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Marriage & divorce / 2

Why shouldn’t we prenup?
This institution being about love. And other things.

by Stef Bottinelli

> discover the PDF file

According to the last available data, marriages in England, Wales and Scotland have been in decline in 2008, and so have divorces. There could be several reasons for this, the recession being one of them: people can’t afford to spend money on a wedding and they probably can’t afford to divorce their partner either. Interestingly though births have been on the rise. Again, the recession might have something to do with this: when you can’t afford to go out, you make your own fun and sex is a better past time than Scrabble for many.

But is there any point in getting married these days? Marriage is still defined as a contract between two people and in the past, when it was frowned upon for a woman to work, it indeed was. Our fathers had to pay a dowry for the privilege of getting rid of us and handing us over to the new man in our lives who’d take care of us from the moment that ring was slipped on our finger. More than a contract it sounds like a sale, so maybe marriage in those days should have been called that.
Times have changed and our shores being unmarried is not frowned upon anymore. People can choose to marry or not. Couples can cohabit and have children out of wedlock. Women depend on men a lot less these days. So why do people get married, aside from tax benefits and child support?
Many people still do it for status, others for the sake of tradition, there are those who marry because it’s a milestone, and it has to be done. Some simply fear being alone.

The immediate answer though is probably “love”. But love is a fleeting and complicated emotion, and as much as we’d like to say that we are going to love someone forever, for richer or for poorer, in health and in sickness, the truth is, we can’t make that promise because we are only human beings. We can do our best, but we can’t foresee the future and we can’t predict how we are going to feel and behave in circumstances never experienced before. As human beings we must be aware of the fact that some things are out of our control. And love is one of those things.

Having said that, I’m by no means against marriage, on the contrary. But I think that one should go into it with open eyes. I also believe that marrying too young is a mistake. Marrying in your 20s or, even teens, it’s like rushing into another institution right after one has just left two monumental ones: family and education. The 20s are when we really form as people, as ourselves, as who we are going to be. It’s the time to explore and have experiences. It’s a time to change and evolve. I see marriage, in many cases, as a stop to that, or at least a struggle. By marrying later I firmly believe that marriages could last longer. I think in our 30s and 40s we have a clearer idea of ourselves and what we want and need. We become more experienced and savvier and are more likely to make a well rounded choice of partner. We are more likely to know whether we actually do want to be married at all.
I believe that marrying for love - not pressure - is a beautiful, romantic gesture, like shouting to the world, “I choose you to spend my life with”. But love is also blinding, and couples don’t like to think about the possibility of divorce. As unromantic as it sounds, divorce does happen - often.
Many people dislike the harsh reality of a prenuptial agreement, but the truth is, when a lover is scorned all hell breaks loose and divorcing couples go to great lengths to argue about anything and everything and hurt each other. Fighting over a tea cup ends up costing them thousands of pounds in lawyers’ fees. And that’s the point. Marriage is about love, but it’s also a huge business. By taking care of things beforehand, with a pre-nup for example, you actually insure you and your partner’s future - rather than jinx it.

A prenuptial agreement or prenup is a contract between two people who intend to marry, in which the two parties stipulate the division of their assets and future earnings in the event of divorce. For a prenuptial agreement to be valid it must always be agreed prior to marriage.
In the United Kingdom, unlike for instance in Italy and Germany, matrimonial regimes do not exist and the nearest thing to them is a prenuptial agreement.
Prenuptial agreements in the UK are still considered a novelty and are incredibly rare between couples, being generally seen as unromantic, a jinx and a recent American import.

Stef Bottinelli was born in Italy and has been living in the UK for fifteen years. She’s a journalist and editor specialising in film, music, health and beauty