Sad to hear about a family falling apart. Few questions rose in my mind: why did she marry an already-married-man-with-kids in the first place? Was it an arranged marriage or arranged+pressurised marriage? I saw somewhere that other woman was involved. Was there any other man involved? If the ex-husband's good friend were to relate the same story to us, would it be much different than the one we heard? In any case, in teh event of a divorce, the wife should be entitled to 50% of teh property of teh husband [provided that there was no prenuptial agreement to teh contrary]. The husband should also be entitled to 50% of the wife's property. Joint custody of the children. ------------------------------------quote Do pay offs make it better or demean what was to someone, a sacred thread? Do pay offs make it easier to salve one's conscience or instrumental in sustaining the definition of justice? --------------------unquote Pay offs and divorce should not be quid pro quos but merely somthing to make the lives a little easier for the aggrieved parties ( I assume, the women are teh aggreived parties in Nepal most of teh time).As far as marriage being a sacred thread is concerned, it is , but both should be in agreemetn: it should be two-way. I hope i did not sound much pholosophical there.