[Indexed as: James, Rembert, “Alimony Laws Bemoaned By Coast Expert; Billion-Dollar Business Is Based On Unjust Precedence,” syndicated (AP), Ogden Standard Examiner (Ut.), Apr. 17, 1939]
SAN FRANCISCO, April 17- (AP)—Alimony in America has grown into billion-dollar annual business, and only a fraction of the alimony payments are justifiable, Dr. S. L. Katloff, San Francisco domestic dilemma ‘expert, estimated today.
Two billion dollars more, Doctor Katzoff said in an interview, are paid out every year to lawyers, —which are not “ironed out” at all, courts and individuals active in “ironing out” marriage difficulties except superficially.
Laws Are Barbaric
“Alimony often amounts to holdups with the aid of barbaric laws,” declared Doctor Katzoff, medical director and consulting phychiatrist of the San Francisco Institute of Human Relations, and author of books on marriage and divorce.”
“It would be well for the judges of some of our more backward states—New York and Illinois, for example—to read up on the origin and history of alimony.”
“I mention New York and Illinois particularly because in both of those states, in Long Island City, N. Y., and Cook county, Ill., alimony jails are maintained.”
“Many good Americans are thrown into those emotional torture chambers for no other reason than their inability to pay their alimony due to ex-wives, many of whom have since re-married.”
Began In England
Alimony started in the church courts of England, hundreds of years ago, Katzoff said. These ecclesiastical tribunals recognized the right of the wife, in certain cases, to leave her husband. In order to keep her from becoming a charge of the parish, the church courts decreed that her husband should provide for her support.
This arrangement, said Katzoff, was fair because on the limited nature of the divorce forbidding remarriage, the fact that women then were unable to earn their own living;
and because of other circumstances, including the law which unconditionally forfeited to the husband all property belonging to the wife at the time of marriage.