It was only a silly TV comedy, but it got me thinking—thinking about weddings and divorce, prenuptial agreements and the nature of marriage.
The show was about marital strife. The central characters quarrelled about their money and possessions. They put stickers on their furniture and ornaments indicating who owned what. But the real ‘fun’ came when they discussed their assets. He had spent years at work, so he considered that the money and wealth was his. He conceded that as she had raised the children at home, she deserved some consideration. So he offered her 15%!
This offer went down like the proverbial lead balloon. She was having nothing of that, and talked of lawyers and taking him for a large amount. She argued for the value of her contribution to the home—cooking, cleaning, laundry and child raising. It was quite clear that she was heading for 50% of all the assets—and perhaps even the possibility of the house plus 50%. He accepted the logic of her argument and raised his offer begrudgingly to 18%.
It got me thinking about prenuptial agreements. Such agreements are like choosing the wrong golf stick because you do not think that you will hit the right one properly. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Prenuptial agreements enter marriage planning for the marriage’s failure.
But if you did have the choice to draw up your own prenuptial agreement, what would you agree to? What would be the split of your future assets? Who would get what?
It is like the wedding service. If you were allowed to write your own promises and agreements what would you write? Most people choose meaninglessness. The modern non-Christian wedding is full of clichéd romantic declarations that are useless non-promises. The concept of the wedding as the giving and receiving of promises has long gone out the matrimonial window. It is a declaration of love: “I do” rather than “I will”.
But if you could make promises, what would you promise? Would you promise to be kind to each other as long as you felt like it? Would you promise to stay with each other until you got tired of it? I cannot believe that people would invent promises that would express the desire to separate. The old Book of Common Prayer marriage service promises still express peoples’ hope: “from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part…”
Furthermore, what would be your prenuptial agreement? A 50/50 split of all assets? Is that fair? What if your spouse’s health is declining and he or she cannot go back to work? What if your wife still has family responsibilities? How do you compensate for your wife being out of the workforce during the child raising years, the result being that she cannot get a comparable job in the future? Surveys show that although the wife most commonly gets the house as well as her ‘share’ of the assets, within a few years she is worse off than the husband. It is much less lucrative for her to restart her career than for him to continue his. She generally has to sell the house and start eating into the capital.
So what would you agree to—a 50/50 or a 60/40 split? The old Book of Common Prayer was much simpler. The bridegroom promised “With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow”. And the bride did not give him a ring and endow him with any worldly goods. There was no mention of a wedding ring for men.
Later prayer books have tried to express the mutuality of marriage in terms of both bride and groom giving wedding rings and making the promise “with all that I am and all that I have I honour you”. It is a wonderfully vague and meaningless declaration of mutual love that avoids the reality of money altogether.
The modern marriage is a ‘fifty-fifty’ relationship. But marriage is built not on two halves becoming one, but on two wholes becoming one: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen 2:24). Once you have endowed your beloved with all your worldly goods, there is no room to split your assets. You do not have any. You have already endowed her with them all.
Ah, gone are the days when gentlemen promised total commitment! Little wonder we have to ask the question of what percentage of the assets each gets. Little wonder we are facing the question of splitting up at all.
