the name of justice and what's "best for the kids", will take you to the cleaners. Jed Abraham, if you happen to read this, I would call upon you to take the initiative to set up an organization that will fight for men's rights, one that all men can unite behind and try to bring some balance back into family law. If this can't be done, then I would advise any man considering marriage to think very carefully about what he about to do in the cold hard reality of this book.

This is about the real double-standard.

The above professional review is pretty accurate on this one... Even though Abraham has UC/Berkeley and Harvard Law credentials, this is no abstract academic tome. Rather, it's an easy-to-read and straight-forward description of what a typical divorce scenario is like in all its details. Sprinkled in there's a bit of informative relevant history to explain how things got into the twisted state they're in, with men being distinctly second-class citizens in the family. Not only does marriage confer no rights on men, in divorce they have negative rights (i.e., obligations and responsibilities) and are hardly better off than slaves, with the state and the ex being the slave-owner.Abraham is especially good at debunking the commonly held and naive belief among men that it's those *other* guys who are the jerks and who therefore get screwed by their ex's and the law in divorce -- i.e., that the law is fair and that men get about what they deserve. Being male is all it takes, and no amount of "good works" or having been a good husband/father can undo the inherent anti-male sexism in the current system. While there's virtually nothing in the book on courtship, and there are a couple of minor typos, this book should be required reading for all high school boys (and would-be second wives, too). The material on pre-nuptial agreements is a must for all men considering a commitment with a woman, and the six changes in the law Abraham proposes are right on the money and easy to understand. 4 1/2 - 5 stars.

Editorial Review by Fathering Magazine - FatherMag.com

Unlike its predecessors, this book contains no anecdotes or horror stories, no political analysis, and in fact no documentation (though Abraham does back up his assertions in frequent contributions to professional journals). Neither is it a legal manual, as it contains little advice on how to proceed in court. This is important, for it leaves no illusion that there is anything you can do to avert destruction. It is a concise, straightforward description of the reign of terror that is now routine in divorce court, told with the authority of a lawyer who has seen it all first hand.Much is written in the second person: This is what will happen to you. In a sense it is one extended generic horror-story - the horror that is simply routine, so routine that it never makes the newspapers: the stealing and institutionalized abuse of children, the plundering and criminalization of fathers, the relentless and wholesale destruction of innocent lives. And all carried out by government officials on the take. The book is neither ponderous nor accusatory but fast-paced and highly readable - all the more so for its occasionally caustic humor. Reviewed by Stephen Baskerville for FatherMag.comStephen Baskerville teaches political science at Howard University.