Once the Marriage Ends

A marriage is many things: Primarily, one hopes, it is a source of emotional support and companionship. However, it is also, without doubt, an economic partnership, as this state's highest court has made clear. See O'Brien v. O'Brien, 489 NE2d 743, 747 (1985) (noting that “[e]quitable distribution was based on the premise that a marriage is, among other things, an economic partnership to which both parties contribute as spouse, parent, wage earner or homemaker”). While a dissolution of that partnership is designed to terminate the economic bonds between the spouses ' “implicit in the statutory scheme as a whole, is the view that upon dissolution of the marriage there should be a winding up of the parties' economic affairs and a severance of their economic ties by an equitable distribution of the marital assets” (Id.) ' that is not always the case, especially where one spouse is economically incapable of self-support. The duty to support a spouse has long been recognized by the State of New York, with the Court of Appeals noting that
“[a]limony when awarded, is not in the nature of payment of a debt as in that of the performance of a duty.” Romaine v. Chauncey, 129 NY566 (1982). It is true that alimony has been replaced under the Equitable Distribution Law with the concept of spousal maintenance, which was designed to provide the payee spouse with the opportunity (and incentive) to achieve economic independence. However, the fundamental concept of a spouse's duty to provide support has not changed.