Alimony was certainly important for women who had no major previous employment experience, and did not work during the marriage, but raised kids. In the olden days men could just walk out on their families, leaving the women often with many kids and no real way to support them.
Nowadays I think it is still important, if in the family one of the parents is a primary care giver with no career. You have to keep in mind that to be a stay at home parent, you totally sacrifice your career and will make far less money after the divorce then your spouse who was the breadwinner. A career takes a lot of time and effort to gain, and is not something you can just jump into later on as easily. Its just like trying to suddenly change careers to something totally different. Primary care giving is a career, just not a paying one.
I also don't disagree with splitting property, provided both parties were reasonably contributing to it, or the family structure (ie primary care giver). If one person was living off the other though, then its a different story (like a rich person marrying a 'trophy' spouse), prenuptuals are also often a good idea.
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