Pre-Nuptial Agreement Stands

[Chil1234]

The precedent has been set. Supreme Court Ruling Provided the pre-nuptial agreement is fair and everyone understands the implications then it's now allowable & binding.

You don't need to be massively wealthy to take advantage of this new ruling. Many people, particularly those who are embarking on second time around relationships, bring assets to a marriage that they might not want to have to split 50/50 should things go wrong. I think it's progress.

Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't.

In our society it is always the women who take maternity leave, I don't think there is any way around that.

And the way our society is structured means that the vast majority of those who go part time after children or take some time off are women, there's no point pretending that's not true either.

I suppose that women do have a choice - they don't have to have children. Or they can have them and go back to work after a couple of weeks and hire a nanny a la xenia.

But they aren't realistic choices for the majority of women who live in the UK.

Agree that women can stop all of this happening by stopping having children though.

"if a MAN took time off to look after his children, he would be in same position."

Yeah, but they don't, do they?

Which is what the problem is.

I have no problem with prenups where there are no children and/ or where there is true equality in society.

Let's have equality first, then we can have pre-nups.

Because they do not want to or because they are not able to do so? I can recall a number of threads where opinions were being asked about a man wanting to become SAHD and the majority of responses were negative as well as number of threads were majority were supporting the OP's wish to become SAHM even when the family really could not afford it. Also, mothers are legally entitled to take 12 months off whereas paternity leave is 2 weeks... I think just to say that the problem is men do not take time off to look after their children is rather too simplistic (no doubt this was intentional). I know number of men who would love to spend more time with their kids and some, including my husband, who do take time off from work to look after their kids when they are ill and over nursery/school holidays.

With regard to having equality first, as I said before, imo, pre-nups are one way of creating equality. Certainly worked for my parents, can't see why it would not work for others too.

I'm confused what the argument is here TBH.

Mingg you are saying that pre-nups are fair, even when a couple have had children? Or something else?

Pre-nups contain what you want them to contain so provided that you use your head they are totally fair.

So if a couple sign a pre-nup, then they have children and she gives up work for a bit / career goes down the pan as a result, they part with no claim on each others stuff as per pre-nup, and he has no responsibility to provide?

What stops them from agreeing that if one party takes a career break to look after their possible future children they will be entitled to 'a fair compensation for that'? Fair compensation obviously to be determined in the pre-nup itself.

He has no responsibility to provide? Provide for whom? If you are talking about providing for the children of course he (or she as it may be) will continue to be responsible for providing for the children. Providing for the ex-spouse, I don't see why anyone who is divorced should have to provide for their ex-wife/husband.

My DH and I have a pre-nup and it isn't anything outragous. All it does is state the assets we had going into marriage, that New Jersey law is to be used if we decide to divorce and that if we have children assets we had before going into marriage can be used to support the child(ren) but not the parents.

I wanted the pre-nup to protect my assets if the marriage went to south before we started a family. I went into the marriage with a lot in assets while my DH had his pension. NJ law only allows the assets accumulated during the relationship to be divided and would allow us to use a mediator to dissolve our marriage.

ISNT - Under our pre-nup, if I gave up work to bring up the children and our marriage fell apart, my DH would have no responsibilty to provide for me but he would have to support our children. Our assets accumulated during our marraige would be divided.

I am ok with this arrangement because I can always get a job (I am an accountant) and I have enough in assets to support myself. If I wasn't in this position I would have instructed my lawyer to insert a clause about support should we decide I stay home to bring up children.

So everyone is agreed that if there are children then things change? That is what this court case said, so I'm not sure why there's a big argument.

I thought that people were arguing that pre-nups should be adhered to irrespective of children.

But then surely if there are children there would be a maintenance agreement which is totally separate to assets and finance accrued before and after the marriage.

I think whoever gives up their career or downshifts their career "because it makes sense" (because the other partner's wage is higher) should be compensated for that. It is fine if you're in a situation like Want2Be's, where she can just go and get another job and has other assets, but for most women, the job they can go and get, is far, far below the level they could have got had they not sacrificed the career trajectory they were on pre-children.

It is not good enough to say "well s/he chose to" - s/he didnt' make the choice in circumstances of his/ her own choosing, and the choice was one which benefited the whole family and enabled the other partner to soar in their career, meaning the pay gap between the two got bigger and bigger over the years, meaning that it became less and less reasonable for the lower paid partner to insist that their career is put first for a change. In other words, the reason the other person's salary is now so large and their career is now so successful, is because they have had massive support from the lower earning partner.

In a sense you're right, in theory it's not a gender issue, because it would apply just as much to a SAHD as a SAHM - the difference being that SAHD's don't have to wrestle with institutional sexism on their return to the workplace, it's not assumed they will be grateful to take any shit job to get back on the ladder, and there are far fewer of them.

Agree with HB.

And mingg, your contention that this would improve equality, will only be true, if most people who sign pre-nups, are fully aware of all these issues. My worry is that young people just aren't, because everyone is telling them that "we're all equal now". And we know that's bollocks, if that were true, poverty would not be a gender issue.

I just hope that most solicitors are savvy enough about all this, to advise their clients regarding that downshift issue - if they are, then you will be right and I'll be wrong but happy.

But often marriage and pre-nups are a bit more than compensating the other half for loss of career earnings - and seriously, I think 'loss of earnings' and 'opportunity cost' are such fuzzy terms and really hard to quantify. I think a pre-nup is a very adult decision about finances and consequences without emotions of divorce getting in the way

I think that pre-nups are great, but when children arrive then all bets are off.

Although in my will, my assets from before marriage go into trust for children, rather than to DH. That's a similar sort of thing, maybe

" young people just aren't"

This is unlikely to be used by 'young people' because, unless they are heir to family fortunes, most younger people don't go into marriage with anything much at all. But when you have people on second or third marriages, in their thirties or forties perhaps, and they might be coming into a marriage with a substantial asset like a property then there is more to lose should things break down.

Example... A middle-aged couple I know got married shortly after she inherited a large amount of money and a house from her late parents. (There were no children either before or after the marriage on either side) It lasted about three years, at which point they divorced and he walked away with half her inheritance which was deemed to be 'marital assets'.

Oh yes, I have no objection to pre-nups in principle. I think they are indeed an adult approach to relationships, split of assets etc. It's purely if they become the norm for young people getting married, before children, that I would have concerns about them.

Thanks Minng
Speaking of equality in the workplace. I am in two minds about it. DH used to live and breathe his job. (Now he is a bit more balanced. ) I always wanted more than my job - more outside of the world of work. So in a way it is my choice.

However

My job was in investment banking. And I had a fantastic mentor. A very honest, fantastic mentor. After I quit we met for lunch and talked about former colleagues who got married. Let's call them Heidi and Juan. He told me that it was now a waiting game in the office. Everyone expected Heidi to get pregnant. And for her to take some maternity leave. And he said "You know unless she is like Elena, who just took a week off when giving birth and employs 3 nannies, Heidi is fooling herself if she thinks she will come back. She will not. She cannot. You cannot do this job and be a mother. And you know" he added "I bet Juan never even thought twice about which one of them will go back and pursue a career here. It's a non issue for him"

You may call him sexist but he was being brutally honest. When I started it was 50-50 men -women. Next level up it was maybe 55-45. Further 3 years down the line you got to 75-25, add another 3-4 it was more 95-5. Some stayed but moved to different jobs but not the best paid, most high powered ones. Perhaps it was different in Sales or Equity Research. Don't know. I do know that as long as DH has his job or the next one up the ladder I will be a SAHM or looking for work that would allow me to leave around 6. And I cannot do it in my former line. So I will either need to start at the bottom somewhere else or retrain and ditto. On average over 10 years that is likely to depress my earnings by 60%+, as time goes by I may catch up a bit but I imagine not that much. So women earning 20% less on average sounds about right or even rather good. In the City looking at my graduate programme I'd bet closer to 80% less on average in lifetime (but they go to different jobs) and around 30%+ less for similar jobs (we should know more once new legislation comes in).

Back to prenups. I hate them - mainly because they remind me that marriage doesn't always last. In terms of division of wealth though I agree, inherited wealth should stay in the family, which for my purposes includes children from the marriage. Wealth you start with ditto - again as long as people are unable to cut off their own blood. However, I think assets accumulated in marriage should be split equitably. And I am not sure here if prenups will always protect the weaker party - male or female, so some discretion for courts makes sense.