A prenuptial agreement can seem like something only high-profile people like Jeff Bezos – with his US$138 billion fortune to protect – actually need.

But prenups – contracts entered into before marriage that detail how assets will be divided in the case of divorce – can be a good idea for anyone going into a marriage, according to lawyers and marriage counselors.

They have been in regular use since 1983, when a group of attorneys and law professors drafted the Uniform Premarital Agreement Act, a set of rules regulating prenups that 28 U.S. states have since adopted.

A recent poll showed that the percentage of couples with prenups has risen from 3% in 2010 to 15% in 2022.

Nearly 40% of married or engaged couples between the ages of 18 and 34 have signed prenups, while just 13% of couples between 45 and 54 have done so.

As a law professor who specializes in family law, I teach my students what prenups are and how to make sure they stand up in court.

I also write about what happens to property when couples get divorced, especially unique forms of property like family businesses or trust funds.

A shield from unwanted debt

But prenups can be about more than what you own – they can also be about what you owe.

Millennials have accumulated more debt than previous generations, and prenups can help millennial couples navigate some of the concerns about debt in marriage.

They can help couples address questions about the shared debt incurred during the marriage and who will pay what if the marriage ends. For example, couples can agree in a prenup to allocate student loan debt to the person who took out the loan.

They can also choose to protect one person from the other’s medical debt, especially if they know that large medical bills are on the horizon. Prenups can insulate one spouse from potential debt and financial risk from their partner’s business.

Follow us to see more useful information, as well as to give us more motivation to update more useful information for you.