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How effective is a prenuptial agreement? What should a man do to protect his assets and himself from the potentially vindictive family courts. Can one agree to 50% custody beforehand?
I'm in my late 20's and would appreciate advice as I'm getting close to an engagement.
Thanks
PS Obviously, I hope I'll never get divorced... but in case I do, I don't want some feminist judge telling me what my life is going to be like.
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by Anonymous User on Wednesday July 18, @03:04PM EST (#2)
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I enjoyed the article and felt it brought up many good points, but I also feel it's somewhat one-sided. It made it appear that all men are desperately against marriage, while all women are desperately for it. This is not true. Many women are also rejecting marriage, though for reasons that are sometimes different from men.
What are those reasons? Some women (like me) see marriage as a horrific violation of the separation of church and state, a vestiage of an out-of-control government meddling where it doesn't belong. We are against state-sanctioned marriage in all forms. We think marriage should be an entirely religious affair, like Holy Communion, baptism and bar/bat mizvahs. Likewise, divorce should not be a function of the state. If you want a divorce, you should have to go beg the church who married you to grant you one. If you have property disputes, go to civil court and hammer them out. (What happens when two friends or business associates buy property together, then have a falling out? I don't know the precise answer, but I do know there are laws regarding this. Ex-spouses should fall under the exact same laws as ex-friends and ex-business partners.)
BTW, there are many men, mostly Libertarians and anarchists, who object to marriage on these same grounds.
I admit that the people who think of marriage in this light are (IMHO sadly) few. Most people don't recognize the Constitutional issues involved. Many people *of both genders* object to marriage because (1) They are children of divorce and don't want to make the same mistakes as their parents, (2) They simply see no legal or social benefits to being married, (3) They are polyamorous and reject traditional monogamous marriages for poly group partnerships or (4) Any combination of these or many other reasons.
Also, there are many women who, like men, see marriage as not being beneficial to them, and even being harmful. Whether you agree or disagree with them, this is how they feel.
I am deeply concerned about overpopulation and think it would be just wonderful if millions of men (and women) refused to reproduce. We *need* our population to decline dramatically. The choice to be childfree is not what disturbs me. The reasons behind the choice are what's disturbing: The men in this particular article are not choosing to be childfree because of concerns about overpopulation, but out of fear of an out-of-control government that just can't stay out of our bedrooms, homes and private lives.
"Reforming" divorce laws will do absolutely nothing except make things worse. The more power you give the gov't, the more corrupt the gov't becomes. Getting the gov't out of marriage and divorce completely is the only real answer.
I've been bashed for being "anti-marriage." I'm not anti-marriage. I'm anti-state-sanctioned marriage. I'm anti-totalitarian gov't. I'm pro-separation of church and state. I'm a capitalist. I'm a Libertarian.
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by Anonymous User on Wednesday July 18, @03:16PM EST (#3)
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Chettah, my personal advice is, if you harbor concerns and doubts about marriage and having children, you shouldn't do either.
IMHO, marriage provides no real legal benefits. All it does is justify your relationship to idiots who think that if you aren't married, you don't have a "real" partnership. Personally, I think those people should spend a lot more time thinking about their own (usually sad & pathetic) relationships, and a lot less thinking about other peoples' relationships. (Can you tell I've butted heads with these morons?)
But I digress.
If marriage and family is what you really, really, really, really want, if you know you'll be miserable if you don't have these things, you can check this site out:
http://marriage.about.com/
There are tons of links there regarding legalities, pre-nups and all the *really* important things to consider.
BTW, for those interested there's also an "anti-marriage" section on that site with links to other anti-marriage essays.
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by Anonymous User on Wednesday July 18, @04:04PM EST (#4)
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Problem is that a judge has "discretion" to ignore the pre-nup. So if you run into "some feminist" or prejudice judge, a pre-nup may not be of any value.
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By definition of mathematical expectation, your expected income is defined as the sum, taken over all income producing or reducing events, of the product of the probability of an event with the loss or gain in income produced by the event.
Therefore, your expected income after marriage must be decreased by the cost of a divorce times the probability of a divorce, which means a decrease of around 50% of the cost of divorce after marriage.
Given that the cost of divorce and the divorce rate is expensive these days, it seems imprudent to get married unless you are very wealthy.
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I can sincerely say that I've been opposed to marriage for most of my adult life. My folks are still together, but every marriage I've ever seen other than theirs has crumbled, and the male part of that marriage always seems to end up in such agony, with nowhere to turn. It completely turned me off to the whole idea.
Honestly, I kind of enjoy coming home from work after a hard day and having my place all to myself. By this time in my life (age 30), I'm not sure I could easily adapt to marriage and children.
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OK, I'll take the bait and write a response in favour of marriage....
Marriage isn't for everyone. Several posters here have outlined reasons why some people choose not to get married. That said, people who do choose to get married are not morons.
Many marriages don't work, and the problem, I think, is the unwillingness of the participants to go through the pain and turmoil of maturing and changing. Marriage isn't the same thing as just shacking up with someone until things go sour. It is instead a heartfelt promise to take one's very best shot at staying with one person for the rest of your life. This is discipline, something which has very much fallen out of favour in today's society. The discipline and sacrifice required to stay together these days is even greater than it was in the past. In the past, the marriage was enforced by the surrounding community; these days, it's not. Why force two people to stay together when they're miserable together? Because more often than not there's something on the other side of the misery that's worth all the suffering.
My ex-girlfriend's parents couldn't stand each other for the first ten years of their marriage. Now, thirty years in, they're very happy together. Was it worth it? They think so, but someone else may have made a different choice.
Why not just ditch it all and leave at the first sign of trouble? Well, one can. However, that's the difference between someone who suffers through ten years of trying to play the violin and making only scratchy noises only to finally "get it" and be able to play Bach, and someone who gives up when the scratchy noises get too bad and never learns to play.
On the one hand, as I said, there are plenty of people who have decided not to get married for good reasons. On the other hand, there are many more people who don't get married because they don't like to bother themselves with anything difficult. I remember a fellow I heard on a documentary retrospective of the 60's: "I never bought a house, never got married, never had kids. I regarded all of these as other people's high-priced traps. Now I see them as my own non-accomplishments." The central question is: is a person choosing not to marry because they have no interest in a permanent partnership? Or are they avoiding marriage because they see the risks not being worth the (possible) reward? Or are they avoiding marriage because they don't see the point in doing anything difficult?
As for Cheddah's original question... there's really no way to guarantee anything for yourself if you're a man, unless you can convince your bride-to-be to move with you to Mexico. Judges have a way of throwing out pre-nups whenever the "circumstances change"... which can mean almost anything.
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