By Sheila Mckenzie-
A woman who divorced her husband has been awarded a payout of €204,624.86 ($215,664) after successfully arguing that she deserved compensation for 25 years of doing all the housework. Axarquía town of Vélez-Málaga
A court in the Axarquía town of Velez-Malaga, Spain ruled that a woman should be awarded compensation from her ex husband for all of the unpaid housework she did over the course of 25 years of marriage.
Ivana Moral(pictured) husband must also pay her a pension equivalent to £444 per month as well as £356 and £533 to his two daughters, who are now aged 20 and 14.
The court report stated that the woman “was deprived of any possible career path due to her exclusive dedication to the home and family”. The man, “throughout the years of the marriage, accumulated and exponentially increased his private assets”, without this resulting in an increase in her assets”.
Moral, 48, divorced her husband in 2020 , citing irreconcilable differences, leading the court to compensate her for all of the housework she performed in her two decade marriage
Using Spain’s monthly minimum wage laws, Ivana was paid for doing all the housework during her marriage.
Separation of property laws meant she and her husband both kept what they had earned over the course of their relationship.
The ruling, which can be appealed, considers that the 48-year-old woman dedicated her time to looking after the home and the two daughters, “with all that this entails, contributing occasionally to the family business” by doing occasional cleaning work.
Ivana’s lawsuit says she was ‘deprived of any possible career due to her exclusive dedication to the home and family’ whereas her ex husband ‘throughout the years of marriage, accumulated and exponentially increased his assets’.
The judge explained that although the husband’s lawyer argued that the man transferred part of his shares in a company, “there is no evidence whatsoever that this transfer was made to compensate her in the event of their break-up and in order to exclude the application in her case of what is contained in article 1.438 of the Civil Code”
Ivana told the court: ‘me and my daughters were left with nothing’ while she was ‘never allowed access to his financial affairs’.
Over the course of their 25 years of marriage, her ex husband’s gym business was successful enough to the point that he was able to buy a Porsche, Range Rover, BMW motorbikes and a huge olive oil farm which has been valued at €4 million.
Ivana’s lawyer Marta Fuentes described the ruling as a victory for all women who have put in lots of work so their husbands ‘could rise professionally and become someone’.
She had originally been offered a divorce settlement of half of the family house and no money, but has now been granted the lump sum of compensation and will also be paid a monthly pension of €500 ($527).
Speaking to Cadena Ser radio, Ivana said her husband did not want her to work outside the home.
She said he would only let her work at the gyms he owned, where she handled ‘public relations and acted as a monitor’.
Otherwise, she said, ‘I have dedicated myself exclusively to housework, looking after my husband and the house,’ she said.
‘He made me take on the specific role’ of doing domestic chores, to the extent that ‘I was in a place where I couldn’t really do much else,’ she said.
She said the sentence made her happy because it was well deserved.
Spanish women in Malaga described the ruling as a victory for women wh have controlling men.
Valeria González, 29, in Malaga told The Eye Of Media.Com: ”this is a brilliant ruling for women. Men should never think they can control women like that indefinitely. It’s abuse, I hope other women take note”.
Valentina Morales, 31 said; ” this woman is very lucky and deserved the compensation. The court verdict is excellent news for women, and will be a wake up call to men who think they can exercise this kind of wrong and abusive control over women. Men who do not allow their partner’s to work, do it to be superior over them so that the women can depend on them for everything. They can even use that to blackmail them. The judge deserves a crown for this, especially with international women’s day”.
The ruling could put ideas in other jurisdictions to follow suit in divorce cases where the woman can prove she devoted a lot of energy to domestic work in the house.