When my grandmother was sealed there was an agreement between her and her husband that their assets would remain separate, for the sake of the heirs from earlier marriages. I think it also gave her plausible deniablility when it came to ownership of certain artwork that she considered unbearably tacky.

I don’t know if there was a signed agreement or not, but it was effectively a pre-nup.

Tim,

It seems that those objectives (that of protecting property for individuals’ children) could be accomplished just as easily with well-drafted wills and waivers of elective share.

As an attorney, i would never recommend a premarital agreement for young people who are just starting out. Mormon or not, it makes no sense to spend the money to draft an agreement when there are no major assets.

And actually, it is a divorce issue. Issues related to death can be handled with estate planning documents like wills and trusts. Premarital agreements tell you what happens in the case of divorce, not death.

I sometimes prepare pre-nup agreements for my clients. They are useful only when there are significant assets owned by one or both spouses. They have equal usefulness for both divorce and death scenarios. Although estate planning documents ultimately control the disposition on death, a pre-nup is also needed to bind one spouse with an enforceable “contract to make a will” since estate planning documents can be changed at any time. And, although a pre-nup seems useful in the event of divorce, some states (including my own) limit this by setting aside their spousal and child support provisions for example, since there is a strong preference that those issues be decided at the time rather than years in advance.

So, I would agree that young LDS couples do not often need a pre-nup if neither spouse owns significant assets. In cases where a spouse does have assets, I can imagine a scenario where it is an inherited family business interest and that spouse’s family may insist on a pre-nup.

To address an issue raised by bbell in the OP, I think it’s probably true that there is a prejudice against premarital agreements in Mormon culture, at least in the case of first marriages. Because of the presumption that a temple marriage is eternal, Mormon couples often do not elect to have a premarital agreement in the absence of serious family pressure or some other imperative. I have known a few couples that really could have benefitted from a PMA and, in the absence of one, ended up having a very messy divorce. PMAs do not guarantee an easy divorce, because they can always be challenged, but in many cases they make property division issues much easier.

I think they ought to make some sort of pre-nup a standard part of a marital contract, renewed every five years or so. That would reduce the stigma and help protect any resulting children, mitigate the uncertainty.

(I’m only partially speaking tongue-in-cheek.)

My parents threw a fit when they discovered my brother was signing a prenup with his fiance (his first marriage, her second) I didn’t seen the problem, but perhaps this is a generational thing?

Also, the way they found out was illegal, Mormon culture trumped confidentiality.

What exactly did they throw a fit about?