Mel Gibson spent the last two years working out the details of his divorce with his former wife of 28 years. With a fortune measured at around $850 million, she ended up with half. His interim woman also received a settlement when he fathered a child with her.
I debated the merits of this settlement with a female, who took the wife's position. The argument went along the usual lines: That the wife spent years of her life both supporting his career, submerging her own life, and becoming accustomed to a certain lifestyle in the process. So why not give her half for her 28 years of support.
But this is nonsense. Giving a wife half of a man's money assumes a number of things. It assumes that the talent or skill that the one party has would not exist on the same scales, sans the other party. In other words, Mel Gibson would not have acted in The Road Warrior or directed Apocalypto without the support of his ex.
The split in the settlement essentially pins personal property, creativity and ambition against the wall and shoots. The bottom line assumption is that without a wife, Mel Gibson would not have been able to do all he has done. "Who would take care of the many kids while he is off making movies?" some say, supporting the wife. Hmmm, let's see how that works. Take the wife away, and how many kids does he have? Yea, no wife, no kids, no household duties to add to life's complexity.
Ambitious men tend to get prenuptial agreements but that is usually only after they have begun to taste the fruits of their own labor. Mel Gibson married early in the process of his own career, with his wife along for most of that ride. It would have been difficult to bring up a legal document five or ten years into a marriage when you both started from scratch. Indeed that would be inappropriate.
But the fact that she was "there" does not automatically imply equal achievement on her part or some moral equivalence in economic outcome. It's kind of like the argument you hear around Columbus Day, where the detractors of European discovery of the Americas assert, "Well the Native Americans already knew where they were, ha ha." This dubious statement is made in response to the fact that European explorers got their directions wrong, and reached places in the world they were not originally trying to reach, as in looking for India, but finding America.
But the critique is absurd. European explorers had the curiosity, the science, and the ambition to document the world beyond where they lived. That is an achievement undiminished by the fact that they may not have known where they were going. The knowledge gained through their curiosity created a better understanding of the world, versus a population--Native Americans in the United States--who might have just stayed put roaming the plains, and not seeking to understand the world beyond their immediate needs or document it.
The Gibson settlement is saying, "She was there, so she deserved equal reward." But she was the observer. You might be able to argue that her housework was equivalent to his outside work, and thus was the offset making her deserving of a payday. That is true to a point. But was her performance of housework the equivalent in quality with his execution of creating massive income with his skills? By all indicators Mel Gibson is outstanding at his job,when you consider the universe of actors who largely struggle. Was his wife the Van Gogh of housework? Was her housekeeping or child rearing on the level of a paid professional?
And while she was not rewarded with salary for keeping the household, she was rewarded with free rent, food, and support in ever escalating levels of quality. She likely got money and rewards along the way and received far more than her talents and career as a nurse would have rewarded her. One can also assume that any perk the Mel enjoyed, she enjoyed. One can also assume that if we grant her 50% of the fruit of Mel's work, Mel in turn should be rewarded 50% of the fruit of her work.
So if you could put a value on her work, and have Mel Gibson pay her, then fully half of that should come back to him. So let's say it's $50K a year for a top nanny, another $50K for a top housekeeper, and another $50K a year for the services of an escort. Right there you have the basic functions of a wife, and you can purchase top versions of those functions for about $150,000 a year. Over 10 years you are paying $1.5 million. Over 30 years you are paying $4.5 million.
See how that works? The high end commercial value of her work over a period of 30 years is $5 million tops. You could even add in another $30 million for intangibles--a million for each year. (And realizing that for $1 million a year you could hire a staff of 4 to 8 people easily).
Now having valued her work, does Mel Gibson get a share of half of that $35 million, leaving her with a more than adequate $17.5 million? If we assume she had a hand in half of Mel's success, did he not have a hand in half her success? Did not his millions make her job so much easier? She was not raising his many sons in a ghetto or struggling with them on the bus, or worrying where the clothing money would come from. She didn't have to do what many mothers do, and also work in order to create a two income household. At a certain point her life got really easy. Maybe that was in year two, or year 5, and certainly by year ten.
And yet, at the end of the day, Mel Gibson's wife gets half, or $425 million, for being there.
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