Nix on the 'pre-nups'

Wild, conservative, genius Bill O'Riley this week was on his talk show giving hailcolumbia to the concept of marriage between homosexuals and during the phone call discussions he told an avowed bachelor that marriage might work for him if he wrote up some good "prenuptial conditions." That reminded me of some things I have previously written on that subject. Following is an example:

In its ideal state, marriage is a moral as well as a legal relationship between a man and a woman, based on mutual love, trust, cooperation, and respect. It is also necessary to have patience tempered with a minimum of selfishness.

Divorce is a severance of the marriage relationship, which occurs when one or both partners lose interest in making it work. Divorce has gotten so common approximately 25 percent of children under 18 live with only one parent. When I got married in the 50s that figure was less than 10 percent.

I bring these points up because of a fast growing use of the "pre-nuptial" contract. That is an agreement signed by parties to an impending marriage seeking to cover disagreements that might arise, like who gets the dog in case of divorce, who controls the family checkbook, etc. Some people are trying to cover every possible contingency that might arise, from what side of the bed they get to sleep on to who decides about moving to a different town. Thankfully, intelligent attorneys try to discourage petty foolishness unless they are writing the agreement for Hollywood-type folks.

A lawyer back east refused to write up a contract wherein a future divorce would automatically grant the husband custody of one child, based on a "pick of the litter" concept.

I feel that pre-nuptial contracts are either a conscious or subconscious admission of negative vibes and an obvious first step toward guaranteeing a marriage failure. If you can not enter into a relationship as important as marriage without multiple and serious reservations…you shouldn't do it. The exception is a second marriage between older couples where one or both have children from a former marriage and have acquired assets; but, there should still be every effort made by the contracting parties to be completely open and honest with each other; otherwise they too are asking for failure.

There probably is no such thing as a good divorce but there are now some where the couples hide their anger and bitterness long enough to act responsibly in settling property and child custody business. Years ago when the concept of a "friendly divorce" first surfaced, one fellow was asked what that meant. He said, "My friendly divorce meant I got to keep anything that fell off the truck as she drove away."

The premarital or pre-nuptial contract was not practiced by the common man when First Wife Iris and I got hitched, so last week I asked her if she'd like to draw up such an agreement as a "better late than never deal." Iris thought it over for several days then gave me a basic outline. Under her proposal I would be required, "…to always throw my dirty clothes in a corner of the bedroom, not shovel the walks or cut the grass until at least 3 days of nagging, buy a lot of dumb things we don't need, sleep through hours of TV sports every Sunday," and so forth.

I looked over her list of proposals then asked, "Honey! I made you the marital contract offer on a serious basis. Why in heaven's name did you come up with all these silly little things?"

She replied, "Because those are the 'silly little things' I have adjusted to over the last many years, and I am now too deeply adapted to make the extreme changes required for living with a normal, well-behaved husband."

Luckily, I knew Iris was just joking so I forgave her for making up that stuff. It is probably this quickness to forgive coupled with my fine sense of humor, and a rare kind of modesty, that has kept our marriage going for so long.

I especially hope young people reading this column have learned something important about sharing their life with another.