To be single again

The results of the study show that there is an immediate spike in the money that a man has in his pockets just after a divorce.

‘Dog bites man’ doesn’t make news. But ‘Man bites dog’ certainly does. In a similar vein, the fact that divorce makes a man poorer — thanks to alimony, maintenance, etc — is a tragic, but obvious fact. But when an egghead at the Institute for Social and Economic Research tells us that his study shows that men actually become richer after divorce, we sit up, listen and then write an important editorial about it. One qualifier though. The study deals with the British populace and it would be over-optimistic to expect that the findings reflect what’s happening, say, in Saudi Arabia.

HT Image

The results of the study show that there is an immediate spike in the money that a man has in his pockets just after
a divorce. This can be such a sudden perk, that it can be lifestyle-changing and drag some bloke out of penury. Leaving a childless marriage ups the moolah by 25 per cent because of the sudden loss of ‘additional expenses’. The additional income of a wife doesn’t usually add up to more than the savings made by jettisoning her. Blame it on her retail therapy and other marriage-straining binges.

So what’s the message in this? That in Britain, most men should split. They can remarry their ex-wives once the economic meltdown’s stopped.