I guess the MPs in England have read my book, because they have officially proposed to end chivalry, which has been a law. Unfortunately, lawmakers in the United States don’t get this; that’s why we have the unconstitutional VAWA.
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MPs Open Door for End of Chivalry

Dan Atkinson, Mail on Sunday: 30 October 2005

To some it will be the last nail in the coffin of chivalry and gentlemanly behaviour. To others it will signal a longoverdue recognition that modern marriage is a partnership of equals, not a state in which wives are dependent on their husbands.

On Wednesday, MPs will be asked to abolish a wife’s centuries-old legal right to be maintained in appropriate style by her husband. And the signs are that they will do just that. Madonna, a fiercely independent woman, would surely approve.

The Bill, tabled by Labour backbencher Rob Marris at the Government’s request, will end the Common Law liability of a husband to maintain his wife to the same standard of living as he enjoys.

But the Family Law (Equality of Property Rights) (Amendment) contains two further provisions, both helpful to married men, but both unwelcome to their wives.

One ends the presumption that a financial advance from husband to wife is an unconditional gift while a transfer from wife to husband is merely a type of loan.

The other ends a statutory provision, which became law as recently as 1964, under which items bought with a wife’s housekeeping allowance from her husband are jointly owned, while items bought with a husband’s housekeeping allowance from his wife remain the wife’s property.

‘I think the world has moved on,’ Marris told Financial Mail. ‘These things are unequal and if you want to have equality, it goes both ways.’

Marris was asked by the Government to use his private members’ Bill slot to introduce the measure. Britain fears that the law as it stands violates protocol seven of the European Convention on Human Rights, which requires ‘equality of rights and responsibilities’ between spouses.

It would also have been impossible to apply laws treating men differently from women to the new civil partnerships between people of the same sex.

Marris’s bill is expected to become law about a year from now. Of course, MPs could refuse to pass it. However, given that, of 646 members, only 127 are women, that seems unlikely.