Abstract:

The post marital maintenance obliges the spouses financially continuation of the personal relationship in despite of that the marriage ends. This kind of maintenance, which arises as a conclusion of the mutual interdependency responsibility of the spouses during the post marriage process, is regulated under Article 175 and the following clauses of Turkish Code of Civil Law. Under the mentioned articles, “the spouse, who shall become impoverished due to the divorce, is entitled to request the other spouse to pay maintenance in proportion to his/her own financial power for an indefinite period of time, on the purpose of earning her/his keep; however provided that the spouse, who shall request maintenance, must not have grosser fault than other spouse’s one.” The constant decision of the Supreme Court, the decision of the Constitutional Court and the opinions at the legal doctrine with respect to the duration of post marital maintenance have made this topic quite questionable. The focus point of such discussion is whether or not the judge has a discretion authority about limitation of maintenance with a certain period, in case of that the post marital maintenance is requested without any limitation in terms of period. A further aspect of the discussion is also the degree of convenience to the rightness of the situation that the post marital maintenance is ruled for an indefinite period of time. In this regard, this article is focused on the examination of the legal provisions under the Turkish Law from past to present within the context of the explanations concerning the aim and elements of the post marital maintenance, which constitutes the basis of our topic, and its period. Subsequently the article is also mentioned about regulations under the comperative law and contains our determinations concerning the ideal law de lege ferenda at the part of conclusion subsequent to our evaluations regarding the matter

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