I used to keep track of all the couples I prepared for the Sacrament of Marriage. By the time the list grew into the hundreds, the notebook I used was filled…and I never quite got around to the next notebook. That is just a way to say I have done a fair amount of helping couples prepare for married life. It is a process that surprises couples. They assume it will be all about “church stuff.”  It certainly talks about the sacramental aspect of marriage, the place of marriage and family in God’s plans for human flourishing, and more, but it also talks about many things, especially communications. In the end perhaps one couple said it best when they remarked, “This was great. It got us to talk about so many things and brought us even closer. We have friends that are being married in another denomination that don’t do anything like this.” They went on to describe what a loss it was for their friends. I think the Catholic Church’s requirement for marriage preparation is a great aid to the couples in their planning for success.

It has not been my experience that couples asked about prenuptial agreements, but as part of the process the betrothed are asked if they are planning one. In general, their response was not only “no,” but there was a look about them that seemed to say, “are you kidding, who would ever do that? That is for Hollywood types and the hyper rich.” I guess things have changed.

It is reported that approximately 40% of couples getting married for the first time do so with prenuptial agreements. These folks are marrying later in life and have accumulated assets, investments, and savings; so, they are unlike previous generations. In an online article by Kara Kennedy, she writes: “When I asked my married friends who among them had a prenuptial agreement, the most common reply was something like: ‘Wait—are people not getting prenups?’ One put it bluntly: ‘You wouldn’t buy a house without a contract. Why would you get married without one?’”  Yikes! Such an attitude may (or may not) reveal something about the shared love, but in any case, it adds a layer of transactionality to the mix.

Kennedy speculated: “It might have something to do with the fact that millennials were the children of the first great divorce boom; they grew up with joint custody schedules and awkward holidays, watching marriages disintegrate in real time.”  No doubt, the children also grow up aware of the financial entanglements that accompany divorce and life afterwards.

Do the 40% of first marriages that have pre-nups also include couples being married in the Catholic Church? Don’t know, but not in my experience. During the wedding ceremony there are three questions that are formally asked: “Have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage? Will you love and honor each other as man and wife for the rest of your lives? Will you accept children lovingly from God and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his church?”  This is just the public witness as these questions were already asked in marriage preparation. And, the bride and groom have already signed their consent. These questions form the essential elements of the sacramentality of marriage. Which is why, in general, the Church does not allow prenuptial agreements as it represents planning the divorce and contradicts the sacramental nature of Marriage.

In an online video, an earnest young woman offered that if your future bride or groom does not want a prenup, that should be a “red flag.” She commented that a prenup is not planning for failure, but planning for success in that it forces the couple to talk about all the important aspects of marriage. One of the survey tools the Catholic Church uses is called FOCCUS. It covers about 180 elements of married life, only about 15-20 of which are financial, which is about the extent of what would be legally enforceable. In other words, the vast majority of “planning for success” lies outside the scope of a prenup conversation.

As the “boomer” parents and grandparents pass from this mortal coil, one of the greatest transfers of wealth is underway and headed to a generation that is far less trusting (in general) and especially of institutions – including marriage. Most would say that the foundation of marriage is love, but equally important is trust.

Is all this a generational trend, on its way to being a normal fixture of American life? Who knows. I hope not. I suspect that a prenup does not consult the other partner in the marriage: God. I wonder what He would say about the plan for success?