Spain court orders man to pay ex-wife for 25 yrs of housework

A Spanish court ordered a man to pay his ex-wife 200,000 euros for 25 years of unpaid domestic labour, based on the minimum wage throughout their marriage, court documents showed Tuesday.

The man was ordered to pay her “204,624.86 euros ($218,300), calculating the figure based on the annual minimum wage” throughout their marriage, said the ruling by a court in the southern Andalusia region, a copy of which was seen by AFP.

The couple had two daughters, with their marriage governed by a separation of property regime, which specified that whatever each party earned was theirs alone, which in this case would have left the wife with no access to any of the wealth acquired through years of partnership.

Since marrying, the wife had dedicated herself “to essentially working in the home, which meant looking after the home and the family and all that involves,” the ruling said.

Legal papers showed a breakdown of what she would have earned annually for the years between June 1995 and December 2020.

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

Speaking to Cadena Ser radio, the woman, who was not named, said her husband did not “want her to work” outside the home although he let her work at the gyms he owned, where she handled “public relations and acted as a monitor”.

Apart from that, “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.

The sentence had made her “very happy” because it was “very well deserved”, she said.