http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8276018.stm

Some interesting points there and I won't be sure where I stand on the matter until I see what will be proposed in the long run, but I have to say I completely disagree with the likes of footballers/movie stars/etc's wives automatically walking away with half, or the sort of pricks that the dumber female 'celebrities' marry getting half...

I'll have to disagree I'm afraid.

The entire point of marriage is that you leave your families and become "one flesh", i.e. that you function as one unified entity and as such have equal ownership of all property. If you then get divorced, because all the property was jointly owned it should be equally split. I find the idea of having property external to the marriage to be an absurd concept - why are you married?

Personally I'd like to see pre-nups become meaningless and 50:50 splits becoming the specified default. Provision could be made to adjust this in certain circumstances e.g. unfaithfulness etc. but that should be the considered exception.

Just my opinion though.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that pre-nuptials don't have any standing in English Law following a House of Lords ruling on the subject?

Correct but according to the article they are increasingly considered by the Judge within the process of ruling.

I can where you're coming from, but I just don't think it covers modern individuals these days - how many married couples have their own (complicated) individual business interests for instance? Or had seperate accounts and interests before one of them got greedy in the divorce proceedings, for talk's sake?

I think it should be looked at an individual basis, though moral issues will obviously be another important factor

Those interests should have be sold and the proceeds split equally.

Basically if your marriage fails, you lose half of everything.

Kind of an impetus to not enter into marriage so lightly and thence not give up so easily don't you think?

Definitely, but equally you could be stuck together in misery instead of making the break if it came to that - who wants the added burden of financial pressure (especially these days) in what's become a loveless/unhappy marriage?

Things and people can change over time, and the 'old days' no longer apply for many, probably another reason why the marriage rate is said to be dropping.

With all due respect, that's simply not how the British (-Scots) legal system works. At point of divorce under that system, the contributions to the marriage of both partners - in terms not only of assets but also in terms of a measure of 'work' put in as part of the marriage - is assessed and a settlement is made on that basis, assuming the divorcing couple cannot come to an agreement of their own. The vast majority of divorces are settled by mutual agreement anyway so a pre-nuptual would never be enforced.

Regardless, it is generally considered that the UK divorce system is weighted much more heavily in favour of the female than any other system in the EU; a much higher percentage of women leave marriages much better off than they went into them than men do, and child custody is awarded to the female in over 90% of cases, regardless of any 'fault' in the failure of the marriage. Pre-nuptuals are one attempt to avoid becoming a victim to that imbalance - if the UK divorce system was universally seen to be fair, the number of pre-nups would not be growing.

Jon

Yes but you could do what the Irish do and that is just move out and shack up with your new partner and start afresh. Odds are that you are both married to someone else so why worry.

Surely anything that puts the gold-diggers out of business is a good thing? If you have any considerably wealth the last thing you want is to get duped by your gold-digging wife as she shacks up with one of your friends and runs off with half your estate. Chances are, even if she spends most of your wealth on heroin to feed her habit, the divorce courts will still give her custody of the kids.

God! you sound bitter! Still painful then? My condolences to you. You are better off without the {LIFTED}

So what super hero costume did you get for Fathers for Justice?

The father does not lose half of everything. If the wife is unfaithful, he loses half the money, all of the kids, his sense of trust and a large part of his quality of life. The wife gets a new pile of cash.[/cynisism.]

These agreements for rich people getting married to those with substantially less are a necessity to try and protect at gold-diggers who are good actors/actresses. Unfortunately, they also say "I don't really trust you" right from the start of the marriage. I would not get married if I or my prospective partner felt one of these was necessary. It is an indicator that you obviously shouldn't bother.

The biggest problem is, divorce and pre-nups make it so much easier to walk out of a marriage, that fewer and fewer people are looking at marriage as "until death us do part".

It seems to be becoming a temporary arrangements - look at the proposals a couple of years back to make it a rolling 10 year contract!

I realise people fall in and out of love. But marriage should be taken seriously. Therefore the safety net of a pre-nup and quick divorce shouldn't be there. It would make people think long and hard before jumping in. They would learn more about there partner before they tie the knot.

As to infidelity, I think the partner that strays should be thrown out on the street with nothing! (Well, clothes and some personal possesions maybe, but the pre-nup would be null and void and they wouldn't get custody of the kids, the house, car or anything else). They have proved themselves to be untrustworthy and shouldn't get anything, the person they strayed with should be responsible for looking after them (financially) after the split, until they get back on their feet!

Because in the UK the Child Support Agency would then confiscate a significant portion of your wages at source, regardless of what you or your ex actually want. There's a lot of regulations in the UK that seem designed to make an already bad situation worse, frankly.

I'm sorry but this is my opinion. As a male in the UK who is old enough to have a life of significant value as it stands, I would have to be stark raving mad to get married without some sort of pre-nuptual. Marriages do break down; this is a reality. But should that happen to me, I'd likely be much much worse off than if I'd never been married in the first place. We may have different opinions of how marriage should work but you'd have to work very hard to convince me that's 'fair'. You could almost consider a pre-nup to be an insurance policy against the incompetence of the state.

Jon

+1, nicely summed up there