Alimony is awarded in approximately 10% of divorce cases[0] and varies quite a bit in length, amount etc. and it’s done a practice that ref elects most commonly when one partner in a marriage contributes significantly less monetarily than the other. There’s also threshold circumstances that need to be met in most cases.
Now child support is not alimony, it’s support for your child(ren) that is paid to the parent that is the primary caretaker and for their needs.
Both have much different justifications and serve purposes that can’t really be boiled down to some form of nefarious “extraction” and in the case of alimony is far from widely granted
[0]: Judith McMullen has written good works on this topic but unfortunately I can’t find an unpaid link
Your arguments don't form a rebuttal. Alimony does make divorce easier, and child support makes it easier for the children to go to the mother; courts predominantly assign children to her, which is indeed sexist. And there are still quite a few families with a single provider, so it does contribute, and when you go back in time, that effect is more pronounced, which contributed to the social acceptance of divorce.
I do not share the GP's opinion about divorce, implied in terms like "cash out," though, if only because that would be rather hypocritical.
Not a rebuttal to any of this, there are some real issues with divorce laws and that deserved to be talked about, namely around family equity. The laws often can tilt toward some very outdated assumptions and be manipulated as well, but that doesn't mean alimony and child support don't have their place, they absolutely do.
Divorce is often hard and messy, no doubt, but I think the original statements missed the mark by a long shot as to why.
>I do not share the GP's opinion about divorce, implied in terms like "cash out"
This is what I was addressing at heart, is this mindset.
Unfortunately, many divorce laws are not based on research but on prevailing culture norms at the times they were passed (as what they were attempting to address and/or redress), and trying to unwind that hasn't been easy.