Leveling the Playing Field: Pre-Nups and Alimony Reform

This entry is part of a series. The introduction is here. The first two suggestions are here. The second two suggestions are here.

5. Signed informed consent or customized pre-nuptial agreement as standard. I know there are people (mostly women) who say that pre-nups are unromantic and planning to fail. But we buy insurance for all sorts of things we hope don’t happen, and the fact is, the courts already have a pre-nup for you. You might as well be encouraged to come up with your own before a marriage license is issued. Like the first suggestion, if this was standard and automatic, one spouse could not accuse the other of being “insulting”. People who complain that a spouse who insists on a pre-nup is selfish or materialistic are themselves those things, or they would be happy to sign a personalized pre-nup and prove they aren’t marrying for money. For quickie weddings, there could be a simply form to sign that lists some of the major legal consequences of marrying without a personalized pre-nup, or that makes the marriage contingent on a post-nup agreement to be filed in the near future.

6. Alimony reform. Tied in with the previous suggestion – alimony should no longer be standard just because one spouse earns more than the other. We live in a day and age in which women have equal access to the workplace, property ownership, and investing. A woman demanding alimony should have to show a prior promise to a certain level of support (“We’re getting married now, I don’t want you to work…”) – hence one of the important reasons to have a customized pre-nup. Why should women who continue along the same career path as before they got married get any alimony in the event of a divorce, unless that was specified in the pre-nup? Notice that this would work both ways – Federline wouldn’t be able to mooch off of Spears. Also, in states like California, ten years or more of marriage mean lifetime alimony as long as the receiving spouse (usually a woman) doesn’t remarry. This discourages remarriage and is especially silly when the receiving spouse is living with someone who pays her bills.

I have at least one more suggestion, and of course, my suggestions for men, but those will be posted in a subsequent entry.