• Alimony makes woman dependent on man and the system for sustenance provision.
• As alimony is tax-free, it pinches the man that his hard earned money is going as a tax free sop whereas he does not get the benefit out of it.
• Tax-free alimony increases the greed of the woman and she misuses the machinery meant to protect her to raise the bar of alimony and therein sets the foundation of ’legal terrorism’.
• One time alimony can never act as lifetime sustenance option.
• Degrades, denigrates and demeans the social position of women.
• Act as a tempting and motivating factor towards breaking marriages.

c) Long break in career due to matrimony.

d) Unemployable due to proper qualification but without adequate training.

e) Physical handicap.

f) Mental handicap.

g) Onerous or special responsibilities like one or two years after child birth.

While alimony is warranted only for situations under conditions (a) and (f) above viz social handicap and mental handicap, for other cases, alimony can actually act as a deterrent to true empowerment ie financial freedom with dignity if awarded in other categories. This is where the concept of loan chips come in. Instead of giving the wife alimony, give her loan from the husband, which is repayable at three per cent annual interest.

The wife can use this loan to empower herself either by using that loan to start a small time business or to get some training to get a job or to ensure some other financial instrument like a mutual fund investment and upon earning can repay the loan back. The best advantage of this system is that it acts as a win-win situation for both the husband and the wife.

The husband knows that it is a loan that is repayable and does not feel the pinch in providing financial assistance to his estranged wife. Also, the wife feels empowered as now she is getting an opportunity to be on her own without being a burden. This will hasten the lengthy divorces and the courts will also be less burdened leading to an improvement in the social justice system.

And it will not be in out of place to mention here that when there is an alternative being suggested to women empowerment, it also needs to be reminded to the fathers of daughters to empower them in a reasonably sufficient manner to be on their own and when they fail to do so it becomes their moral responsibility to share the empowerment in case the marriage falls apart and it will be appropriate in cases (b) and (d) to put the onus of the said loan on a 50-50 basis between the father and the husband of the woman.