Before feminists got courts to be friendlier to women, men screwed their ex-wives (not in a good way) a lot worse. What enrages some men today is that women are able to do what used to be men’s exclusive prerogative — use a spouse to put them through school and the start of their career, then dump her for a trophy and walk off with the dough.
Which brings me to the major topic of contention here — prenuptual agreements. As a lawyer, I chuckle at some of the things that have been said here. A prenuptial agreement is not a panacea, but putting aside all the many caveats and pitfalls that attend this legal device, the major question you need to ask yourself is this: are you prepared to wear the shoe on the other foot? After all, if you treat this is as a business transaction, what’s to guarantee that your bride won’t do the same? A lot of men who have posted here about prenups erroneously suggest that there are only two possibilities with respect to a woman’s reaction upon being presented with a prenup: either she’ll cry and call you a jerk and you’ll dump her gold-digging tukhos, or she’ll bite the bullet and sign the contract, promising to drink your footwash and to perform a harakiri on herself in the event of a divorce. But those are not the only, nor even the most likely, possibilities. Imagine a third scenario: you smugly present your little prenup, and your bride says something along the lines of: “I will have my attorney review this and contact your attorney with a list of changes I want made. In the meantime, I require a full list of all your assets, copies of your tax returns for the past 10 years, and an affidavit with respect to offshore assets. I also need 30 days for my forensic accountant to go over these documents, and for my attorney to check for liens on your real estate holdings. Also, while there may be other changes, I insist on a clause that any misrepresentation by either of us with respect to our respective assets renders the contract null and void (obviously, the one doing the misrepresenting cannot invoke this clause). Additionally, we are to exchange updated asset disclosure every 3 years for as long as we are married.” And, in a few weeks, she presents you with changes or additional clauses that SHE wants you to agree to, protecting HER interests. How would you feel about that? Are you sure you won’t perceive it as a lack of trust (which it certainly is) and become offended? It’s one thing to declare, with an air of superiority, that a prenup is a “legal contract” (is there any other kind?) — it is quite another to treat it like one.
Now, the small stuff from Law 101: you can’t use a contract to bind a third party, including your as yet unborn children. Thus, provisions in prenups dealing with custody, visitation and child support are not enforceable, though courts may take the parties’ wishes into consideration. Full financial disclosure is an absolute prerequisite to a valid prenup. Punitive and clearly one-sided prenups are unenforceable. Unfair tactics employed to get your intended to sign the prenup — slapping her with it 2 hours before the wedding, having 1 attorney represent both parties, forbidding her from getting her own legal counsel — likewise render the agreement null and void. Then there is a laundry list of things that you simply cannot legally agree to — that includes complete renunciation of one’s legal rights (e.g., I can divorce you, but you can’t divorce me and you can’t contest any claim I make against you). By statute in all 50 states, spouses cannot agree not to support each other. You cannot agree to the timing, manner, and triggers of divorce, although most states will allow you to EXCLUDE a specific ground (such as adultery, for example). Most importantly, however, a prenup will not guarantee that there will not be a nasty divorce litigation down the road. At best, it can guarantee you’ll win, but it is not a particularly efficient means of preventing parties from suing each other.
Finally — I am an American woman who grew up in Russia. I am fluent in Russian, maintain contacts with people in Russia and in the Russian diaspora, and remember the old country very well. With that in mind, the things some of you guys say about at least Russian and ex-Soviet women here are just howlers, HOWLERS, I tell ya. Russian women are “traditional”? As in, they adhere to traditional AMERICAN values? Russian women are not materialistic? Russian women are used to being housewives? Russian mail-order brides marry American customers for their middle-aged pot bellies and bitter rantings? BU-WHA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!! Thanks for the awesome laughs, gentlemen. I’m in stitches. Keep’em coming, guys. Please — DON’T learn your mail-order meat’s native languages and DON’T familiarize yourselves with their cultures. I’d much rather you continue to make total arses of yourselves and entertain me and Russian women with your jaw-dropping ignorance. Goryachij privet!
P.S.: Since the 1920′s, the so-called “no-fault” divorce has been the ONLY kind of divorce in Russia, so American feminists didn’t invent the concept. (Just a teaser, scraping the surface of cultural misconceptions.)
