A judgment of 200,000 euros for the wife.. for a quarter of a century of domestic work

A Spanish court has ordered a man to pay his ex-wife 200,000 euros for 25 years of unpaid domestic work, based on the value of the minimum wage for the duration of their marriage, court documents show.

The man was ordered to pay 204,624 euros ($218,300) calculated “on the basis of the minimum wage” for the duration of their marriage, according to a court ruling in the Andalusia region in southern Spain, a copy of which was seen by AFP.

The couple had two daughters, and their marriage was governed by the system of property separation, which stipulated that everything earned by each party belonged to him alone, which left the wife in this case without any possibility of obtaining a portion of the money earned during the years of partnership.
The ruling stated that the wife had devoted herself, since marriage, to “mainly domestic work, which means taking care of the home and family and everything related to that.”

The legal papers showed in detail what the wife would have earned annually during the period between June 1995 and December 2020.

The ex-husband was also ordered to pay her a monthly childcare allowance for their two daughters, one of whom is a minor and the other over the age of 18.

In a radio interview, the woman, whose name was not given, said her husband “didn’t want her to work” outside the home even though he allowed her to work in gyms he owned, where she handled “public relations and worked as a trainer”.

But other than that, “I devoted myself exclusively to household chores, taking care of my husband and the house,” she says.

“He made me do the defining part” of doing household chores, she said, to the point where “I was in a place where I couldn’t do anything else.”

She noted that the ruling made her “very happy” because she “well deserved it.”