QotD: My Thoughts on Prenups

Would you sign a prenuptial agreement? Why or why not?
Submitted by Lantastic

Okay before i answer this question and set myself up for the inevitable disagreements to my stance (I doubt that everyone will agree with me and I often don't agree with myself, I like to think I am able to be persuaded) I want to go on record as saying that the whole thing is very silly as no answer could cover this very huge question as each case would be context specific. So any conversation around it, any response to it, is also silly as it cannot fully encompse the argument or the individual aspects associated with it…

That being said…

I guess I am an old fashioned boy at heart. Not old fashioned that I think a woman's place is by the side of her man, or in the home, or whatever. I am old fashioned in that I think that when you make a promise, you keep it. So I recently got married, and never intend to get a divorce as I promised to love my wife and to stand by her.

I would like to believe that we will have a Disney marriage, forever in love, forever devoted, forever true and never have any disagreements and all that, but I am a little more pragmatic and realise that marriages are not like that. They are full of challenges and conditions, they have their ups and downs. I do, however, remember my promise to stand by my partner, and I hope that if ever I need reminding of that promise I am a strong enough person to honour it. Otherwise I should have NEVER made the promise in the first place.

So a pre-nuptial agreement would kind of indicate that I didn't believe in that promise.

Now I can see a problem with my argument. What about my wife. She also made the same promise, and I know she loves me. She is a very honest person and I trust her word implicitly. But say some event were to take place and she did leave me…

(and I am on purpose hypothesising leaving not losing as that is a road I do not ever wish to contemplate)

Say I had the kids…

(I know this is a reverse to most (not all, many single fathers do exist) situations but bear with me, gender really isn't important to the thrust of this reasoning, and I am talking for myself)

Say I needed her to give me money to support the kids? Say I needed half the belongings that she now has. What do i do. Well i guess I would have to sue her for them. Not an ideal solution I know, but the only one I would contemplate as I still believe in the promise, and if the promise was broken then no amount of fiscal reward from a perceived sense of fairness and share would replace that loss.

Basically the breaking of the promise cannot EVER be replaced in any manner. So again for me I would gain nothing from the pre-nuptial agreement.

Okay, so time to think of other people.

CZJ married MD and they had this huge pre-nuptial agreement. from what I recall they are only entitled to X amount of each others wealth and X amount for each possible offspring from their union. This seemingly cold approach was to protect them due to the high risk of divorce for their particular sway of marriage (celebrity), and also because of the disproportionate difference in their income. I guess it was also because most people thought it very suspect that pretty-young-thangs marry incomprehensibly-older-wrinkly for anything other than the cash refund.

But isn't that also soulless. I'm sorry but by this reasoning if I was CZJ I would either:

a. Be actually after the security and pleasure gained from marrying a rich dude.

b. Be waiting for the wrinkly fecker to croak

or

c. Be enormously insulted that he thought I could be either reason a or reason b.

There are more possible reasons, but I don't want to belabour a point or become to graphic or rude. The fact still remains that my new husband, and his lawyers, don't trust my word.

Now I guess I am just an old fashioned boy, like Proctor "you cannot have my name" but if I give it I will not have it taken away for a small thing such as incredible wealth.

Now I am not doing the Beatles and claiming that "money can't buy me love" or that it can't buy happiness (though it does however but a better class of misery), as for some people reason (a) and (b) buys a heck of a lot of love. In fact a couple of hundred million will buy you many things. But the way I see it is all it bought you from the person you actually may love is a profound sense of distrust in their reasoning and a wish to protect an irrational item (i.e. fiscal wealth). I find it insulting and if I were placed in a position where my words of fidelity, honesty and a promise were diluted by my life-partner's mistrust and insistence on arrangements for when the marriage ends. Then what value has that marriage got anyway?

You should NOT marry unless you intend to be with that person, and if your marriage ends then half of your fiscal wealth is nothing in comparison to the loss of that.

This does not mean I don't believe in divorce. My mother divorced twice and for each time she did I was glad for her. But, had she been incredibly wealthy then I would not blame them for taking half her wealth (I might despise and begrudge it, but not blame).

Man and wife are as one. One union. One marriage. One wealth.

But, since it is only money and it isn't mine I don't really care about other people's pre-nuptial agreements. They can do with their life and their wealth what they see fit and what they consider to be best, even if I believe it does make them incredibly shallow. đŸ™‚

 

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