Charles Amos is a PhD student in political philosophy alongside working in the haulage industry. He writes The Musing Individualist Substack in his spare time.
Recently, the government has announced it intends to grant women in cohabiting relationships of three years plus rights to their partners’ property upon splitting up.
David Lammy contends this will create ‘a fair system that offers the most vulnerable protection in the event of a breakup’. According to the Justice Minister, Baroness Levitt, the financial independence afforded to the married and civil partnered should not just be for them. This simply amounts to the legalised theft of men’s property by their ex-girlfriends and must be opposed by all liberals committed to the sanctity of private property. If girlfriends want a share of their partner’s property they should do as all decent girls do and insist upon marriage.
Theft is taking a person’s property without their consent; an ex-girlfriend unconsensually taking some of her ex-boyfriend’s savings, furniture and house is just that, therefore, such an ex-girlfriend of three years is committing theft. This would be facilitated by the state enabling the 3.5 million people in cohabiting couples of three years plus legal rights to their partners’ property upon separation.
Perhaps no theft occurs because a boyfriend who originally owned his own home and invited his girlfriend to stay for three years would implicitly consent to the taking. This is wrongheaded. If a hitman said he’ll take half the cash out of your wallet if you go on a date with a girl, then, you go on a date with a girl and he takes the cash, you obviously haven’t consented to the taking. The hitman has no right to set the terms on your cash, so, analogously, neither can the hitmen in the state set the terms on which your use your property more broadly either.
The government will dispute the first premise of the liberal argument, i.e., the long-term boyfriend having full property rights in his savings, furniture and house. Lammy will say ensuring fairness and protecting the vulnerable carves out the boyfriend’s property rights such that legally mandated taking does not constitute theft.
I suspect most women will say it is not fair they get nothing if they’ve contributed to the household, e.g., via paying bills and doing chores, and it is this which warrants them getting a share of their boyfriend’s house, even if he already had it before meeting her or alone holds and pays the mortgage. This is dubious. Children who live with their parents into their twenties and pay bills don’t suddenly come to own part of their parents’ house, nor does the neighbour who puts out a fire in your home, so, contribution to a household clearly doesn’t entitle a long-term girlfriend to her boyfriend’s property either.
Or vice versa – this is a sex neutral law.
What these women (or men) are probably getting at is they believe there is some kind of implicit agreement between the two of them warranting a share in the house. While eating food from the fridge can be decided by these implicit agreements, who owns real property must come down to explicit agreement; if girlfriends want some of their boyfriend’s property they should explicitly agree to a joint holding or transfer upon splitting up. Like a marriage! Nevertheless, I suspect Labour itself secretly wish to ensure fairness understood as greater equality of wealth between the sexes.
If that’s their real aim, the tax system should deal with it, not social engineering. Indeed, loading an unequal burden onto long-term boyfriends to achieve equality, relative to a progressive tax, defeats the original purpose anyway. The real concern then must be protecting vulnerable women (or men) exiting long term relationships in which they’ve lived in their partners’ house and at their expense.
A 27-year-old woman renting her own flat is not vulnerable. Thus, said woman breaking up with her 30-year-old boyfriend whose house she has lived in for three years, returning her to a rented flat, does not make her vulnerable. As such there is no need for the mentioned woman to take any property from her long-term boyfriend to stop her becoming vulnerable. What I think Labour is really getting at is ensuring more equal power in relationships, hence talk about bringing the justice system into ‘modernity’.
Feminists such as Susan Moller Okin object to the power imbalance in heterosexual relationships, which results in women in Britain today doing most of the washing up, and it is for this reason she argues wives should be entitled to half their husband’s earnings to give the them more bargaining power; I imagine Okin would support Lammy’s reform for the same reason.
The idea people in romantic relationships should be equally powerful though is preposterous. If I am wrapped around my girlfriend’s little finger because of her beauty and commanding character that is my business alone. Ultimately, if women don’t want to have a weak bargaining hand, they should heed Gary Becker and earn more money, or, not go into the relationship, not threaten via the state to steal some of their wealthier boyfriend’s furniture if he fails to unload the dishwasher.
Unfortunately, contrary the feminists, men today live under a state which systemically plunders them via taxation to finance free childcare, statutory maternity pay and women’s extra life on the state pension, so it is no surprise Labour politicians want to continue this trend. Women take more out of the welfare state than men. This results in far greater power for women than distributive justice demands with men having to do more hoovering as fallout.
Nevertheless, Lammy is right to take aim at domestically abusive men. Of course, women who have been subject to terrible violence should receive a share of their partner’s property when they split up, married or not, but not because of fairness or their vulnerability, but because of the injustice done to them which warrants restitution to make them whole again. We can tell this is the real reason to favour granting them their boyfriend’s property by seeing that even if the girlfriend was a billionaire and thus in no way vulnerable upon breaking up, she’d still be warranted in receiving property.
Lammy’s proposed reforms simply amount to legalising theft by long-term girlfriends from their long-term property-owning boyfriends. Every argument in favour of it, from fairness as household contribution, fairness as equality to protecting vulnerable women is spurious. Private property is an essential means through which people live their lives and a forced taking of it is constitutive of subordinating the life of one to another: That is wrong. If cohabiting couples don’t like their current arrangements for property holding, they should write their own contract out, or, do as many do, and simply say, ‘I do’.
Charles Amos is a PhD student in political philosophy alongside working in the haulage industry. He writes The Musing Individualist Substack in his spare time.
Recently, the government has announced it intends to grant women in cohabiting relationships of three years plus rights to their partners’ property upon splitting up.
David Lammy contends this will create ‘a fair system that offers the most vulnerable protection in the event of a breakup’. According to the Justice Minister, Baroness Levitt, the financial independence afforded to the married and civil partnered should not just be for them. This simply amounts to the legalised theft of men’s property by their ex-girlfriends and must be opposed by all liberals committed to the sanctity of private property. If girlfriends want a share of their partner’s property they should do as all decent girls do and insist upon marriage.
Theft is taking a person’s property without their consent; an ex-girlfriend unconsensually taking some of her ex-boyfriend’s savings, furniture and house is just that, therefore, such an ex-girlfriend of three years is committing theft. This would be facilitated by the state enabling the 3.5 million people in cohabiting couples of three years plus legal rights to their partners’ property upon separation.
Perhaps no theft occurs because a boyfriend who originally owned his own home and invited his girlfriend to stay for three years would implicitly consent to the taking. This is wrongheaded. If a hitman said he’ll take half the cash out of your wallet if you go on a date with a girl, then, you go on a date with a girl and he takes the cash, you obviously haven’t consented to the taking. The hitman has no right to set the terms on your cash, so, analogously, neither can the hitmen in the state set the terms on which your use your property more broadly either.
The government will dispute the first premise of the liberal argument, i.e., the long-term boyfriend having full property rights in his savings, furniture and house. Lammy will say ensuring fairness and protecting the vulnerable carves out the boyfriend’s property rights such that legally mandated taking does not constitute theft.
I suspect most women will say it is not fair they get nothing if they’ve contributed to the household, e.g., via paying bills and doing chores, and it is this which warrants them getting a share of their boyfriend’s house, even if he already had it before meeting her or alone holds and pays the mortgage. This is dubious. Children who live with their parents into their twenties and pay bills don’t suddenly come to own part of their parents’ house, nor does the neighbour who puts out a fire in your home, so, contribution to a household clearly doesn’t entitle a long-term girlfriend to her boyfriend’s property either.
Or vice versa – this is a sex neutral law.
What these women (or men) are probably getting at is they believe there is some kind of implicit agreement between the two of them warranting a share in the house. While eating food from the fridge can be decided by these implicit agreements, who owns real property must come down to explicit agreement; if girlfriends want some of their boyfriend’s property they should explicitly agree to a joint holding or transfer upon splitting up. Like a marriage! Nevertheless, I suspect Labour itself secretly wish to ensure fairness understood as greater equality of wealth between the sexes.
If that’s their real aim, the tax system should deal with it, not social engineering. Indeed, loading an unequal burden onto long-term boyfriends to achieve equality, relative to a progressive tax, defeats the original purpose anyway. The real concern then must be protecting vulnerable women (or men) exiting long term relationships in which they’ve lived in their partners’ house and at their expense.
A 27-year-old woman renting her own flat is not vulnerable. Thus, said woman breaking up with her 30-year-old boyfriend whose house she has lived in for three years, returning her to a rented flat, does not make her vulnerable. As such there is no need for the mentioned woman to take any property from her long-term boyfriend to stop her becoming vulnerable. What I think Labour is really getting at is ensuring more equal power in relationships, hence talk about bringing the justice system into ‘modernity’.
Feminists such as Susan Moller Okin object to the power imbalance in heterosexual relationships, which results in women in Britain today doing most of the washing up, and it is for this reason she argues wives should be entitled to half their husband’s earnings to give the them more bargaining power; I imagine Okin would support Lammy’s reform for the same reason.
The idea people in romantic relationships should be equally powerful though is preposterous. If I am wrapped around my girlfriend’s little finger because of her beauty and commanding character that is my business alone. Ultimately, if women don’t want to have a weak bargaining hand, they should heed Gary Becker and earn more money, or, not go into the relationship, not threaten via the state to steal some of their wealthier boyfriend’s furniture if he fails to unload the dishwasher.
Unfortunately, contrary the feminists, men today live under a state which systemically plunders them via taxation to finance free childcare, statutory maternity pay and women’s extra life on the state pension, so it is no surprise Labour politicians want to continue this trend. Women take more out of the welfare state than men. This results in far greater power for women than distributive justice demands with men having to do more hoovering as fallout.
Nevertheless, Lammy is right to take aim at domestically abusive men. Of course, women who have been subject to terrible violence should receive a share of their partner’s property when they split up, married or not, but not because of fairness or their vulnerability, but because of the injustice done to them which warrants restitution to make them whole again. We can tell this is the real reason to favour granting them their boyfriend’s property by seeing that even if the girlfriend was a billionaire and thus in no way vulnerable upon breaking up, she’d still be warranted in receiving property.
Lammy’s proposed reforms simply amount to legalising theft by long-term girlfriends from their long-term property-owning boyfriends. Every argument in favour of it, from fairness as household contribution, fairness as equality to protecting vulnerable women is spurious. Private property is an essential means through which people live their lives and a forced taking of it is constitutive of subordinating the life of one to another: That is wrong. If cohabiting couples don’t like their current arrangements for property holding, they should write their own contract out, or, do as many do, and simply say, ‘I do’.