This idealized vision of American family life -- one persistently imprinted on the imagination of many thanks to Ozzie and Harriet and Leave it to Beaver -- increasingly collides with reality.

Courts face divorces where one spouse is both breadwinner and homemaker, where, for example, one spouse idles unproductively while the other wins the bread and maintains the home. The distribution of property in such cases increasingly reflects spousal contributions without regard to traditional (and imagined) gender roles.

In a 2004 Pennsylvania case -- Mercatell v. Mercatell -- where both parties earned equal amounts to time of the divorce, the court nevertheless gave 60 percent of the marital estate to the wife, who, during the marriage, had worked two and three jobs during the nineteen years of a childless marriage while the husband lost some 14 jobs and "used his money to buy adult toys."

A significant number of cases unequally divide the marital estate in favor of the wife when the husband pursed idleness or "underemployment" during the marriage.

In a 2000 Massachusetts case -- Williams v. Massa -- a trial court awarded 75 percent of the marital estate to a diligent husband whose nonworking wife "inexplicably avoided the household tasks she was intended do" and who spent $6,000 a month on what was described as "recreational shopping." Her only "consistent homemaking contribution" -- doing the laundry -- apparently failed to much impress the court.

In short, when one spouse, husband or wife, appears to assume a lion’s share of the breadwinnerand homemaker duties, courts appropriately divide the marital estates to reflect that inequality of contribution.

See also Imputed Income.

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