Groundhog Day Marriage
Marriage can be a turbulent thing. Sometimes, feelings and life situations can change to the point that the union ends in divorce. Fortunately, if you realize that you truly do love each other in the end, you can always remarry. And then divorce, and remarry, and divorce, and remarry…That’s the story of this Austrian couple of pensioners. In 1981 woman’s first husband died. According to Austrian law, the now-widowed woman was entitled to monetary compensation. She could choose to receive a monthly widow’s pension or a recurring severance pay. The severance pay offers 2.5 times the regular widow’s pension — amounting to roughly $28,000 today — but it’s paid every two and half years. However, the widow is entitled to keep receiving the payment as long as she remains an unmarried widow. Probably figuring her salary would keep her going on a monthly basis, the woman chose the severance pay. So, that’s what she chose. In the following year, that is 1982, the woman married her current husband. Their marriage was happy, but after a year or so, the woman realized her problem. Since she was now married again, she could no longer receive her yearly severance pay. That didn’t sit too well with her because… Well, come on — it’s $28,000 of free money.
Examining how the wording of the law and Austrian bureaucracy worked, the couple soon discovered that there was indeed a loophole. The authorities only checked the woman’s marital status shortly before issuing the payment. Whether or not she was married between the checks didn’t seem to matter for the process. So, the woman and her husband decided it was time to divorce. They broke off the marriage and the woman received her severance pay. Well, now that she had her money, there was no reason for the happy couple to stay divorced. They remarried — until the next time the severance pay check was coming up. They repeated this roughly three-year cycle of divorcing and remarrying for the next forty years.
It was pretty obvious that the woman was not actually widowed anymore. So, the Pension bureau refused to issue her severance pay. Well, that’s not how the law is supposed to work, the woman figured. She started a legal battle that eventually went all the way to the Austrian Supreme Court. Unfortunately for the woman, the high court sided with the government. The Supreme Court ruled that “repeated marriage and subsequent divorce from the same spouse is an abuse of law if the marriage was never broken and the divorces only took place to establish a claim to a widow’s pension.” Now, she and her husband have been charged with fraud, having received nearly $350,000 by abusing the widow’s pension system. There’s a silver lining. Austria denied the couple’s 12th divorce application, so at least they can face the court as a happily married couple.
Re-marriage remarks
I tried to remarry my ex-wife…
But she could tell I was only in it for my money.
I enjoy one glass of wine each night for its health benefits.
The other glasses are for my witty comebacks and my flawless dance moves.
With all the turmoil in the world, the US benefits from its two greatest allies…
The Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
A linguistics professor says during a lecture that, “In English, a double negative forms a positive. But in some languages, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, in no language in the world can a double positive form a negative.”
But then a voice from the back of the room piped up, “Yeah, right.”
January 31st Birthdays
1976 – Priety Zieta, 1971 – Minni Driver, 1959 – Kelly Lynch, 1964 – Martha McCallum
919 – Jackie Robinson, 1981 – Justin Timberlake, 1996 – Joel Courtney, 1947 – Nolan Ryan