the cat

today we had an 'equal rights in denmark' presentation at school, instead of class.  two presenters came from one of the state ministries that deals with equal rights (i'm sure they said it but now i don't know where exactly in the government they came from).  they talked about marriage, divorce, family planning, children, and, in the last five minutes, employment... hopefully not because i kept asking questions about divorce.  my teacher joked that if she didn't know me, she would have been afraid i was having troubles in my marriage.  and in the section about children, the english interpreter also joked about my moral integrity when i inquired whether strangers have a legal obligation to report suspected child abuse (they do).  i told her i wasn't thinking like a human being, i was thinking like a lawyer.  really, i was just interested in the differences between denmark and the u.s. in the area of family law.  such as... (and given this wasn't a fine-tooth combing through the laws, it's possible some of these are not 100% accurate)...

here it is written into law that parents must treat their male and female children equally...  provide them with the same opportunities and responsibilities (i.e. household chores).  but, never fear, those right of far left, no one will come into your house to enforce it.

decisions in divorces do not get made in the courts.  they get made in some other government agency set up to deal specifically with divorce-related issues (or, of course, as agreements by the parties).

property is split in half, no exception, unless the parties agreed differently in pre- or post-nups, or as a gifter's specific condition to receiving a gift.  but that individual property is added into the spouse's property when divvying things up equally.  

debts are individual, no matter when or how they were incurred... like, even if you tell your spouse to go off to las vegas and gamble on his credit card... it's the gambling spouse's debt, period, if he threw the unlucky dice.

debts offset property to be divided.  so if you have that big las vegas debt, you get to subtract that amount from the property you must divide.

physical placement is presumed to be equal.  if it is equal, there is (apparently) no child support order.

you must be 18 years old to marry.  if you're younger than that, you need not only your parents' permission but the queen's permission as well!

okay, i'm hoping to finish 'to catch a thief' tonight.  we've been watching it on netflix for the last three nights.  last night greg finally got to the end, but i fell asleep well before it was over.  (and the two nights before that, henry woke up and needed some attention.)  hopefully this will be the night i find out who the 'cat' is...