Allocations of child custody postdivorce are currently determined according to the best interest standard; that is, what is best for the child. Decisions about what is best for a child necessarily reflect cultural norms, at least in part. It is therefore useful as well as interesting to ask whether current understandings of the best interest standard align with moral intuitions of lay citizens asked to take the role of judge in hypothetical cases. Do factors such as whether 1 parent had an extramarital affair influence how respondents would award custody? In the current studies, a representative sample of citizens awaiting jury service was first given a neutral scenario portraying an “average” family. Almost 80% favored dividing custodial time equally between the 2 parents, replicating earlier findings. Then, in Study 1, they were given a second, test case, vignette in which either the mother or the father was said to have carried on an extramarital affair that “essentially ruined the marriage.” In Study 2, either the mother or the father was said to have sought the divorce, opposed by the other, simply because he or she “grew tired” of the marriage. For both test cases, our respondents awarded the offending parent significantly less parenting time; about half of our respondents in each Study. The findings indicate that many citizens feel both having an affair and growing tired of the marriage is sufficient cause to award decreased parenting time, reasons for which are explored in the discussion.

Whether a custodial mother’s new husband earns more or less than the father, economic realities ensure his income will usually affect the child’s financial well-being, sometimes dramatically. The stepfather’s daily contact with the child may be more than the father’s, possibly burdening father's relationship with his child, especially if mother moves with stepfather and child to a distant location. Nonetheless, the law does not usually consider remarriage and moves in setting the father’s child support obligation. With remarriage now common, the tension between these traditional rules and economic and social realities may suggest the rules’ reform. This article asks whether current law is consistent with citizens’ beliefs about what the law should provide. A random sample of citizens was asked to set support amounts across cases with systematically varying facts about the mother’s circumstances. The citizens’ preferred rules, inferred from their case decisions and their answers to Likert-type questions, show considerable support for the law’s taking remarriage into account, especially at higher stepfather incomes. The mother’s move to a distant location does not alone affect most respondents’ support judgments, but it does when combined with either remarriage or an increase in the mother’s income. These effects are found in both male and female respondents, although females are less responsive than males to remarriage without relocation. Our respondents appear to consider both social and financial factors in these judgments, and to prefer rules that are more nuanced than the traditional law’s categorical exclusion of remarriage and moves in support judgments.