Alimony has a long history at common law. The duty to support the dependent spouse was imported to the United States in colonial times and developed thereafter mainly on a case-by-case basis. Alimony awards were based on common law roles, which cast the husband as a wage earner and the wife as a homemaker who raised children and did not work outside the home.
This model of the nuclear family persisted after Married Women’s Property Acts became widespread, after women acquired the right to vote, after women’s entrance into traditional male jobs during World War II when Rosie the Riveters temporarily earned salaries while men were away at war, and after the second wave of feminism in the 1970s and ’80s when women entered traditionally male professions and two wage-earner families became a significant part of the U.S. population.
