Would You Agree to a Relationship Contract?

It's a very good idea to be clear about your expectations and preferences. Marriage vows tend to be vague, nonspecific and actually difficult to interpret into day-to-day behaviour. The 'marriage contract' in western countries is not worthy of the name given no-fault, easy divorce with absolutely no penalties for breaching whatever promises were made. Entering into that 'contract' can hardly be seen as commitment, but entering into a personalized contract that includes penalties for breaching or abandonment is real commitment. Including minimum standards regarding contact time and relationship behaviour is a very good idea if anything less were likely to lead either party to see the marriage as no longer worthwhile.

It's scandalous that the default laws in most western countries are so bad that most people need to set up their own contract if after any separation they wish to achieve a property division they (and most people) would see as fair. The existing default laws were demanded by feminists and their continuation now is convenient for what feminism has become, i.e. 'femaleism', special privilege for women through exploitation of men. Overwhelmingly, the default laws are used by unfaithful women to extract assets they have no moral right to, e.g. that their male partners earned long before meeting them. The laws also often require men to continue to pay (over and above so-called 'child support' that will usually be far more than children actually cost) for women's upkeep even after those women have abandoned them. Conversely, when a woman partners with a male who is poorer than she is she will almost always insist on a pre-nup to protect her own wealth, and it is very rare that a woman is ordered to pay spousal support to a man.

I would like to see the source as evidence for your claim about who are most often the initiators of pre-nups. You may well be correct because women tend to choose as mates men older and wealthier than they are, so men will much more often have greater assets to protect. However, my point still stands: when women have more wealth they are almost certain to insist upon a pre-nup to protect it, i.e. a greater proportion of women with greater wealth insist upon protective contracts than men do.

I would like to see the evidence for your claim that women are ordered to pay spousal support at a much greater rate than men. I don't believe your claim for a moment and it sounds like typical feminist misinformation.

I don't know the default law concerning relationship property in all jurisdictions and no doubt there will be considerable variation. However, we often read about celebrities' separating wives receiving huge payouts based on their husbands' previously earned assets, yet we seldom come across cases where men receive similar payouts from their wives. In my country, relationship property is defined as any property used in any way as part of the relationship, and I understand laws are similar in many other western jurisdictions. A friend of mine worked various jobs as a teenager after school and weekends to restore an old wreck of a sports car, including thousands of hours of direct work on the car. He then married when in his 20's and used the sports car occasionally to get to work when the family car was being repaired. His wife left him after about 5 years and was entitled to claim half the value of the sports car, which after his restoration efforts became quite valuable. He could not afford to buy half the restored value of the car from her (and why the hell should he have to? Talk about a racket!) and had to sell his car to pay her out. This kind of nonsense remains typical in respect of already-owned houses and businesses, and the need for us to pay lawyers to protect ourselves in advance from the unfairness of such default laws is a ridiculous situation. Yes, it sometimes happens in the opposite gender direction but how often do we come across this? Rarely.

Comparisons between 'average earnings' of men and women are a favourite feminist ploy. Firstly, the actual difference as measured varies greatly depending on how 'earnings' are defined, and we see a large range of quoted figures. Secondly, the figures never take into account the numerous sources of income that women tend to get more of. If relationship property payouts, sole-parent welfare, dishonestly-called 'child support' and other female income sources are included, the difference may well change to the other direction. The figures never take into account the fact that in most jurisdictions the woman has equal legal ownership of what the other partner earns. A mother at home may not be earning an independent salary at a job somewhere but clearly she lives on her partner's income (often consuming half or more of that income) and this should also be calculated into female earnings. Thirdly, feminists like to imply that women's lower 'average earnings' are due to sexism. In fact, most western jurisdictions have laws ensuring equal pay for equal work, and the difference between women's and men's employment earnings remain due to such factors as lifestyle choices, ambition regarding promotion, choice of jobs and women's luxury of choice to spend more time with their own children while the father has some boss breathing down his neck and misses out on his child's first words and first steps. Fourthly, the 'average earnings' comparison takes no account of the types of jobs that women and men do. Year after year western men contribute close to 100% of workplace deaths and serious injuries because of the dangerous, dirty, uncomfortable, body-wrecking jobs they do to provide the infrastructure of modern society. If women want equality in the workplace then as a first step let's see them do the type of work that will kill, disable and remove years of life from them at an equal rate to men. Otherwise, their demand for equal average earnings amounts to little more than femaleist self-entitlement through exploiting men.