Fight vicious, discriminatory legalisms thus: From age 21, draft a legally binding Marriage Contract, to be initialed paragraph-by-paragraph by any prospective spouse. Should she balk at endorsing various disclaimers, specifying your entitlements (not hers), committing to equitable child-rearing and property division (50:50, absent stated character deficiencies including but not limited to abandonment, abuse or alienation, adultery, addiction, and so on)– no deal.
Previous to any marriage, establish the equivalent of an Asset Protection Trust immune to spousal litigation: Incorporate a charitable/educational Family Foundation, non-profit but NOT tax-exempt; membership by invitation only; undivided interests vs. shares, i.e. no individual equity. As Founder, you become Foundation Chairman, with minimum two Officers/Trustees as Secretary, Treasurer– typically close relatives, classmates; possibly your Agent’s in-house staffers (as non-lawyers, unqualified for barratry or champetry). Your corporate Charter, plus Constitution and by-laws, will carefully circumscribe their roles.
In Delaware, such incorporations cost about $100 to register. Your local Corporate Agent’s fee is some $75 per year. Since Foundation assets are all after-tax, you incur no, repeat NO, onerous tax reporting or operational requirements: Your Foundation can distribute grants to anyone for any purpose, in any amount at any time.
Donate all income to this Foundation, after tax; contract sale/leasebacks of autos and real property; administer your retirement accounts, transfer any intellectual property (copyrights, patents et al.) for taxation at non-profit rates. The Foundation Board will compensate you in whatever form is most appropriate (grants, services-rendered, contractual agreements), immune to creditors’ or other liens.
As a corporation, your entity never terminates, meaning assets may compound forever. Should your spouse –or for that matter any litigant– lay claim on any basis to your personal assets, your minimal checking account will have to do… you have no equity in the Foundation, which as a Corporation is immune to –not liable for– personal judgments against individual members, which your binding Marriage Contract expressly prohibits anyway.
Married twenty-five years now, with three outstanding kids, given today’s radically skewed, egregiously anti-male environment, I would attempt a family only with strenuous precautions. Life may not be “all about money”, but given today’s arrogant, mean-spirited and selfish gold-diggers, you’d best not take the chance.
