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Portugal’s Supreme Court of Justice has ordered a man to pay his ex-wife
60,000 euros ($72,000) in compensation for the cleaning and cooking she
did during their three-decade-long marriage.
There was a time when housework was considered a wife’s duty, but those
times are long gone, as evidenced by the avalanche of court rulings in
favor of housewives asking for compensation from their ex-spouses. The
latest such case comes from Portugal, where the Supreme Court recently
ruled that a woman was entitled to $72,000 in compensation from her
ex-husband for performing domestic activities like cooking and cleaning
throughout their 30-year marriage.
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The ruling, which came on January 14 and was covered by Portuguese media
in February, ended a long trial in which the two ex-spouses fought in
various courts around Portugal. Originally, the wife asked for at least
240,000 euros ($290,000) for all the work she did for free during their
marriage, but her claim was dismissed by a court in Barcelos, which
ruled that she was not entitled to any kind of financial compensation.
“As the work spent in the home is not legally required under the de
facto union, its provision as a contribution to the common economy is
configured as a spontaneous fulfillment of a natural obligation”, the
Judge in Barcelos wrote in their ruling.
The woman filed an appeal with the Court of Appeals, which this time
ruled in her favor, granting her a compensation of 60,000 euros. Her
ex-spouse challenged the decision at the Supreme Court of Justice, which
maintained the previous decision and ordered him to compensate his
ex-wife for all her work. The court ruled that while it remains
invisible, housework has clear economic value, as it translates to
enrichment by saving expenses.
“The demand for equality has long been inherent to the idea of
justice, so it is not possible to consider that all or much of the
housework in a house, of the members of the de facto union, corresponds
to the fulfillment of a natural obligation, founded on a duty of
justice,” the ruling stated.
“On the contrary, such a duty calls for a division of tasks as equal as
possible, without prejudice to the possibility that the members of that
relationship freely agree that one of them does not contribute to the
provision of domestic work, in the logic of specializing the
contributions of each one.”
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It was proven that for the 30 years that the couple were married for,
the wife was the one who took care of the house and prepared the
partner’s meals. The Supreme Court argued that this led to the
enrichment of the couple member who did not participate in domestic
work, since it allowed them to benefit from the result of these
activities without costs or contributions.
The court determined the financial value of the domestic work performed
by the woman by using the national minimum wage as a criterion,
multiplying it by 12 months, for the 30 years of marriage. A third of
the sum was them subtracted as the woman’s expenses during that period.
A couple of months ago, we featured the very similar case of a woman in
China who was granted compensation for the housework she performed
during her five-year marriage.
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