A colleague recently remarked that marriage benefits women more than men, before asking, “Does a working wife have a right to maintenance by the husband when they divorce?” This reflexive assumption that divorce laws financially benefit female divorcees over male is the crux of the often-heard resentment and confusion today about the Women’s Charter.
Passed in 1961 at a time when wives were financially dependent on their husbands, it was a landmark law that has underpinned the broader emancipation of women in Singapore. It has adapted to the times, with multiple amendments over the years to remove outdated provisions. The application of the Charter to maintenance of wives has also remained relevant. Yet the Charter should be reformed further, given the diversity of family arrangements and evolving gender dynamics in Singapore, including the rise of the manosphere. Two recommendations would be to award spousal maintenance based on fairness and not gender; and to use a gender-neutral name for the Charter.
To understand why, it’s important to remember the socio-economic context of the late 1950s. Women faced inequalities and difficulties at that time, including problems finding jobs, being paid much less than men, polygamous marriages and husband desertion, which also resulted in hardship for children. Before the 1959 general election, the People’s Action Party (PAP) announced in its election manifesto that it will work to “free working-class women from domestic drudgery”. The PAP chairman said, “In the first instance in order to emancipate them from the bonds of feudalism and conservatism a monogamous marriage law will be passed.” After the PAP was voted into power, the Women’s Charter was enacted. In addition to abolishing polygamous marriages (except for Muslims), the Women’s Charter also provided wives the right to engage in profession, trade and social activities; the right to use their own surname and name separately; and equal rights in the ownership and management of family properties.
A key component was maintenance, which refers to financial support. Under the Women’s Charter, a married woman is entitled to apply for reasonable maintenance from her husband in divorce proceedings. But what about women who were financially independent during marriage, or who did not have their earning capacity adversely affected through the course of marriage?
They are unlikely to be granted spousal maintenance. In the recent case of WZF v WZG, the wife was financially independent during the course of the marriage. The judge believed there was no “sufficiently significant gap between the wife’s income and her expenses, such that the husband should be made to contribute to such expenses”, despite the husband plausibly earning more.
In the 2016 Court of Appeal case of ATE v ATD, nominal spousal maintenance (S$1) was not awarded where the wife was “at least as professionally successful as the husband” and her earning capacity had not been adversely affected through the course of marriage. Nominal maintenance is usually ordered in cases where the applicant’s circumstances may change significantly in the future, for example having to one day resign from a job to care for a child full-time. Nominal maintenance therefore serves to maintain the applicant’s right to claim substantive maintenance in the future. In this case, the Court of Appeal emphasised that the possibility that misfortune might befall the wife in the future is not itself a sufficient reason to grant nominal maintenance.
That said, the Court of Appeal also noted that in most homes, even those where both spouses work full-time, “in the absence of concrete evidence” the wife is more likely to make greater indirect contributions. Among other things, many wives make greater sacrifices in their jobs to focus on family duties, resulting in lower (or no) earning capacity compared to their husbands, and this difference is only accentuated over time. This corresponds to the government finding that of the Singaporean residents unable to work mainly because of childcare, 95.1 percent are women. After years of being out of the job market, the ability to enter the workforce and make meaningful income is affected. This is why the Women’s Charter today preserves the right of wives to spousal maintenance—the law aims to recognise “indirect” contributions in addition to financial contributions. The courts consider the facts of each case in making a determination. They also consider the division of matrimonial assets and deploy both mechanisms holistically to achieve a fair outcome.
Other judicial observations suggest that the courts are attuned to changing social structures fueled by women entering the workforce. In 2014, Justice Choo Han Teck noted in relation to maintenance that “the idea that women needed protection was yoked to an old attitude that should be changed”, and, as such, maintenance is not granted as a matter of course in Singapore. The courts also expect wives who receive maintenance to work towards becoming self-sufficient; maintenance orders can be changed once circumstances change.
Today, not only are more women working, but there are also more stay-home fathers. This leads to an obvious question: can a man claim spousal maintenance?
In certain situations, a wife can be ordered to maintain a husband who is incapacitated. The husband must, during the marriage, be or become incapacitated from earning a livelihood, due to any physical or mental illness or disability, and be unable to maintain himself. This right arose pursuant to changes to the Women’s Charter in 2016 and is a welcome development. A further improvement to the law would be to equally entitle men who are not incapacitated to spousal maintenance from their wives, should the same conditions be met. This would recognise diverse family arrangements, including where husbands forgo employment to be full-time homemakers. Maintenance thus should be awarded based on fairness and not on gender, which is a position championed by Kanwaljit Soin, then nominated member of Parliament, as early as 1996, and by the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) during the 2016 government consultation on amendments to the Women’s Charter.
I’ve heard fellow Singaporeans protest the lack of a “Men’s Charter”. It’s a valid concern given insufficient education about the raison d’etre and etymology of the Women’s Charter. The rights that we take for granted today did not exist for women historically. It makes sense therefore that the legislation was titled “Women’s Charter”—it was a law to provide women rights that men had always enjoyed. The absence of a Men’s Charter, in other words, is a reflection of the absence of historical gender prejudice against them.
Part of the confusion is that the so-called “Women’s Charter” actually covers many gender-neutral matters relating to family law, including what makes a valid marriage, welfare of children and family violence. Many of the rights in the Women’s Charter apply to both husbands and wives, for example that both have equal rights in the running of the matrimonial household, and that either may sue the other in tort. This is why its name should be changed, as AWARE and others have argued, to a gender-neutral term, such as “Family Charter”.
Retaining the historical name of “Women’s Charter” perpetuates a belief that the law is unfair towards men. Given the rise of the manosphere globally and in Singapore, and the ease with which male supremacists have been weaponising the real struggles of young men amidst the broader, febrile “culture wars”, it is crucial that the name of the legislation be changed to avoid misconceptions that feed these extremist ideologies. The Straits Times recently reported that perceived female privilege stemming from the Women’s Charter is one of the most common topics of discontent within the local manosphere. Many forums reveal a considerable amount of misinformation, confirmation bias and fear-mongering in relation to the Women’s Charter, and portray women as inherently manipulative and mercenary. Changing the Charter's name is an important way to re-educate the public of its purpose.
Not all agree with a name change. In 2022, Sun Xueling, minister of state for social and family development, said that changing the name of the legislation risks creating the wrong impression that Singapore has already achieved gender equality. However, this is outweighed by the risks of maintaining the status quo, arising from a growing community who believe that the government and laws are biased towards women. These perceived slights and injustices can fan misogynistic flames, particularly online, where algorithms often feed content that reinforces, polarises and radicalises views, and which incentivises sensationalism over level-headedness.
Today, the dual-income family unit is increasingly a norm, and it is easy to forget that the relative freedom that Singapore women enjoy had to be fought for. We have benefited from the PAP’s rallying call for the emancipation of women, starting with the ground-breaking Women’s Charter. It is gratifying that our courts decide divorce matters on a case-by-case basis, with careful consideration and justification based on evidence. Yet the Women’s Charter needs further reform to achieve gender equity, so men and women enjoy the same opportunities; and to better prevent the Charter being a scapegoat for male grievances.
NC is a lawyer in Singapore, who’s using a pseudonym given the risk of professional and personal repercussions for engaging in this topic.
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