Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

equitable distribution

Family law. The division of marital property by a court in a divorce proceeding, under statutory guidelines that provide for a fair, but not necessarily equal, allocation of the property between the spouses. ( The court can take into account a variety of factors, including the relative earning capacity of the spouses and (in a state that does not allow for no-fault divorce) the fault of either of the spouses. Equitable distribution is applied in 41 states (i.e., all the states that do not have a community-property system). - Also termed equitable division.