by Jeff Franklin

Created on: August 25, 2007   Last Updated: January 24, 2008

I voted yes on this, because I see prenuptial agreements (also called ante-nuptial agreements) as a necessary "inconvenience" to combat what I call a real, gross violation of Constitutional Law, that many states now have. And that is an evil called "community property". To sort of simplify it, without getting too complicated, community property "law" mandates that all assets and income be divided equally between both spouses in the event a union or marriage ends. Never mind the fact that one spouse may have, or contributed to, well over 50% of the material assets of the marriage. A prenuptial agreement will override state "community property" default law, and is transferable if you move to another state. So if your wishes are NOT to divide community property - AS THE STATE DICTATES - then, by all means please have a prenup. Please!

The states, not the people, actually "force" the prenup issue. If the states had any sense of FAIR property law and constitutionality, they would have made the following "default" law (and if people wanted community property philosophy in their union, they could write a prenup stating the community property, instead of the state dictating it for them). Now here's what the state default language should actually say: "Whatever assets and income one takes into the marriage, he/she is entitled to take same out of the marriage, should marriage terminate".

If the state is so damned concerned about "equality and sharing", then let that highly personal issue be handled by the people, the couples, themselves, in the prenuptial agreement. At least then, the worse that could happen is that a prenup would be mandatory only if both spouses wanted communal property to be in effect after an ended marriage. If they didn't, then they would not need a prenup, because the division of assets would be according to the proper state default code, quoted above. Of course, don't expect the infinitely stubborn states to get a common sense check and change their community property laws this side of eternity!

Meanwhile you do have a weapon against those states; write that prenup agreement, now! You can tailor it to your own terms, and be forever grateful for it! Thank God it's still available!

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