by Marisa Wright

Created on: June 15, 2007

Signing a prenup before you get married is like putting on your seat belt before you drive off in the car. You have no intention of ever having a crash, but you're taking sensible precautions just in case. And we all know that no matter how good a car you have or how careful a driver you are, you can't predict your chances of a crash with any certainty. Things can still go wrong.

Marriage is just the same, and the incidence of "crashes" is actually quite high. If you do "crash", the cost of tidying up the mess (in the divorce courts) can be huge, the stress is horrible, and the bitterness can last a lifetime. Compulsory prenups would free up a massive amount of time in our courts, and save the enormous amount of money spent on legal advice and therapy for stress. The only people who would be unhappy would be the lawyers and the psychiatrists who would lose business!

Unfortunately, prenups have gained a bad reputation. They're associated with celebs who are clearly trying to protect their vast wealth from the lesser mortal they've decided to marry. Whether they're reasonable or not, they're universally presented in the media as mean and unfair. So if one partner suggests a prenup, that baggage comes with it - and the other party will bristle at the very suggestion.

In any case, when two people are madly in love, the very idea that such a wonderful romance could go wrong is unthinkable - so getting into the thorny territory of a prenup seems like a waste of time (the exception is those who have been through it before, and ended up in a messy divorce!). So chances are, if it's left up to the individual, the vast majority of people won't broach the subject. Prenups will remain the domain of the very wealthy, or the once-bitten-twice-shy.

However, if a prenup was compulsory, then all that worry about hidden agendas goes away - it just becomes part of the legal formalities.

Of course, the thing that causes friction in preparing a prenup is agreeing what is a fair split. If the two parties come into the relationship with unequal wealth, that can become a touchy issue. To avoid all that, if prenups became compulsory, the authorities would need to draw up a standard prenup.

It should start with a section where each person would declare their assets and liabilities, plus their income. Then a paragraph stating that if the marriage dissolves without children, the two parties would be entitled to reclaim what they brought into the marriage, plus EITHER an equal share of any additional assets they acquire during their relationship OR a proportional share based on their respective incomes over that time. The couple would have to choose one or other option.

There would have to be further sections on how things should be split if there are children involved. This is more complex, and could vary depending on what legislation is in place in that legislature. However, it should be possible to achieve.

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