May 6, 2025 • 52 mins
The mere mention of "prenuptial agreement" in Christian circles often triggers immediate suspicion. Are we planning for failure before we even begin? Is preparing for divorce fundamentally at odds with a biblical understanding of marriage as permanent and sacred?
This episode tackles these challenging questions head-on, offering a nuanced perspective that might surprise you. Tim unpacks the historical context of marital financial agreements, revealing that even in biblical times, marriage often came with legal protections—particularly for vulnerable parties. The Jewish ketubah, for example, provided financial security for women in case of divorce, not as an escape hatch, but as a safeguard against exploitation.
Moving beyond the simplistic "prenups are unbiblical" stance, we explore legitimate scenarios where prenuptial agreements align with Christian wisdom: protecting inheritances for children from previous marriages, safeguarding family businesses that employ others, addressing significant wealth disparities, or clarifying responsibility for substantial debt. Contrary to popular belief, prenups can actually reinforce marriage by attaching consequences to covenant-breaking behaviors and providing clarity that prevents manipulation during potential divorce proceedings.
Perhaps most surprisingly, we discuss how prenuptial agreements can be structured to expire or erode over time, symbolizing growing trust and intertwining of lives as the years pass. The key lies not in whether you have a prenup, but in examining your motivations and how the agreement is structured.
Whether you're single, engaged, or counseling others about marriage, this thought-provoking discussion will equip you with a framework for approaching prenuptial agreements with wisdom rather than fear or judgment. Subscribe now for more challenging conversations that bring biblical wisdom to complex modern issues.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
All right, all right, everyone.
Welcome back to the Psych andVO podcast.
Dan and Tim here with a hottopic.
Last week, we covered thebenefits of premarital
counseling.
We have a good number oflisteners who are either single
or in relationships andconsidering marriage, or maybe
just those who are married andwanted to just kind of get a
(00:22):
refresher, just those who aremarried and wanted to just kind
of get a refresher.
All that to say, because todaywe're going to be talking about
prenuptial agreements.
Are they biblical?
So our expert here, tim, isgoing to talk to us about how
the history of it or how it'sshowing up or whether or not
it's a good thing for marriages.
We'll discuss all those thingsright now, but before we do, as
(00:47):
always, we just want to ask youto keep sharing the podcast.
We're thankful for you guys whoare listening and we also
appreciate the topicsrecommended by you guys.
You can find us on Spotify andApple Podcasts.
Thanks for tuning in, all right?
Well, we're going to talk todayabout prenuptial agreements,
tim, and this is a hot topic andI immediately thought of what
(01:10):
are people going to say or whatare people expecting at the end
of this episode.
So this is exciting.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well, I will stick to my guns, okay.
So if they've got problems withwhat I'm about to say, I think
I can defend myself.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
uh, they might try to cancel.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
You send them all your angry emails, all right, so
, okay.
So why are we even talkingabout this subject?
Let's maybe answer that first.
The big elephant in the room uh, you know, people are getting
older.
They're burying at much laterstages in life.
In a in a previous episode inseason one, we talked about the
red pill community and how guysare kind of checking out of
(01:54):
relationships and even the ideaof marriage.
Uh, they're becoming incels ormigtails or something like that,
and if you don't know whatthose words mean, go back and
listen to that episode.
Love that plug.
Yeah, so men are, in general,just across our culture, are
(02:14):
kind of rejecting modernmarriage in many senses.
Some of them, some of theleaders of the red pill
community, are encouraging kindof common law marriage, which is
a legal marriage.
It's basically like live inmarriage, where you two live in
together, whatever you know, andthat's a way to skirt around
the system that's been built upto favor feminism.
(02:36):
This is their argument.
Okay, so you have that in thebackground, and so there's
there's this undercurrent in ourculture of an aversion to
marriage, at least for men, um,and especially if you're a man
and you are, uh, somewhatsuccessful in life and you hear
all these horror stories aboutmen getting married and then
(02:58):
they get taken advantage of.
Uh, you know, the wife cheatsand then she leaves or whatever,
and she takes half the assetsor all these things that can
happen, you know, um, and so alot of men are thinking about,
well, should I get a prenup ornot?
And uh, to, to protect me fromthese things.
So let's talk about what aprenuptial agreement is and how
(03:21):
it differs from a couple, acouple of different things.
So a prenuptial agreement, youthink about this nuptials means
like your vows or the thingsthat you tie the knot at the
wedding.
That's your nuptials.
Prenup means that it's anagreement that you sign.
It's a legal document that yousign before you get married, and
(03:43):
that legal document is supposedto delineate, uh, what you do
with certain, uh, certain assetsthat you, that one or more
parties, has.
You know, uh, so a prenuptialagreement can be structured in a
lot of different ways and wecan get into some of that at the
end, but essentially, uh, it'san agreement about what to do
(04:05):
with.
Usually it has to do with money,so what to do with the
financial assets, uh, if, in thecase of divorce, and you sign
this before you get married,okay, uh, so there's a cultural
perception of like, well, if youknow rich people, rich people
get prenups.
Or, uh, you know one partner'srich, they get a prenup so that
(04:27):
you know they can protect theirmoney from the other person.
And uh, prenups have this sortof cultural perception in our
culture that it's sort of like ajust in case, like you're
already kind of preparing fordivorce by getting a prenup and
so's a.
There's a bit of like culturalbaggage with a prenup, at least
in Christian circles.
Oh yeah, and so so Christians,you know, because of the
(04:51):
Christian view of marriage, thatuh, divorce is sort of a last
resort option, uh, and there'slimited grounds for divorce.
Uh, that marriage is a, marriageis meant to be lifelong.
Uh, it's meant to be lifelong,it's meant to be lasting.
We know we live in a fallenworld and that doesn't always
happen, but essentially thenature of marriage is that it's
(05:12):
permanent, and so why would youeven?
Here's the thinking is like, ifmarriage is permanent and it's
two Christians getting marriedand marriage is supposed to be
lifelong commitment, why wouldyou even consider getting a
prenup, right, you know, ifdivorce isn't an option and
you're going into this marriage,why would you get a prenup?
It seems like you're alreadytrying to hedge your bets
(05:36):
against this other person.
So that's that's sort of theconnotation with prenups.
When you bring it intoChristian circles, secular
circles, when you're dealingwith people who aren't
christians, who don't have thesame view of marriage, a prenup
is just kind of like, well youknow, it might be offensive to
someone.
Like if a couple gets engagedand one partner's like, hey, I
want a prenup, it might be.
(05:58):
It might kind of bother theother person yeah uh, but they
don't quite when it comes tomarriage.
They don't't think the same wayChristians do typically, you
know no one gets married.
Yeah, no one gets.
No one goes to the altarplanning to get divorced, at
least not very, very few people.
Yeah, you know, maybe the scamartists but, but, uh, yeah, no
(06:21):
one, like no one, goes to thealtar planning to get divorced.
Okay, but still some people getprenups, okay.
So why do we make this inChristian circles?
Because I just mentioned, likethe biblical view of marriage is
it's supposed to be a lifelongcommitment.
You know some of the when itcomes to the issues of divorce.
(06:41):
You know, christians kind ofkind of can disagree on how many
grounds there are for divorceand when divorce is biblically
appropriate.
Uh, there's the um, there'ssort of the no grounds view,
which is a really uh, rareminority view.
Um, uh, which essentially saysis the no grounds view doesn't
(07:01):
say that like christians, likeno one ever gets divorced.
It just says that a christianshould never initiate a divorce.
Even in the case of adultery,the christian doesn't.
The christian ought not toinitiate divorce.
They should always leave thedoor open for the spouse to be
reconciled.
So that's kind of like the nogrounds view and that's a pretty
(07:22):
, that's a pretty small minorityof theologians and ethicists
that hold that.
Yeah, has that changed?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
throughout the years, or has this been pretty
consistent?
Speaker 2 (07:32):
uh, it's, you know, I don't know how many people have
held that.
Um, I would think in thehistory of christianity it's a
rare thing, it's very rare and I, and I would wager to say that
it is probably again, somebodyis listening and this is like
their bread and butter topic,like, forgive me, but I would
(07:55):
wager to say it's probably avery contemporary stance or
position that some have carvedout in the evangelical world.
Okay, because there are groundsfor divorce, like Christianity.
Throughout the history of thehistory of the church, different
denominations have all kind ofhad different grounds for
divorce.
Yeah, so the no grounds view isa really rare, you know
(08:18):
position.
Then there's the one and twogrounds views.
You know one ground.
The one ground view saysbasically it's adultery, based
on Jesus' teachings in Matthew19.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
And that could be one time or like multiple.
So you have an adulterer andyou have a.
You know a one time thing.
Does it clarify, or is thereany distinction between those
two?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
one-time thing.
Does it clarify or is there anydistinction between those two?
Well, you know the the when itcomes to that issue, the
christian principle and this ifyou have a good marriage
counselor, they're always goingto come back to the principle of
hard-heartedness.
It's a matter of the heart.
So if a person fails, like apartner fails, and they cheat
and they're extremely remorsefuland they want to be reconciled
(09:06):
and they want to heal theirmarriage, then it's, it's
recommended the counselor, thepastor, is usually going to
recommend to the other spouse totry to, to remain open to, to
reconciliation.
Don't, don't cut off that yourspouse.
That's that's fallen in thisrespect.
However, also, they would alsorecognize this is a ground for
(09:28):
divorce.
I mean, it's a very seriousground for divorce.
So it's a very serious offense,it's a very serious violation
of the marriage covenant.
So you know, and it does seem tobe in the New Testament when
Jesus is teaching on this, thatreally any kind of sexual
immorality kind of falls in thatbucket.
(09:49):
Um, the word he, the word thatjesus uses, and you know we I
wasn't planning on kind of goingto those passages and talking
about divorce, but essentiallywhen jesus says, if anyone you
know puts away his, his wife,for any reason other than other
than pornea and sometimes that'stranslated as adultery.
But the Greek word is porneaand that basically means it's
(10:12):
where we get the wordpornography it basically means
sexual immorality.
So Jesus says if anyone putshis wife away for any by put
away means divorce puts his wifeaway for any reason other than
sexual immorality, then hecommits adultery and he causes
his wife to commit adultery.
So jesus, now jesus isanswering a very specific
(10:34):
question to the jews in thatcontext.
So again, we could probably doa whole series on like the
biblical views of divorce andthe different grounds and the
and the debates around that.
But, um, so Jesus is in thatspecific passage.
It's Matthew six and thenMatthew 19,.
Uh, uh, actually, with Mark six, I'm, I'm.
(10:55):
I think it is right now yeah.
Yeah yeah, matthew 19 is one ofthem.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
I think it's Mark, six is the other.
But um, uh yeah, essentiallythat's the ground that Jesus
gives is sexual immorality.
Well, later on in the NewTestament, in 1 Corinthians 7,
paul describes a situation inwhich a believer is abandoned by
their unbelieving spouse.
And so this is where this isthe second ground for divorce.
(11:23):
And so some people will holdthe two grounds and that's the
most common among evangelicalsis that there's two grounds for
divorce sexual morality andabandonment.
Um, and some people will kindof play technical here and say
well, were you abandoned by achristian or a non-christian?
And if you were abandoned by anon-christian, then, uh, you can
(11:43):
remarry, but if, if you wereabandoned by a non-Christian,
then you can remarry, but if youwere abandoned by a Christian,
then there's no ground there.
But I think that's a reallysilly argument to make.
Yeah, because the problem thatPaul is addressing is that when
someone became a Christian, whenthey converted to Christianity,
sometimes their unbelievingspouse would say I'm divorcing
you, I want nothing to, becauseChristianity was not popular in
(12:06):
the first century and that's acore value.
Yeah, so if their spouse becamea Christian, they'd be like I'm
done with you, I'm divorcing you.
And there's actually modernexamples of that, where people
become a Christian and theirspouse says I don't want
anything to do with this, you'recrazy and it's not as common,
but it does happen.
So in those, in those cases,the person is free to remarry
(12:30):
the person who has beenabandoned by the unbeliever.
Uh, when it comes to, like, thesituation where maybe a, a, a
person who professes to be aChristian I'll just put it that
way and they walk out and theyabandoned their spouse and
they're just gone you knowthere's some debates about that,
but my, my personal view onthat one and I, if I recall, I
(12:54):
had, I remember, reading a bunchof books.
We had to read a bunch of booksabout this in seminary and Tim
LaHaye believe it or not, theguy who wrote the left behind
books yeah, he actually.
Who wrote the left behind books?
Yeah, he actually, he actuallyuh wrote some things on this and
I like his take on this.
That, um, he, he said, you know, in this situation where, like
a, a, a christian, someone whoclaims to be a christian, they
(13:16):
walk out and they just abandontheir spouse.
Okay, um, the church, the localchurch, is supposed to be the
mediating institution in thatscenario and that could be okay,
that could be not just walkingout.
But let's say the spouse isabusive and goes to jail or they
commit a serious crime likemurder or rape or something like
(13:36):
that that lands them in jailfor the rest of their life.
Okay, those would be de factoabandonment.
That's my term, not his, Idon't think he uses that term.
But those are all de factoabandonment.
That's not my term, not his, Idon't think he uses that term.
But those are all forms of ofabandonment in his view.
And the, the local church willget involved in, like the pastor
and the deacons, the eldersshould get involved on behalf of
(13:58):
the spouse that's been, that'sbeen hurt, to confront the one
that is sinning Right, and ifthat person remains unrepentant
and they're they, they're justlike gone, they, they don't want
nothing to do with saving themarriage, they're living in sin,
whatever.
At that point church disciplinekicks in.
And, to put it in Paul'slanguage, the person he says
(14:23):
when a like a husband does that,when a husband doesn't provide
for his family, he's worse thanan unbeliever.
That's what Paul says in theNew Testament so if a man
refuses to provide for hisfamily, he is worse, he's acting
worse than an unbeliever.
And so now I'm kind of walkingyou through Tim LaHaye's
position and I think that's apretty good one is that, at the
(14:44):
point of church discipline, whenthe church community recognizes
this person is sinning, uh, andthey're, they're repentant, and
we, we know we are uh, in thespirit of first Corinthians,
turning this person over toSatan for the destruction of
their flesh.
They are becoming like anunbeliever to us at that point,
(15:08):
uh, the abandoned spouse, let'ssay is, has grounds for divorce.
You know, at that point, likethey've not, they've been
willing to reconcile, they've,they've held out hope and it's
taken the pastors and the eldersand the church even to try to
bring this other person back,and they're just hardhearted and
refuse to do it.
And so that's from a pastoral,like practical standpoint.
(15:33):
How do you deal with situationslike that?
And, and LaHaye's view and thisis my view is that that's sort
of a, a, a impracticality, thatis abandonment, sure, and so
that person has grounds fordivorce.
At that point, okay, so I'mgetting way into divorce, way
off the reservation with prenups.
Uh, there's some other viewswith divorce.
(15:53):
You know there's a guy, ascholar in britain, his name is
david, in stone brewer.
He takes a foregrounds view ofdivorce.
Yeah, four grounds, and that itgets a little bit more
technical.
Um, so we don't have to getintos.
And that it gets a little bitmore technical, um, so we don't
have to get into that one.
I think it's a reallyinteresting argument.
I'm sympathetic to it, um,because it also accounts for
things like abuse and, um, othersuch things that would render
(16:20):
the marriage kind of unworkableat that point.
Sometimes, with the two groundsview some of the hardliners,
they could get themselves stuckin moral absurdities, and one of
those would be something likejust to entertain this with me,
(16:44):
as a philosopher, we think ofthese morbid situations.
Okay, like, imagine a husbandwho is sexually faithful to his
wife, so he hasn't committed anysexual sin whatsoever, and he
has an abandoner, he takes careof her and all that stuff, but
he's extremely abusive to thekids.
In fact, he's so abusive to thekids, in fact he's so abusive
that he actually, uh, kills oneof them.
(17:04):
Okay, so he actually kills oneof their children, but he's
sexually faithful and hefinancially provides for his
wife.
Are there grounds for divorcehere?
You know, because now thishusband's going to go away for
the rest of his life.
Uh, you know, see what I mean.
Like, yeah, or let's even takethe kids out of it.
You know, he's, he's providingfinancially for his wife and
(17:26):
he's not, he's not committingany sexual sins, but he's
extremely abusive and and or isthreatening to harm her very
physically.
These are all practicalsituations that you have to work
through, where someone who justtakes that that hard line to
grounds view it's eitherabandonment or adultery, they
(17:49):
kind of get themselves stuck insituations like that, yeah yeah,
where they kind of they kind ofget stuck in the tech and like
a technical quandary, whereas Ithink, like Tim LaHaye's view
kind of allows to, allows us tosee like okay, like there are
practical ways of abandonmenthere.
(18:09):
That we need to consider andplus like and in the first
century it was very taboo for aChristian to initiate divorce
with their spouse.
So Paul even says hey, if theunbeliever is content to stay
with you, don't divorce them.
Yeah, cause by your presenceyou are being this sanctifying
(18:30):
presence in their life.
Okay, so it was.
It was not a thing.
Let's say it's not a thing forChristians in the first century
to initiate divorce and todivorce their spouses.
So that's just a generalprinciple is that Christians
should not seek divorce.
(18:51):
You know from their spouse.
It's like a last resort.
You know.
Let's say Again there's allkinds of situations, you know
that could get into it.
It's a complex topic, but okay,so okay, let's get back to
pre-naps.
I'm sorry, um, yeah, yeah, so,um, how do we?
get on that, um, yeah, so in thechristian view of marriage,
marriage is a covenant.
(19:11):
Okay, this is this is one ofthe main arguments to say is
well, christian, christianmarriage is a covenant.
You look in the bible, marriageis a covenant.
You look in the Bible, marriageis a covenant, and it's a
covenant before God.
And it's a covenant that'smeant to model Christ and his
church.
Okay, so if marriage is acovenant, why?
And if that's permanent,there's and this is the this is
(19:32):
how people kind of slip this in,slip this anti prenup view in
is that they, covenants don'thave, have conditions, they're
permanent commitments.
Covenants don't have conditions, they're permanent commitments.
It's an unconditional covenant.
Okay, that's sort of like, ifChrist's, if Christian marriage
is meant to model the view ormodel Christ in his church, well
(19:52):
, christ has this unconditionalcovenant with his bride, okay,
so Christian marriage has thisunconditional commitment to each
other, okay, so why would youattach a prenup to that?
Okay, the problem, the problemwith that view, is that, in
practicality, even in the firstcentury among christians, there
(20:15):
were pre-marital contracts thatwere signed that was going to be
one of my questions.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Was there anything done before that?
Okay?
Speaker 2 (20:22):
yeah, yeah.
So.
So you have this in the jew andjewish backgrounds, but you
also have this in, uh, roman,greco-roman settings as well.
Um, marriages oftentimes camewith legal contracts and legal
obligations.
In the jewish world it's calledthe ketubah, and it is a
contract that the bride and theor sorry, the groom and the
(20:46):
groom's father kind of gettogether and agree on what the
groom will pay if they getdivorced.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Okay, and it's meant to protect the woman in that
situation.
So if you think about this froma from a like an ancient
antiquity standpoint, women werevery dependent on their
husbands.
Okay.
So if a woman were to getdivorced in that kind of setting
and the first century I meanher her odds at life are really
(21:14):
low.
So they I mean they were reallydependent on their, on their
husband.
So this was meant to protectwomen in marriages, so that that
husband would not just simplyput his wife away.
There would be some seriousfinancial consequences with that
.
That was a common practice then.
Oh yeah, jews still practice itto this day.
Yeah yeah, and there wereJewish Christians in the first
(21:40):
century church and there's noindication that they
discontinued that practice.
Now, marriage it's not untilyou get into the later centuries
, like the Middle Ages, wheremarriage starts to become
sacramentalized, let's say whereit becomes viewed as a
(22:01):
sacrament of the church and thechurch begins to take a more
primary role in governingmarriages.
So before that it's a legal,cultural thing.
That is in the ancient world.
And so with that there's legaland financial obligations.
Even in the Old Testament,husbands had financial
(22:24):
obligations to care for theirwives and these stipulations
were born out in Deuteronomy andso, and if a husband didn't
fulfill those things, then therewere serious consequences.
Again, a lot of the divorcelaws and marriage laws in the
Old Testament were meant toprotect women.
So it was a lot of like if aman puts his wife away, or he,
(22:46):
or you know he needs thesereasons to put his wife away.
This is why the Jews come toJesus and they say, rabbi, can a
man put his wife away for anyreason?
Because this was a debate amongtwo rabbinic schools about how
to how to interpret a certainpassage in Deuteronomy of
whether for any reason meantadultery like sexual things, or
(23:07):
any reason meant just anythingat all.
So there was a real liberalschool in the first century that
said a man can put his wifeaway for anything, he can
divorce her for any reason.
And then there was a realconservative school that said no
, he can only divorce her forsexual reason.
And then there was a realconservative school that said no
, he can only divorce her forsexual problems.
So when Jesus teaches on thisin Matthew 19, he is addressing
a very specific Jewish questionfrom the law.
(23:30):
Now he goes, he adds on to, hegives the ideal.
He says from the beginning hesays Moses granted you guys, uh,
rits of divorce that you could.
You could actually divorce yourwife because of your hard
heartedness.
You know sick, but from thebeginning this wasn't so, that
(23:51):
when a man and woman cometogether they're one flesh and
what God has joined together letno man put asunder.
But then he does add this, hedoes acknowledge the exception
of sexual immorality.
And then, and then paulacknowledges like if you're
abandoned by your spouse, againthat person leaves.
You're not leaving, the otherperson is leaving at that point
(24:12):
like it's not, you're not theresponsible party of the failed
marriage.
Okay, so again, I'm gettingwhat.
We haven't got, the prenups yet, but yeah, so so the the
objection to prenups is like youget all this in the context,
why?
Why get a prenup when, whenchristian marriage is permanent?
Well, just recognize that.
(24:34):
Even in the first, even in theancient world, first century,
there are legal contractsassociated with marriage,
financial obligations associatedwith marriage.
In the event of divorce, thishappens, the husband pays this.
There were dowries involved inmarriages where, uh, you know,
either one way or the other,either um, the dowry is a gift
(24:56):
that comes with the bride to thegroom, um, or the groom pays
the family for a dowry for thebride and in, in either case, if
the marriage, if a divorcehappens in the marriage, fails,
that dowry comes into play.
Like, uh, the dowry needs to bereturned.
That was a form of collateral,form of collateral for the
marriage.
(25:17):
Okay, so these are all financialstipulations that are put to to
reinforce the marriage.
And this is where I'm goingwith it with with prenuptial
agreements and how a christiancould look at prenuptial
agreements.
Is that these kind of things inthe in the ancient world were
meant to reinforce the marriage,not to give an escape hatch
(25:39):
right but to reinforce themarriage so um now that's,
that's a cultural thing thatpeople did, which makes a lot of
sense, like even within thatculture and even in our culture.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
But I'm wondering that christians who are
listening their argument may bethat that is descriptive but not
necessarily prescriptive.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's a perfectly good objection
.
Yeah, because you know, we'renot in the Old Testament and, of
course, christians differ fromJudaism on a lot of different
things, and Jesus even correctedthe Jews on a lot of these
things.
So we don't take our orders,let's say, from Judaism when it
comes to marriage and divorcelaws Okay.
(26:19):
Judaism when it comes tomarriage and divorce laws okay,
um, but, uh, but there are.
The reason I bring that thosecultural things up is because
christians oftentimes have thissort of snapshot, idyllic view
of what christian marriage was,but we look at it through a 21st
century lens and are often notaware of the historical
(26:40):
development around the views ofchristian marriage.
Yeah, it's not that christiansbelieved in divorce in the first
century.
They didn't, uh, but there were, there were all these.
They recognized that divorcewas a possibility, okay, and
there, and even the greco-romanworld obviously recognize this,
the Jewish world recognizes thatthat divorce just sometimes
(27:01):
happens, okay and uh.
So there were financialstipulations, there were these
financial, uh, fallouts thatthat were designed to happen, um
, not to give someone an escape,but to protect the marriage, to
reinforce it and to protect thevulnerable party in marriage,
and so I think that's what wekind of need to walk into with
(27:24):
this prenup situation.
So a lot of times, anotherobjection that Christians will
raise is that this, a prenuptialagreement, undermines trust and
commitment between spouses bypromoting self-interest or
self-preservation before youeven get married.
So one spouse is like I want toprotect myself and preserve all
my assets, uh, when we're goinginto this marriage and that may
(27:48):
be the case, okay, um.
So in my, you know, thinking onthis, and I went out and kind
of I kind of poked around theinternet to see like what some
other kind of prominentchristian influencers or
whatever were thinking aboutthis.
Lo and behold, I didn't know,know, dave Ramsey had a view on
this, but he does, and his viewis actually really similar to my
own.
So I was kind of pleased bythat.
(28:09):
You know I don't always see eyeto eye with Dave Ramsey on some
things, but on this one Ithought it was like, okay, yeah,
this is pretty good.
So you know, here's somereasons not to get a prenup.
So this objection aboutself-interest and
self-preservation is alegitimate objection, because
reasons not to get a prenupwould be like just fear, fear of
(28:30):
getting taken advantage of.
I'm afraid I'm going to gettaken advantage of.
Well then, do you really knowthe person you're marrying?
Right?
that's a really prophecy rightthere, yeah yeah, yeah, it's
like you know, obviously we, wewe don't fully know the person
we're marrying.
We grow into that as a marriage, as a marriage couple.
But just having walking into amarriage with that fear I'm
(28:51):
going to get taken advantage of,that's paranoia.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
And that's not a good reason to get a, to get a
prenup, because you're notreally ready to get married
probably at that point.
Um, another, another reason not, uh, that doesn't justify a
prenup would be negativeexperiences with money or lack
of financial security.
Uh, so, uh, just like havingjust really poor experiences,
(29:17):
you know, like again it's morefear, um, residual hurt or pain
and anger from a previousmarriage, so like in another
marriage, uh, you're the, thedivorced spouse, really hurt,
hurt them financially in thecourts and the divorce process
and just took a lot of stufffrom them, and so now they
(29:39):
really want to protectthemselves.
So the the desire for a prenupin that sense comes from a place
of stuff from them and so nowthey really want to protect
themselves.
So the desire for a prenup inthat sense comes from a place of
hurt.
Yeah, so a desire for control.
There's some people and I thinkthis probably falls on men more
of like they're just controlfreaks and so they want to
control their money.
They don't want to give anycontrol or merge their assets or
(29:59):
anything like that.
That's a really bad reason toget a prenup.
Because, again, that's theseare, if you kind of picking up,
these are all reasons that needto get worked out in premarital
counseling.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
So last episode.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah, yeah.
And then just just selfishnessin general, like, yeah, like if
someone's just being selfish andlike my assets are mine, your
assets are yours, we're going tokeep them separate.
Yeah, like again, that's just abig issue, that that's a big
red flag.
You need to work through that.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
And primarily the whole thing about prenups is is
specifically financial right orare there yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Well, things that are , things are financially related
.
Okay, so it could be.
It can involve bank accounts,it could involve inheritance,
there's trust fund businesses,uh, anything like that.
Yeah, I you know, theoretically, I guess you could structure a
prenup around a lot of differentthings that I don't really know
.
I mean, I'm sure there's beensome more.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
So what's enforceable ?
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I think I heard one one word about that yeah, and,
and and prenups, um, you knowI'm not a lawyer so I'm not
giving legal advice here, but,uh, prenups, there are certain
stipulations that a court willlook at when a prenup is signed,
or certain conditions underwhich a prenup needs to be
(31:17):
signed.
Um, um, and if those conditionsaren't met, it can invalidate
the prenup.
Uh, so things like a prenupcan't be signed under duress,
like you can't, one partnercan't bring it to the the
wedding day and say sign thisbefore we get married, like that
.
That would be an example ofsigning it under duress, um,
that would invalidate the prenup.
(31:38):
Um, that would invalidate theprenup, a verbal prenup, so
something that's not written isinvalid in the courts.
I don't know if this is thecase or not, if it's just a
recommendation, but I believeeach person should or needs to
have a lawyer present for aprenup, and there's one other
that I'm forgetting at thispoint.
(31:59):
So there's conditions underwhich a prenup, and there's one
other that I'm forgetting, um,at this point.
But uh, yeah, there, so there'sconditions under which a prenup
could be invalidated.
Those conditions aren't met, um, so a court could look at a
prenup and say like, did, did a?
Oh, did the wife sign thisunder duress, oh yeah, oh, you
signed it three hours before Ididn't like he made you
something.
Okay, that's not valid.
Yeah, but it apparently happens.
(32:21):
I mean, lawyers have crazystories, you know.
Oh yeah, yeah, so.
So there's there's issues likethat.
So reasons not to get a prenup,as we mentioned, these are all
things that you need to takecare of.
A premarital counseling.
Okay, let me give you somereasons to consider a prenup Now
.
I'll start with somephilosophical, biblical reasons
and then I want to get into somepractical reasons that I picked
(32:43):
up from Dave Ramsey and I waskind of thinking about these
myself.
It's your power of the focus,yeah, so, okay, so here are some
modern arguments for a prenup.
Okay, number one the Bible doesnot give guidance on prenuptial
agreements.
Okay, and I think that is thebiggest argument against the
opposition is that the Bible issilent on this issue.
(33:05):
It doesn't, it doesn't sayanything about it whatsoever.
Yeah, so there's no biblicalprohibition against prenups.
So this, this requires wisdomand humility and all the other
virtues that we need asChristians.
This requires that to approachthis topic.
So all of the arguments againstprenuptial agreements that we
(33:27):
hear today are based onhistorical context and cultural
connotations, about which wementioned at the beginning of
the episode.
All the objections aretypically rooted in that they're
not rooted in a clear, strongbiblical argument, because it
really isn't're not rooted in aclear, strong biblical argument,
because it really isn't abiblical argument like a clear
one.
There's inferential arguments,there's like what we would call
(33:49):
a theological argument that youcould draw from scripture, but
again, it's like you'reinferring things.
Like I said, if marriage ispermanent and divorce isn't an
option, why would you get aprenup?
That's an inference, okay, sopeople would make that kind of
an argument.
Here's number two.
So prenuptial agreements canprotect a vulnerable partner.
(34:10):
So there is a practical side toprenups and they can protect a
vulnerable partner.
They don't just have to protectthe person who has wealth.
Okay, prenuptial agreements canbe structured in a way that
actually protect a vulnerableperson.
Um, that's that's.
I think that's what people don'talways understand about
prenuptial agreements is thatthey think it's always one-sided
(34:31):
and it that's really not thecase.
You can structure them in a lotof different ways, right?
So if you, if you flip it andsay we're getting a prenuptial
agreement, one to to protectthese assets, but also to, to to
ensure, to, like, uh, ensurethat this other person, the
person with less wealth, uh,doesn't doesn't get um, um,
(34:55):
taken to task in the courts,because if one person has
enormous wealth and the otherone doesn't, they can hire
better lawyers and and do allkinds of stuff in family courts.
Okay, so prenuptial agreementscan be structured in a way that
actually protect a vulnerableperson I'm thinking of.
Like you can set conditions inprenups where, uh, let's say,
(35:17):
one person has extreme wealthand the other person doesn't and
they're coming into a marriagetogether.
And let's say it person hasextreme wealth and the other
person doesn't and they'recoming into a marriage together
and let's say it's the guy thathas the wealth, okay, well, he,
he's earned this wealth beforethe marriage.
He wants to protect it.
Okay, and some States willhonor that.
Like, you brought this wealthin before the marriage, it's
yours.
Some States are like Nope, 50,50.
If you get so, the husband wants, you know, understandably, you
(35:45):
know wants to protect thoseassets that he is, you know,
worked for and earned.
Uh, but you know he could, hecould set up the prenup.
The two of them could set it upto where, uh, okay, in the
event of divorce, it, the, itmatters what they can, who the
responsible party is in divorce.
So if the, if the husband isthe one that's like I'm done
with this marriage, I'm out ofhere well then the prenup can be
(36:06):
structured to where he forfeitssome of his assets to her if
he's leaving the marriage.
So that's a lot like a ketubahjewish ketubah or it could be
structured to where, um, thewife is entitled to some assets,
but if she leaves or shecommits adultery and she's the
one that is responsible for thedestruction of the marriage, she
forfeits those assets.
She forfeits claim to thoseassets.
(36:28):
Let's say so.
A prenuptial agreement can bestructured in a lot of different
ways.
So it's not just this like oneperson's rich and they want to
protect their stuff.
That's the, that's theconnotation, but that's not
accurate.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Yeah, one of the ones I had heard was if, um, that
they both, whatever theyaccumulated on their own, that
stays with them, and then,whatever they accumulated
together, they split that inhalf.
He says that that's one of themost common ones that he has a
structure for his clients.
Yeah, yeah, and common onesthat he has instruction for his
clients.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Yeah, yeah, and I'm sure it gets a little technical
and complicated the longer themarriage goes on.
So, but yeah, and we'll getinto some of that in a second.
So, prenuptial agreementsnumber three they can protect
against fraud, abuse andmanipulation and divorce courts
or family courts.
So if you have a prenuptialagreement, like you mentioned,
that situation of two couplescome together, a couple of two
(37:20):
couples, a couple comes togetherand they have assets and
they're like, okay, what webring in before the marriage is
is ours separately, but what weearn together is ours together.
Um, a prenuptial agreement cansave a lot of time in family
court to say, okay, we, weagreed on this from the
beginning.
Yeah, um, it can protectagainst liars.
(37:41):
Basically, you know, people can, like, you might look, you
might look at someone on the weton the on your wedding day and
be like, wow, this person's anangel, they're perfect, they're
not going to be an angel infamily court.
Yeah, and I, I, I know of a lotof situations where a couple
that I, I knew or I I at leastknew tendentially through other
(38:04):
people um, seemed like a healthycouple and then all of a sudden
, like you know, sometime laterthey're getting divorced and one
person is just being absolutelyhorrible, lying, manipulating,
doing all kinds of horrible,nasty, nasty stuff in the family
courts.
Well, a prenuptial agreement, ifyou have assets, can protect
(38:26):
against that stuff.
It's a bulwark against it, uh.
So again, it's just like aninsurance policy.
Um, pretty much.
And number four you know,prenuptial agreements can
actually, as I said before, theycan reinforce the marriage by
attaching financial consequencesto a deserting or unfaithful or
abusive spouse.
So a prenuptial agreement canactually reinforce the marriage,
(38:48):
not just provide this escapehatch parachute, you know, for
the person who wants to get outof the marriage that.
That's true.
So consider a few examples.
Well, let me give you thisfirst.
Dave Ramsey gives four reasonswhy someone should get a prenup,
or four situations.
Let's say One is this that ifsomeone, if one or both, are
(39:10):
bringing into a marriageinheritance or trust funds for
children of a previous marriage,so if you have, if you have
assets that are for yourchildren, you want to protect
those because again, you couldget it.
Dave Ramsey says prenups keepthe weird away.
So if someone finds out thatyou have a lot of money, like
(39:31):
there's some weirdos that comearound and they they want to be
friends with you and then theyhave these ideas for business
and all this other, all thisother stuff, but that you know,
um, there's this stereotype inour culture which we've all kind
of at one point thought of, andthat's or or seen maybe in real
life, where a woman, a widow,has all the assets of her, of
(39:54):
her husband, that has died andshe's well off, she's taken care
of, and then she gets marriedagain and the guy she remarries
is horrible and is trying totake her money from her.
Yeah, so a prenup can actuallyprotect that, you know.
It can protect the assets thatshe would pass on to her
children yeah, that's good yeahuh, a prenuptial agreement can.
(40:16):
In the case of significant debt,someone bringing debt into the
marriage a prenuptial agreementcan protect against that.
To say, if, if the marriagefails, uh, the one who didn't
bring that debt in is notresponsible for that debt, the
debt goes with the other personthat brought the debt into
marriage.
And if you think about, in ourgeneration, there's people that
are bringing six figures of debt, of college debt, into a
(40:37):
marriage.
So a prenuptial agreement canactually be a good thing to to
say, look, we're, we're in thistogether, we're married, um, and
, and I love you, I'm going tohelp you pay off this debt while
we're married, for as long aswe're married, you know.
But if our marriage fails, I'mnot taking half this debt, right
, right, yeah.
(40:58):
A third case would be a business.
If one partner owns a businessand they're coming into the
marriage, this actually involvesmore people than just a
marriage.
So if one partner owns abusiness, he has employees in
that business, and if there'snot a prenuptial agreement in
(41:23):
place when, if a divorce happens, the divorce spouse can
actually take control, partialownership, of that business, and
then, and then you could have acouple that's going through
divorce, both having partialcontrol of this business and it
could actually destroy thebusiness.
And so then, and then you haveall these people that are losing
their jobs because of onecouple that's getting divorced.
So a prenuptial agreement couldactually say, okay, this guy
(41:43):
owns this business, or this galowns her business, she's
bringing this into the marriage.
That is off limits in a divorcecase.
And then the fourth examplewould be extreme assets.
Dave Ramsey puts us at like oneor $2 million If, if one
person's bringing that amount ofmoney into the marriage, or or
(42:03):
I should say like a a one to $2million swing or differential
you know, then a prenuptialagreement is probably wise in
that sense.
But but a prenuptial agreementis probably wise in that sense,
but a prenuptial agreementdoesn't have to be permanent.
And this is the final piece isthat they can be structured to
(42:24):
where they erode over time andthey actually expire.
And this is what Ramseyrecommends, and this is what I
was kind of thinking aboutindependently is that you can
structure prenups to where youknow if, let's say, a couple
gets married and then two yearslater they get divorced, okay,
and that in that situation, ifthere's a prenup in place, yeah,
of course the person whobrought all the assets into the
(42:45):
marriage should keep those,assuming he's not at fault, or
assuming you know she's not atfault, you know, this is why
it's meant to protect againstmanipulation and abandonment and
things like that.
Okay, um, but let's say they'remarried for 20 years.
You know a prenuptial agreementlike if you've been married for
someone for 20 years, you'veearned a lot of things together,
(43:05):
um, you've done life together,and so at that, over time, the
prenup should should probablyexpire or erode.
Where where, over time, fiveshould probably expire or erode.
Where, over time 5, 10, 15years it becomes less and less
force, or the other spouse getsmore and more of a claim to the
assets and eventually the prenupjust expires and all their
(43:26):
assets are just joined togetherat that point.
So those are the situationswhere a prenuptial agreement
would be wise and and and wouldactually, uh, reinforce the
marriage and take it.
Takes away the temptation.
That's another thing thatpeople don't like.
People often underestimate, ormaybe they overestimate, their
own virtue in marriages, youknow where, like they wouldn't
(43:52):
be tempted to take advantage oftheir spouse in family court To
take advantage of the assetsthat their spouse has.
Or maybe they overestimate thevirtue of their spouse, although
they wouldn't take advantage ofme, we would just be fair,
everything would just be fair.
And toward, if we went to courtLike no, I don't know,
(44:35):
no-transcript, to take the weirdout of the situation and just
say this is okay, this is I'm,I'm be the, the person with the
wealth, I'm bringing theseassets into the marriage.
Um, for a time they'reprotected, uh, but but as we do
life together and over time, asour marriage progresses into the
(44:56):
decades, the prenup goes away.
Yeah, you know that.
That would.
That would signal that I lovemy, I love my spouse and I'm
committed to my spouse more thanthis money is that I'm not
hanging onto this forever.
It's just, you know, in thoseearly years of marriage you know
to make sure that our marriageis going to last like these,
(45:17):
this, these conditions are inplace.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
Yeah, yeah, no, those would make a lot of sense.
Make a lot of sense.
Um, no, it's good, tim, Iappreciate that.
Um, I'm trying to think of anyany questions that that would
have up, and I think you coveredeverything, man.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yeah, so let me.
I'll give you some concludingthoughts.
And you know, as I said, theBible is silent on prenuptial
agreements.
So the Bible is very loud aboutmarriage and divorce, but
silent about some of thecultural things around marriage
and divorce, and prenups is oneof those things.
The most important factor toconsider with a prenup is why
(45:56):
does one or both parties want it?
And this is where a marriagecounselor or a pastor should get
involved.
Why do you want it?
No one should be guilted ifthey bring up the issue of
prenup.
You shouldn't just immediatelyguilt them and be like oh, why
would you want a prenup?
You're Christians.
Well, if someone does that,have them.
Listen to this episode, okay,and then, uh, also, you know the
(46:19):
one another important factor isthe stipulations around a
prenuptial agreement, how thatis structured.
Is it structured to reinforcethe marital bonds or is it
designed as an escape hatch forone person?
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I think that's an important factor there.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
Yeah, yeah yeah, and I would say, if a prenup is
designed to reinforce themarriage and to encourage the
longevity of the marriage, thenit's a.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
it's a, it could be a legitimate, perfectly
legitimate thing to do would bediscussed also in premarital
counseling, as this becomes more, as people become more open to
this idea, because it issomething that, uh, people are
starting to to address.
But I'm glad because you didmention some very key points
(47:05):
about, um, not just the bible,silence on it, but also wisdom
and potentially using it andagain, operating not from a
sense of fear but a sense ofreinforcing the, the belief and
strength of, of the marriage.
Um.
So, not great points, tim,three points.
So I was, I was just.
So.
(47:26):
Are you saying people get aprenup or are you saying I
forgot to?
Speaker 2 (47:30):
tell you a story.
I meant to.
I meant to leave this wholething out with the story, so
I'll close with the story.
Yeah, so many years ago 2014, Ibelieve it was uh, donald Trump
, donald J Trump came to Libertyuniversity.
Okay, for the first time.
Do you remember this?
I remember this.
(47:52):
So I was a student.
I was in seminary at the time.
I actually made it in 2012.
I can't remember it was between2012 and 2014 is when this
happened.
And so he comes to.
He comes to Liberty universityand it's a big fanfare because,
again, he's not run forpresident yet, he's just Donald
J Trump.
Uh, he's just the apprenticeguy, big hotel billionaire.
(48:12):
At this point he was, he wassounding off about obama pretty
regularly online, um, but he'sjust like oh, it's donald trump,
he's the he's.
This is larger than lifecharacter, you know.
So he's brought in as a guestand some, some people were just
like prudish about it, like whyis this man coming to liberty?
(48:32):
It's like we have all kinds ofguests at liberty, like, get
over yourselves, okay.
So, but he comes and he, he,he's given this whole speech and
it's it's as trump as you canimagine, like younger trump,
like 11, that's 11 years ago.
So, um, so uh.
But he ends his speech bysaying this he's like uh, I get
(48:53):
every day, every day where I go,I give two pieces of advice.
Every speech, two pieces ofadvice.
He's like number one get even.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
He's like everyone get even.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
And like you could hear like just as like, Ooh,
like in the crowd this is theblind center, 10,000 students
and everyone's like oh, we don'tknow how to think about this.
And he's like.
He's like you guys arechristians, though you don't
want to get even, do you, youknow?
So he kind of realized like noone was laughing or cheering for
(49:26):
that, so he kind of backpedaled, I think yeah that one, um, and
then the second thing he saidwas get it.
Or maybe he said prenup first, Iforget, I forget.
But then the second thing hesaid was get it.
Or maybe he said prenup first,I forget.
But then the second thing wasget a prenup.
You know, get a prenup.
You know, and this is you thinkabout Trump as a billionaire
who's been married now three, Ithink three times two or three
times Three, and, of course,like he's going to tell all of
(49:48):
his rich friends get up, get aprenup.
This is just totally.
He lives on a totally differentcultural planet than we do.
Right, right, okay.
So that was really scandalouswhen he said he told all the
liberty students, get a prenupand get even.
If someone screws you over, youget even against everything.
(50:09):
It created a whole firestorm.
I mean I I don't want to gointo the details, but it was a
whole firestorm.
It was in the news andeverything like donald trump
tells liberty students to geteven oh my god, that was good
good memory good callback.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
It's a good way to to end the uh the show today.
But yeah, great points, tim.
Uh guys consider uh yeah greatpoints, tim.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
Uh guys, consider, uh , just listen to the episode and
make me after this yeah, yeah,I guess the moral, the moral of
this episode is that prenups arenot, uh, anti-biblical, they're
not unbiblical, they're just atool that requires prudence and
wisdom and humility to and athird party you know that loves
both, both couple, you know bothmembers of that couple to walk
(51:01):
through together and to thinkabout when this might be
appropriate to do.
Yeah, but in some cases it canbe appropriate.
A couple with no like a college,a broke college couple coming
out of undergrad they don't needa prenup, okay yeah, yeah um,
you know a couple, but a couplewith significant wealth
disparity, where maybe oneperson has a million or two in
(51:24):
assets and the other personbrings comes into the marriage
with 20 000 in college debt,like that's their net worth.
Uh, in that kind of situation,a prenup might be appropriate,
just just for the time for a onethat expires over time, yeah,
uh, and then another one and Ithink this is a really, really
one where it really should beconsidered and that's a couple
(51:45):
with assets from previousmarriages and family ties, with
children, with trust funds andthings like that.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Those kinds of situations a prenup is is
definitely wise.
Those kind of situations aprenup is is definitely wise, um
, not because the couple doesn'tlove each other, but that they
recognize, okay, we both haveassets that belong to our
children, not us, uh and so weneed to protect those, um, and
just kind of take, take thoseout of the equation of our
marriage.
Speaker 1 (52:10):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's good stuff, tim, good stuff.
Yeah, no, it's good stuff, tim,good stuff.
Cool, all right.
Well, hopefully you enjoyed theepisode.
We will see you guys next time.
All right, all right, everyone.
Welcome back to the Psych andVO podcast.
Dan and Tim here with a hottopic.
Last week, we covered thebenefits of premarital
counseling.
We have a good number oflisteners who are either single
or in relationships andconsidering marriage, or maybe
just those who are married andwanted to just kind of get a
(00:22):
refresher, just those who aremarried and wanted to just kind
of get a refresher.
All that to say, because todaywe're going to be talking about
prenuptial agreements.
Are they biblical?
So our expert here, tim, isgoing to talk to us about how
the history of it or how it'sshowing up or whether or not
it's a good thing for marriages.
We'll discuss all those thingsright now, but before we do, as
(00:47):
always, we just want to ask youto keep sharing the podcast.
We're thankful for you guys whoare listening and we also
appreciate the topicsrecommended by you guys.
You can find us on Spotify andApple Podcasts.
Thanks for tuning in, all right?
Well, we're going to talk todayabout prenuptial agreements,
tim, and this is a hot topic andI immediately thought of what
(01:10):
are people going to say or whatare people expecting at the end
of this episode.
So this is exciting.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well, I will stick to my guns, okay.
So if they've got problems withwhat I'm about to say, I think
I can defend myself.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
uh, they might try to cancel.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
You send them all your angry emails, all right, so
, okay.
So why are we even talkingabout this subject?
Let's maybe answer that first.
The big elephant in the room uh, you know, people are getting
older.
They're burying at much laterstages in life.
In a in a previous episode inseason one, we talked about the
red pill community and how guysare kind of checking out of
(01:54):
relationships and even the ideaof marriage.
Uh, they're becoming incels ormigtails or something like that,
and if you don't know whatthose words mean, go back and
listen to that episode.
Love that plug.
Yeah, so men are, in general,just across our culture, are
(02:14):
kind of rejecting modernmarriage in many senses.
Some of them, some of theleaders of the red pill
community, are encouraging kindof common law marriage, which is
a legal marriage.
It's basically like live inmarriage, where you two live in
together, whatever you know, andthat's a way to skirt around
the system that's been built upto favor feminism.
(02:36):
This is their argument.
Okay, so you have that in thebackground, and so there's
there's this undercurrent in ourculture of an aversion to
marriage, at least for men, um,and especially if you're a man
and you are, uh, somewhatsuccessful in life and you hear
all these horror stories aboutmen getting married and then
(02:58):
they get taken advantage of.
Uh, you know, the wife cheatsand then she leaves or whatever,
and she takes half the assetsor all these things that can
happen, you know, um, and so alot of men are thinking about,
well, should I get a prenup ornot?
And uh, to, to protect me fromthese things.
So let's talk about what aprenuptial agreement is and how
(03:21):
it differs from a couple, acouple of different things.
So a prenuptial agreement, youthink about this nuptials means
like your vows or the thingsthat you tie the knot at the
wedding.
That's your nuptials.
Prenup means that it's anagreement that you sign.
It's a legal document that yousign before you get married, and
(03:43):
that legal document is supposedto delineate, uh, what you do
with certain, uh, certain assetsthat you, that one or more
parties, has.
You know, uh, so a prenuptialagreement can be structured in a
lot of different ways and wecan get into some of that at the
end, but essentially, uh, it'san agreement about what to do
(04:05):
with.
Usually it has to do with money,so what to do with the
financial assets, uh, if, in thecase of divorce, and you sign
this before you get married,okay, uh, so there's a cultural
perception of like, well, if youknow rich people, rich people
get prenups.
Or, uh, you know one partner'srich, they get a prenup so that
(04:27):
you know they can protect theirmoney from the other person.
And uh, prenups have this sortof cultural perception in our
culture that it's sort of like ajust in case, like you're
already kind of preparing fordivorce by getting a prenup and
so's a.
There's a bit of like culturalbaggage with a prenup, at least
in Christian circles.
Oh yeah, and so so Christians,you know, because of the
(04:51):
Christian view of marriage, thatuh, divorce is sort of a last
resort option, uh, and there'slimited grounds for divorce.
Uh, that marriage is a, marriageis meant to be lifelong.
Uh, it's meant to be lifelong,it's meant to be lasting.
We know we live in a fallenworld and that doesn't always
happen, but essentially thenature of marriage is that it's
(05:12):
permanent, and so why would youeven?
Here's the thinking is like, ifmarriage is permanent and it's
two Christians getting marriedand marriage is supposed to be
lifelong commitment, why wouldyou even consider getting a
prenup, right, you know, ifdivorce isn't an option and
you're going into this marriage,why would you get a prenup?
It seems like you're alreadytrying to hedge your bets
(05:36):
against this other person.
So that's that's sort of theconnotation with prenups.
When you bring it intoChristian circles, secular
circles, when you're dealingwith people who aren't
christians, who don't have thesame view of marriage, a prenup
is just kind of like, well youknow, it might be offensive to
someone.
Like if a couple gets engagedand one partner's like, hey, I
want a prenup, it might be.
(05:58):
It might kind of bother theother person yeah uh, but they
don't quite when it comes tomarriage.
They don't't think the same wayChristians do typically, you
know no one gets married.
Yeah, no one gets.
No one goes to the altarplanning to get divorced, at
least not very, very few people.
Yeah, you know, maybe the scamartists but, but, uh, yeah, no
(06:21):
one, like no one, goes to thealtar planning to get divorced.
Okay, but still some people getprenups, okay.
So why do we make this inChristian circles?
Because I just mentioned, likethe biblical view of marriage is
it's supposed to be a lifelongcommitment.
You know some of the when itcomes to the issues of divorce.
(06:41):
You know, christians kind ofkind of can disagree on how many
grounds there are for divorceand when divorce is biblically
appropriate.
Uh, there's the um, there'ssort of the no grounds view,
which is a really uh, rareminority view.
Um, uh, which essentially saysis the no grounds view doesn't
(07:01):
say that like christians, likeno one ever gets divorced.
It just says that a christianshould never initiate a divorce.
Even in the case of adultery,the christian doesn't.
The christian ought not toinitiate divorce.
They should always leave thedoor open for the spouse to be
reconciled.
So that's kind of like the nogrounds view and that's a pretty
(07:22):
, that's a pretty small minorityof theologians and ethicists
that hold that.
Yeah, has that changed?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
throughout the years, or has this been pretty
consistent?
Speaker 2 (07:32):
uh, it's, you know, I don't know how many people have
held that.
Um, I would think in thehistory of christianity it's a
rare thing, it's very rare and I, and I would wager to say that
it is probably again, somebodyis listening and this is like
their bread and butter topic,like, forgive me, but I would
(07:55):
wager to say it's probably avery contemporary stance or
position that some have carvedout in the evangelical world.
Okay, because there are groundsfor divorce, like Christianity.
Throughout the history of thehistory of the church, different
denominations have all kind ofhad different grounds for
divorce.
Yeah, so the no grounds view isa really rare, you know
(08:18):
position.
Then there's the one and twogrounds views.
You know one ground.
The one ground view saysbasically it's adultery, based
on Jesus' teachings in Matthew19.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
And that could be one time or like multiple.
So you have an adulterer andyou have a.
You know a one time thing.
Does it clarify, or is thereany distinction between those
two?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
one-time thing.
Does it clarify or is there anydistinction between those two?
Well, you know the the when itcomes to that issue, the
christian principle and this ifyou have a good marriage
counselor, they're always goingto come back to the principle of
hard-heartedness.
It's a matter of the heart.
So if a person fails, like apartner fails, and they cheat
and they're extremely remorsefuland they want to be reconciled
(09:06):
and they want to heal theirmarriage, then it's, it's
recommended the counselor, thepastor, is usually going to
recommend to the other spouse totry to, to remain open to, to
reconciliation.
Don't, don't cut off that yourspouse.
That's that's fallen in thisrespect.
However, also, they would alsorecognize this is a ground for
(09:28):
divorce.
I mean, it's a very seriousground for divorce.
So it's a very serious offense,it's a very serious violation
of the marriage covenant.
So you know, and it does seem tobe in the New Testament when
Jesus is teaching on this, thatreally any kind of sexual
immorality kind of falls in thatbucket.
(09:49):
Um, the word he, the word thatjesus uses, and you know we I
wasn't planning on kind of goingto those passages and talking
about divorce, but essentiallywhen jesus says, if anyone you
know puts away his, his wife,for any reason other than other
than pornea and sometimes that'stranslated as adultery.
But the Greek word is porneaand that basically means it's
(10:12):
where we get the wordpornography it basically means
sexual immorality.
So Jesus says if anyone putshis wife away for any by put
away means divorce puts his wifeaway for any reason other than
sexual immorality, then hecommits adultery and he causes
his wife to commit adultery.
So jesus, now jesus isanswering a very specific
(10:34):
question to the jews in thatcontext.
So again, we could probably doa whole series on like the
biblical views of divorce andthe different grounds and the
and the debates around that.
But, um, so Jesus is in thatspecific passage.
It's Matthew six and thenMatthew 19,.
Uh, uh, actually, with Mark six, I'm, I'm.
(10:55):
I think it is right now yeah.
Yeah yeah, matthew 19 is one ofthem.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
I think it's Mark, six is the other.
But um, uh yeah, essentiallythat's the ground that Jesus
gives is sexual immorality.
Well, later on in the NewTestament, in 1 Corinthians 7,
paul describes a situation inwhich a believer is abandoned by
their unbelieving spouse.
And so this is where this isthe second ground for divorce.
(11:23):
And so some people will holdthe two grounds and that's the
most common among evangelicalsis that there's two grounds for
divorce sexual morality andabandonment.
Um, and some people will kindof play technical here and say
well, were you abandoned by achristian or a non-christian?
And if you were abandoned by anon-christian, then, uh, you can
(11:43):
remarry, but if, if you wereabandoned by a non-Christian,
then you can remarry, but if youwere abandoned by a Christian,
then there's no ground there.
But I think that's a reallysilly argument to make.
Yeah, because the problem thatPaul is addressing is that when
someone became a Christian, whenthey converted to Christianity,
sometimes their unbelievingspouse would say I'm divorcing
you, I want nothing to, becauseChristianity was not popular in
(12:06):
the first century and that's acore value.
Yeah, so if their spouse becamea Christian, they'd be like I'm
done with you, I'm divorcing you.
And there's actually modernexamples of that, where people
become a Christian and theirspouse says I don't want
anything to do with this, you'recrazy and it's not as common,
but it does happen.
So in those, in those cases,the person is free to remarry
(12:30):
the person who has beenabandoned by the unbeliever.
Uh, when it comes to, like, thesituation where maybe a, a, a
person who professes to be aChristian I'll just put it that
way and they walk out and theyabandoned their spouse and
they're just gone you knowthere's some debates about that,
but my, my personal view onthat one and I, if I recall, I
(12:54):
had, I remember, reading a bunchof books.
We had to read a bunch of booksabout this in seminary and Tim
LaHaye believe it or not, theguy who wrote the left behind
books yeah, he actually.
Who wrote the left behind books?
Yeah, he actually, he actuallyuh wrote some things on this and
I like his take on this.
That, um, he, he said, you know, in this situation where, like
a, a, a christian, someone whoclaims to be a christian, they
(13:16):
walk out and they just abandontheir spouse.
Okay, um, the church, the localchurch, is supposed to be the
mediating institution in thatscenario and that could be okay,
that could be not just walkingout.
But let's say the spouse isabusive and goes to jail or they
commit a serious crime likemurder or rape or something like
(13:36):
that that lands them in jailfor the rest of their life.
Okay, those would be de factoabandonment.
That's my term, not his, Idon't think he uses that term.
But those are all de factoabandonment.
That's not my term, not his, Idon't think he uses that term.
But those are all forms of ofabandonment in his view.
And the, the local church willget involved in, like the pastor
and the deacons, the eldersshould get involved on behalf of
(13:58):
the spouse that's been, that'sbeen hurt, to confront the one
that is sinning Right, and ifthat person remains unrepentant
and they're they, they're justlike gone, they, they don't want
nothing to do with saving themarriage, they're living in sin,
whatever.
At that point church disciplinekicks in.
And, to put it in Paul'slanguage, the person he says
(14:23):
when a like a husband does that,when a husband doesn't provide
for his family, he's worse thanan unbeliever.
That's what Paul says in theNew Testament so if a man
refuses to provide for hisfamily, he is worse, he's acting
worse than an unbeliever.
And so now I'm kind of walkingyou through Tim LaHaye's
position and I think that's apretty good one is that, at the
(14:44):
point of church discipline, whenthe church community recognizes
this person is sinning, uh, andthey're, they're repentant, and
we, we know we are uh, in thespirit of first Corinthians,
turning this person over toSatan for the destruction of
their flesh.
They are becoming like anunbeliever to us at that point,
(15:08):
uh, the abandoned spouse, let'ssay is, has grounds for divorce.
You know, at that point, likethey've not, they've been
willing to reconcile, they've,they've held out hope and it's
taken the pastors and the eldersand the church even to try to
bring this other person back,and they're just hardhearted and
refuse to do it.
And so that's from a pastoral,like practical standpoint.
(15:33):
How do you deal with situationslike that?
And, and LaHaye's view and thisis my view is that that's sort
of a, a, a impracticality, thatis abandonment, sure, and so
that person has grounds fordivorce.
At that point, okay, so I'mgetting way into divorce, way
off the reservation with prenups.
Uh, there's some other viewswith divorce.
(15:53):
You know there's a guy, ascholar in britain, his name is
david, in stone brewer.
He takes a foregrounds view ofdivorce.
Yeah, four grounds, and that itgets a little bit more
technical.
Um, so we don't have to getintos.
And that it gets a little bitmore technical, um, so we don't
have to get into that one.
I think it's a reallyinteresting argument.
I'm sympathetic to it, um,because it also accounts for
things like abuse and, um, othersuch things that would render
(16:20):
the marriage kind of unworkableat that point.
Sometimes, with the two groundsview some of the hardliners,
they could get themselves stuckin moral absurdities, and one of
those would be something likejust to entertain this with me,
(16:44):
as a philosopher, we think ofthese morbid situations.
Okay, like, imagine a husbandwho is sexually faithful to his
wife, so he hasn't committed anysexual sin whatsoever, and he
has an abandoner, he takes careof her and all that stuff, but
he's extremely abusive to thekids.
In fact, he's so abusive to thekids, in fact he's so abusive
that he actually, uh, kills oneof them.
(17:04):
Okay, so he actually kills oneof their children, but he's
sexually faithful and hefinancially provides for his
wife.
Are there grounds for divorcehere?
You know, because now thishusband's going to go away for
the rest of his life.
Uh, you know, see what I mean.
Like, yeah, or let's even takethe kids out of it.
You know, he's, he's providingfinancially for his wife and
(17:26):
he's not, he's not committingany sexual sins, but he's
extremely abusive and and or isthreatening to harm her very
physically.
These are all practicalsituations that you have to work
through, where someone who justtakes that that hard line to
grounds view it's eitherabandonment or adultery, they
(17:49):
kind of get themselves stuck insituations like that, yeah yeah,
where they kind of they kind ofget stuck in the tech and like
a technical quandary, whereas Ithink, like Tim LaHaye's view
kind of allows to, allows us tosee like okay, like there are
practical ways of abandonmenthere.
(18:09):
That we need to consider andplus like and in the first
century it was very taboo for aChristian to initiate divorce
with their spouse.
So Paul even says hey, if theunbeliever is content to stay
with you, don't divorce them.
Yeah, cause by your presenceyou are being this sanctifying
(18:30):
presence in their life.
Okay, so it was.
It was not a thing.
Let's say it's not a thing forChristians in the first century
to initiate divorce and todivorce their spouses.
So that's just a generalprinciple is that Christians
should not seek divorce.
(18:51):
You know from their spouse.
It's like a last resort.
You know.
Let's say Again there's allkinds of situations, you know
that could get into it.
It's a complex topic, but okay,so okay, let's get back to
pre-naps.
I'm sorry, um, yeah, yeah, so,um, how do we?
get on that, um, yeah, so in thechristian view of marriage,
marriage is a covenant.
(19:11):
Okay, this is this is one ofthe main arguments to say is
well, christian, christianmarriage is a covenant.
You look in the bible, marriageis a covenant.
You look in the Bible, marriageis a covenant, and it's a
covenant before God.
And it's a covenant that'smeant to model Christ and his
church.
Okay, so if marriage is acovenant, why?
And if that's permanent,there's and this is the this is
(19:32):
how people kind of slip this in,slip this anti prenup view in
is that they, covenants don'thave, have conditions, they're
permanent commitments.
Covenants don't have conditions, they're permanent commitments.
It's an unconditional covenant.
Okay, that's sort of like, ifChrist's, if Christian marriage
is meant to model the view ormodel Christ in his church, well
(19:52):
, christ has this unconditionalcovenant with his bride, okay,
so Christian marriage has thisunconditional commitment to each
other, okay, so why would youattach a prenup to that?
Okay, the problem, the problemwith that view, is that, in
practicality, even in the firstcentury among christians, there
(20:15):
were pre-marital contracts thatwere signed that was going to be
one of my questions.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Was there anything done before that?
Okay?
Speaker 2 (20:22):
yeah, yeah.
So.
So you have this in the jew andjewish backgrounds, but you
also have this in, uh, roman,greco-roman settings as well.
Um, marriages oftentimes camewith legal contracts and legal
obligations.
In the jewish world it's calledthe ketubah, and it is a
contract that the bride and theor sorry, the groom and the
(20:46):
groom's father kind of gettogether and agree on what the
groom will pay if they getdivorced.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Okay, and it's meant to protect the woman in that
situation.
So if you think about this froma from a like an ancient
antiquity standpoint, women werevery dependent on their
husbands.
Okay.
So if a woman were to getdivorced in that kind of setting
and the first century I meanher her odds at life are really
(21:14):
low.
So they I mean they were reallydependent on their, on their
husband.
So this was meant to protectwomen in marriages, so that that
husband would not just simplyput his wife away.
There would be some seriousfinancial consequences with that
.
That was a common practice then.
Oh yeah, jews still practice itto this day.
Yeah yeah, and there wereJewish Christians in the first
(21:40):
century church and there's noindication that they
discontinued that practice.
Now, marriage it's not untilyou get into the later centuries
, like the Middle Ages, wheremarriage starts to become
sacramentalized, let's say whereit becomes viewed as a
(22:01):
sacrament of the church and thechurch begins to take a more
primary role in governingmarriages.
So before that it's a legal,cultural thing.
That is in the ancient world.
And so with that there's legaland financial obligations.
Even in the Old Testament,husbands had financial
(22:24):
obligations to care for theirwives and these stipulations
were born out in Deuteronomy andso, and if a husband didn't
fulfill those things, then therewere serious consequences.
Again, a lot of the divorcelaws and marriage laws in the
Old Testament were meant toprotect women.
So it was a lot of like if aman puts his wife away, or he,
(22:46):
or you know he needs thesereasons to put his wife away.
This is why the Jews come toJesus and they say, rabbi, can a
man put his wife away for anyreason?
Because this was a debate amongtwo rabbinic schools about how
to how to interpret a certainpassage in Deuteronomy of
whether for any reason meantadultery like sexual things, or
(23:07):
any reason meant just anythingat all.
So there was a real liberalschool in the first century that
said a man can put his wifeaway for anything, he can
divorce her for any reason.
And then there was a realconservative school that said no
, he can only divorce her forsexual reason.
And then there was a realconservative school that said no
, he can only divorce her forsexual problems.
So when Jesus teaches on thisin Matthew 19, he is addressing
a very specific Jewish questionfrom the law.
(23:30):
Now he goes, he adds on to, hegives the ideal.
He says from the beginning hesays Moses granted you guys, uh,
rits of divorce that you could.
You could actually divorce yourwife because of your hard
heartedness.
You know sick, but from thebeginning this wasn't so, that
(23:51):
when a man and woman cometogether they're one flesh and
what God has joined together letno man put asunder.
But then he does add this, hedoes acknowledge the exception
of sexual immorality.
And then, and then paulacknowledges like if you're
abandoned by your spouse, againthat person leaves.
You're not leaving, the otherperson is leaving at that point
(24:12):
like it's not, you're not theresponsible party of the failed
marriage.
Okay, so again, I'm gettingwhat.
We haven't got, the prenups yet, but yeah, so so the the
objection to prenups is like youget all this in the context,
why?
Why get a prenup when, whenchristian marriage is permanent?
Well, just recognize that.
(24:34):
Even in the first, even in theancient world, first century,
there are legal contractsassociated with marriage,
financial obligations associatedwith marriage.
In the event of divorce, thishappens, the husband pays this.
There were dowries involved inmarriages where, uh, you know,
either one way or the other,either um, the dowry is a gift
(24:56):
that comes with the bride to thegroom, um, or the groom pays
the family for a dowry for thebride and in, in either case, if
the marriage, if a divorcehappens in the marriage, fails,
that dowry comes into play.
Like, uh, the dowry needs to bereturned.
That was a form of collateral,form of collateral for the
marriage.
(25:17):
Okay, so these are all financialstipulations that are put to to
reinforce the marriage.
And this is where I'm goingwith it with with prenuptial
agreements and how a christiancould look at prenuptial
agreements.
Is that these kind of things inthe in the ancient world were
meant to reinforce the marriage,not to give an escape hatch
(25:39):
right but to reinforce themarriage so um now that's,
that's a cultural thing thatpeople did, which makes a lot of
sense, like even within thatculture and even in our culture.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
But I'm wondering that christians who are
listening their argument may bethat that is descriptive but not
necessarily prescriptive.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's a perfectly good objection
.
Yeah, because you know, we'renot in the Old Testament and, of
course, christians differ fromJudaism on a lot of different
things, and Jesus even correctedthe Jews on a lot of these
things.
So we don't take our orders,let's say, from Judaism when it
comes to marriage and divorcelaws Okay.
(26:19):
Judaism when it comes tomarriage and divorce laws okay,
um, but, uh, but there are.
The reason I bring that thosecultural things up is because
christians oftentimes have thissort of snapshot, idyllic view
of what christian marriage was,but we look at it through a 21st
century lens and are often notaware of the historical
(26:40):
development around the views ofchristian marriage.
Yeah, it's not that christiansbelieved in divorce in the first
century.
They didn't, uh, but there were, there were all these.
They recognized that divorcewas a possibility, okay, and
there, and even the greco-romanworld obviously recognize this,
the Jewish world recognizes thatthat divorce just sometimes
(27:01):
happens, okay and uh.
So there were financialstipulations, there were these
financial, uh, fallouts thatthat were designed to happen, um
, not to give someone an escape,but to protect the marriage, to
reinforce it and to protect thevulnerable party in marriage,
and so I think that's what wekind of need to walk into with
(27:24):
this prenup situation.
So a lot of times, anotherobjection that Christians will
raise is that this, a prenuptialagreement, undermines trust and
commitment between spouses bypromoting self-interest or
self-preservation before youeven get married.
So one spouse is like I want toprotect myself and preserve all
my assets, uh, when we're goinginto this marriage and that may
(27:48):
be the case, okay, um.
So in my, you know, thinking onthis, and I went out and kind
of I kind of poked around theinternet to see like what some
other kind of prominentchristian influencers or
whatever were thinking aboutthis.
Lo and behold, I didn't know,know, dave Ramsey had a view on
this, but he does, and his viewis actually really similar to my
own.
So I was kind of pleased bythat.
(28:09):
You know I don't always see eyeto eye with Dave Ramsey on some
things, but on this one Ithought it was like, okay, yeah,
this is pretty good.
So you know, here's somereasons not to get a prenup.
So this objection aboutself-interest and
self-preservation is alegitimate objection, because
reasons not to get a prenupwould be like just fear, fear of
(28:30):
getting taken advantage of.
I'm afraid I'm going to gettaken advantage of.
Well then, do you really knowthe person you're marrying?
Right?
that's a really prophecy rightthere, yeah yeah, yeah, it's
like you know, obviously we, wewe don't fully know the person
we're marrying.
We grow into that as a marriage, as a marriage couple.
But just having walking into amarriage with that fear I'm
(28:51):
going to get taken advantage of,that's paranoia.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
And that's not a good reason to get a, to get a
prenup, because you're notreally ready to get married
probably at that point.
Um, another, another reason not, uh, that doesn't justify a
prenup would be negativeexperiences with money or lack
of financial security.
Uh, so, uh, just like havingjust really poor experiences,
(29:17):
you know, like again it's morefear, um, residual hurt or pain
and anger from a previousmarriage, so like in another
marriage, uh, you're the, thedivorced spouse, really hurt,
hurt them financially in thecourts and the divorce process
and just took a lot of stufffrom them, and so now they
(29:39):
really want to protectthemselves.
So the the desire for a prenupin that sense comes from a place
of stuff from them and so nowthey really want to protect
themselves.
So the desire for a prenup inthat sense comes from a place of
hurt.
Yeah, so a desire for control.
There's some people and I thinkthis probably falls on men more
of like they're just controlfreaks and so they want to
control their money.
They don't want to give anycontrol or merge their assets or
(29:59):
anything like that.
That's a really bad reason toget a prenup.
Because, again, that's theseare, if you kind of picking up,
these are all reasons that needto get worked out in premarital
counseling.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
So last episode.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah, yeah.
And then just just selfishnessin general, like, yeah, like if
someone's just being selfish andlike my assets are mine, your
assets are yours, we're going tokeep them separate.
Yeah, like again, that's just abig issue, that that's a big
red flag.
You need to work through that.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
And primarily the whole thing about prenups is is
specifically financial right orare there yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Well, things that are , things are financially related
.
Okay, so it could be.
It can involve bank accounts,it could involve inheritance,
there's trust fund businesses,uh, anything like that.
Yeah, I you know, theoretically, I guess you could structure a
prenup around a lot of differentthings that I don't really know
.
I mean, I'm sure there's beensome more.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
So what's enforceable ?
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I think I heard one one word about that yeah, and,
and and prenups, um, you knowI'm not a lawyer so I'm not
giving legal advice here, but,uh, prenups, there are certain
stipulations that a court willlook at when a prenup is signed,
or certain conditions underwhich a prenup needs to be
(31:17):
signed.
Um, um, and if those conditionsaren't met, it can invalidate
the prenup.
Uh, so things like a prenupcan't be signed under duress,
like you can't, one partnercan't bring it to the the
wedding day and say sign thisbefore we get married, like that
.
That would be an example ofsigning it under duress, um,
that would invalidate the prenup.
(31:38):
Um, that would invalidate theprenup, a verbal prenup, so
something that's not written isinvalid in the courts.
I don't know if this is thecase or not, if it's just a
recommendation, but I believeeach person should or needs to
have a lawyer present for aprenup, and there's one other
that I'm forgetting at thispoint.
(31:59):
So there's conditions underwhich a prenup, and there's one
other that I'm forgetting, um,at this point.
But uh, yeah, there, so there'sconditions under which a prenup
could be invalidated.
Those conditions aren't met, um, so a court could look at a
prenup and say like, did, did a?
Oh, did the wife sign thisunder duress, oh yeah, oh, you
signed it three hours before Ididn't like he made you
something.
Okay, that's not valid.
Yeah, but it apparently happens.
(32:21):
I mean, lawyers have crazystories, you know.
Oh yeah, yeah, so.
So there's there's issues likethat.
So reasons not to get a prenup,as we mentioned, these are all
things that you need to takecare of.
A premarital counseling.
Okay, let me give you somereasons to consider a prenup Now
.
I'll start with somephilosophical, biblical reasons
and then I want to get into somepractical reasons that I picked
(32:43):
up from Dave Ramsey and I waskind of thinking about these
myself.
It's your power of the focus,yeah, so, okay, so here are some
modern arguments for a prenup.
Okay, number one the Bible doesnot give guidance on prenuptial
agreements.
Okay, and I think that is thebiggest argument against the
opposition is that the Bible issilent on this issue.
(33:05):
It doesn't, it doesn't sayanything about it whatsoever.
Yeah, so there's no biblicalprohibition against prenups.
So this, this requires wisdomand humility and all the other
virtues that we need asChristians.
This requires that to approachthis topic.
So all of the arguments againstprenuptial agreements that we
(33:27):
hear today are based onhistorical context and cultural
connotations, about which wementioned at the beginning of
the episode.
All the objections aretypically rooted in that they're
not rooted in a clear, strongbiblical argument, because it
really isn't're not rooted in aclear, strong biblical argument,
because it really isn't abiblical argument like a clear
one.
There's inferential arguments,there's like what we would call
(33:49):
a theological argument that youcould draw from scripture, but
again, it's like you'reinferring things.
Like I said, if marriage ispermanent and divorce isn't an
option, why would you get aprenup?
That's an inference, okay, sopeople would make that kind of
an argument.
Here's number two.
So prenuptial agreements canprotect a vulnerable partner.
(34:10):
So there is a practical side toprenups and they can protect a
vulnerable partner.
They don't just have to protectthe person who has wealth.
Okay, prenuptial agreements canbe structured in a way that
actually protect a vulnerableperson.
Um, that's that's.
I think that's what people don'talways understand about
prenuptial agreements is thatthey think it's always one-sided
(34:31):
and it that's really not thecase.
You can structure them in a lotof different ways, right?
So if you, if you flip it andsay we're getting a prenuptial
agreement, one to to protectthese assets, but also to, to to
ensure, to, like, uh, ensurethat this other person, the
person with less wealth, uh,doesn't doesn't get um, um,
(34:55):
taken to task in the courts,because if one person has
enormous wealth and the otherone doesn't, they can hire
better lawyers and and do allkinds of stuff in family courts.
Okay, so prenuptial agreementscan be structured in a way that
actually protect a vulnerableperson I'm thinking of.
Like you can set conditions inprenups where, uh, let's say,
(35:17):
one person has extreme wealthand the other person doesn't and
they're coming into a marriagetogether.
And let's say it person hasextreme wealth and the other
person doesn't and they'recoming into a marriage together
and let's say it's the guy thathas the wealth, okay, well, he,
he's earned this wealth beforethe marriage.
He wants to protect it.
Okay, and some States willhonor that.
Like, you brought this wealthin before the marriage, it's
yours.
Some States are like Nope, 50,50.
If you get so, the husband wants, you know, understandably, you
(35:45):
know wants to protect thoseassets that he is, you know,
worked for and earned.
Uh, but you know he could, hecould set up the prenup.
The two of them could set it upto where, uh, okay, in the
event of divorce, it, the, itmatters what they can, who the
responsible party is in divorce.
So if the, if the husband isthe one that's like I'm done
with this marriage, I'm out ofhere well then the prenup can be
(36:06):
structured to where he forfeitssome of his assets to her if
he's leaving the marriage.
So that's a lot like a ketubahjewish ketubah or it could be
structured to where, um, thewife is entitled to some assets,
but if she leaves or shecommits adultery and she's the
one that is responsible for thedestruction of the marriage, she
forfeits those assets.
She forfeits claim to thoseassets.
(36:28):
Let's say so.
A prenuptial agreement can bestructured in a lot of different
ways.
So it's not just this like oneperson's rich and they want to
protect their stuff.
That's the, that's theconnotation, but that's not
accurate.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Yeah, one of the ones I had heard was if, um, that
they both, whatever theyaccumulated on their own, that
stays with them, and then,whatever they accumulated
together, they split that inhalf.
He says that that's one of themost common ones that he has a
structure for his clients.
Yeah, yeah, and common onesthat he has instruction for his
clients.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Yeah, yeah, and I'm sure it gets a little technical
and complicated the longer themarriage goes on.
So, but yeah, and we'll getinto some of that in a second.
So, prenuptial agreementsnumber three they can protect
against fraud, abuse andmanipulation and divorce courts
or family courts.
So if you have a prenuptialagreement, like you mentioned,
that situation of two couplescome together, a couple of two
(37:20):
couples, a couple comes togetherand they have assets and
they're like, okay, what webring in before the marriage is
is ours separately, but what weearn together is ours together.
Um, a prenuptial agreement cansave a lot of time in family
court to say, okay, we, weagreed on this from the
beginning.
Yeah, um, it can protectagainst liars.
(37:41):
Basically, you know, people can, like, you might look, you
might look at someone on the weton the on your wedding day and
be like, wow, this person's anangel, they're perfect, they're
not going to be an angel infamily court.
Yeah, and I, I, I know of a lotof situations where a couple
that I, I knew or I I at leastknew tendentially through other
(38:04):
people um, seemed like a healthycouple and then all of a sudden
, like you know, sometime laterthey're getting divorced and one
person is just being absolutelyhorrible, lying, manipulating,
doing all kinds of horrible,nasty, nasty stuff in the family
courts.
Well, a prenuptial agreement, ifyou have assets, can protect
(38:26):
against that stuff.
It's a bulwark against it, uh.
So again, it's just like aninsurance policy.
Um, pretty much.
And number four you know,prenuptial agreements can
actually, as I said before, theycan reinforce the marriage by
attaching financial consequencesto a deserting or unfaithful or
abusive spouse.
So a prenuptial agreement canactually reinforce the marriage,
(38:48):
not just provide this escapehatch parachute, you know, for
the person who wants to get outof the marriage that.
That's true.
So consider a few examples.
Well, let me give you thisfirst.
Dave Ramsey gives four reasonswhy someone should get a prenup,
or four situations.
Let's say One is this that ifsomeone, if one or both, are
(39:10):
bringing into a marriageinheritance or trust funds for
children of a previous marriage,so if you have, if you have
assets that are for yourchildren, you want to protect
those because again, you couldget it.
Dave Ramsey says prenups keepthe weird away.
So if someone finds out thatyou have a lot of money, like
(39:31):
there's some weirdos that comearound and they they want to be
friends with you and then theyhave these ideas for business
and all this other, all thisother stuff, but that you know,
um, there's this stereotype inour culture which we've all kind
of at one point thought of, andthat's or or seen maybe in real
life, where a woman, a widow,has all the assets of her, of
(39:54):
her husband, that has died andshe's well off, she's taken care
of, and then she gets marriedagain and the guy she remarries
is horrible and is trying totake her money from her.
Yeah, so a prenup can actuallyprotect that, you know.
It can protect the assets thatshe would pass on to her
children yeah, that's good yeahuh, a prenuptial agreement can.
(40:16):
In the case of significant debt,someone bringing debt into the
marriage a prenuptial agreementcan protect against that.
To say, if, if the marriagefails, uh, the one who didn't
bring that debt in is notresponsible for that debt, the
debt goes with the other personthat brought the debt into
marriage.
And if you think about, in ourgeneration, there's people that
are bringing six figures of debt, of college debt, into a
(40:37):
marriage.
So a prenuptial agreement canactually be a good thing to to
say, look, we're, we're in thistogether, we're married, um, and
, and I love you, I'm going tohelp you pay off this debt while
we're married, for as long aswe're married, you know.
But if our marriage fails, I'mnot taking half this debt, right
, right, yeah.
(40:58):
A third case would be a business.
If one partner owns a businessand they're coming into the
marriage, this actually involvesmore people than just a
marriage.
So if one partner owns abusiness, he has employees in
that business, and if there'snot a prenuptial agreement in
(41:23):
place when, if a divorce happens, the divorce spouse can
actually take control, partialownership, of that business, and
then, and then you could have acouple that's going through
divorce, both having partialcontrol of this business and it
could actually destroy thebusiness.
And so then, and then you haveall these people that are losing
their jobs because of onecouple that's getting divorced.
So a prenuptial agreement couldactually say, okay, this guy
(41:43):
owns this business, or this galowns her business, she's
bringing this into the marriage.
That is off limits in a divorcecase.
And then the fourth examplewould be extreme assets.
Dave Ramsey puts us at like oneor $2 million If, if one
person's bringing that amount ofmoney into the marriage, or or
(42:03):
I should say like a a one to $2million swing or differential
you know, then a prenuptialagreement is probably wise in
that sense.
But but a prenuptial agreementis probably wise in that sense,
but a prenuptial agreementdoesn't have to be permanent.
And this is the final piece isthat they can be structured to
(42:24):
where they erode over time andthey actually expire.
And this is what Ramseyrecommends, and this is what I
was kind of thinking aboutindependently is that you can
structure prenups to where youknow if, let's say, a couple
gets married and then two yearslater they get divorced, okay,
and that in that situation, ifthere's a prenup in place, yeah,
of course the person whobrought all the assets into the
(42:45):
marriage should keep those,assuming he's not at fault, or
assuming you know she's not atfault, you know, this is why
it's meant to protect againstmanipulation and abandonment and
things like that.
Okay, um, but let's say they'remarried for 20 years.
You know a prenuptial agreementlike if you've been married for
someone for 20 years, you'veearned a lot of things together,
(43:05):
um, you've done life together,and so at that, over time, the
prenup should should probablyexpire or erode.
Where where, over time, fiveshould probably expire or erode.
Where, over time 5, 10, 15years it becomes less and less
force, or the other spouse getsmore and more of a claim to the
assets and eventually the prenupjust expires and all their
(43:26):
assets are just joined togetherat that point.
So those are the situationswhere a prenuptial agreement
would be wise and and and wouldactually, uh, reinforce the
marriage and take it.
Takes away the temptation.
That's another thing thatpeople don't like.
People often underestimate, ormaybe they overestimate, their
own virtue in marriages, youknow where, like they wouldn't
(43:52):
be tempted to take advantage oftheir spouse in family court To
take advantage of the assetsthat their spouse has.
Or maybe they overestimate thevirtue of their spouse, although
they wouldn't take advantage ofme, we would just be fair,
everything would just be fair.
And toward, if we went to courtLike no, I don't know,
(44:35):
no-transcript, to take the weirdout of the situation and just
say this is okay, this is I'm,I'm be the, the person with the
wealth, I'm bringing theseassets into the marriage.
Um, for a time they'reprotected, uh, but but as we do
life together and over time, asour marriage progresses into the
(44:56):
decades, the prenup goes away.
Yeah, you know that.
That would.
That would signal that I lovemy, I love my spouse and I'm
committed to my spouse more thanthis money is that I'm not
hanging onto this forever.
It's just, you know, in thoseearly years of marriage you know
to make sure that our marriageis going to last like these,
(45:17):
this, these conditions are inplace.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
Yeah, yeah, no, those would make a lot of sense.
Make a lot of sense.
Um, no, it's good, tim, Iappreciate that.
Um, I'm trying to think of anyany questions that that would
have up, and I think you coveredeverything, man.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yeah, so let me.
I'll give you some concludingthoughts.
And you know, as I said, theBible is silent on prenuptial
agreements.
So the Bible is very loud aboutmarriage and divorce, but
silent about some of thecultural things around marriage
and divorce, and prenups is oneof those things.
The most important factor toconsider with a prenup is why
(45:56):
does one or both parties want it?
And this is where a marriagecounselor or a pastor should get
involved.
Why do you want it?
No one should be guilted ifthey bring up the issue of
prenup.
You shouldn't just immediatelyguilt them and be like oh, why
would you want a prenup?
You're Christians.
Well, if someone does that,have them.
Listen to this episode, okay,and then, uh, also, you know the
(46:19):
one another important factor isthe stipulations around a
prenuptial agreement, how thatis structured.
Is it structured to reinforcethe marital bonds or is it
designed as an escape hatch forone person?
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I think that's an important factor there.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
Yeah, yeah yeah, and I would say, if a prenup is
designed to reinforce themarriage and to encourage the
longevity of the marriage, thenit's a.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
it's a, it could be a legitimate, perfectly
legitimate thing to do would bediscussed also in premarital
counseling, as this becomes more, as people become more open to
this idea, because it issomething that, uh, people are
starting to to address.
But I'm glad because you didmention some very key points
(47:05):
about, um, not just the bible,silence on it, but also wisdom
and potentially using it andagain, operating not from a
sense of fear but a sense ofreinforcing the, the belief and
strength of, of the marriage.
Um.
So, not great points, tim,three points.
So I was, I was just.
So.
(47:26):
Are you saying people get aprenup or are you saying I
forgot to?
Speaker 2 (47:30):
tell you a story.
I meant to.
I meant to leave this wholething out with the story, so
I'll close with the story.
Yeah, so many years ago 2014, Ibelieve it was uh, donald Trump
, donald J Trump came to Libertyuniversity.
Okay, for the first time.
Do you remember this?
I remember this.
(47:52):
So I was a student.
I was in seminary at the time.
I actually made it in 2012.
I can't remember it was between2012 and 2014 is when this
happened.
And so he comes to.
He comes to Liberty universityand it's a big fanfare because,
again, he's not run forpresident yet, he's just Donald
J Trump.
Uh, he's just the apprenticeguy, big hotel billionaire.
(48:12):
At this point he was, he wassounding off about obama pretty
regularly online, um, but he'sjust like oh, it's donald trump,
he's the he's.
This is larger than lifecharacter, you know.
So he's brought in as a guestand some, some people were just
like prudish about it, like whyis this man coming to liberty?
(48:32):
It's like we have all kinds ofguests at liberty, like, get
over yourselves, okay.
So, but he comes and he, he,he's given this whole speech and
it's it's as trump as you canimagine, like younger trump,
like 11, that's 11 years ago.
So, um, so uh.
But he ends his speech bysaying this he's like uh, I get
(48:53):
every day, every day where I go,I give two pieces of advice.
Every speech, two pieces ofadvice.
He's like number one get even.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
He's like everyone get even.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
And like you could hear like just as like, Ooh,
like in the crowd this is theblind center, 10,000 students
and everyone's like oh, we don'tknow how to think about this.
And he's like.
He's like you guys arechristians, though you don't
want to get even, do you, youknow?
So he kind of realized like noone was laughing or cheering for
(49:26):
that, so he kind of backpedaled, I think yeah that one, um, and
then the second thing he saidwas get it.
Or maybe he said prenup first, Iforget, I forget.
But then the second thing hesaid was get it.
Or maybe he said prenup first,I forget.
But then the second thing wasget a prenup.
You know, get a prenup.
You know, and this is you thinkabout Trump as a billionaire
who's been married now three, Ithink three times two or three
times Three, and, of course,like he's going to tell all of
(49:48):
his rich friends get up, get aprenup.
This is just totally.
He lives on a totally differentcultural planet than we do.
Right, right, okay.
So that was really scandalouswhen he said he told all the
liberty students, get a prenupand get even.
If someone screws you over, youget even against everything.
(50:09):
It created a whole firestorm.
I mean I I don't want to gointo the details, but it was a
whole firestorm.
It was in the news andeverything like donald trump
tells liberty students to geteven oh my god, that was good
good memory good callback.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
It's a good way to to end the uh the show today.
But yeah, great points, tim.
Uh guys consider uh yeah greatpoints, tim.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
Uh guys, consider, uh , just listen to the episode and
make me after this yeah, yeah,I guess the moral, the moral of
this episode is that prenups arenot, uh, anti-biblical, they're
not unbiblical, they're just atool that requires prudence and
wisdom and humility to and athird party you know that loves
both, both couple, you know bothmembers of that couple to walk
(51:01):
through together and to thinkabout when this might be
appropriate to do.
Yeah, but in some cases it canbe appropriate.
A couple with no like a college,a broke college couple coming
out of undergrad they don't needa prenup, okay yeah, yeah um,
you know a couple, but a couplewith significant wealth
disparity, where maybe oneperson has a million or two in
(51:24):
assets and the other personbrings comes into the marriage
with 20 000 in college debt,like that's their net worth.
Uh, in that kind of situation,a prenup might be appropriate,
just just for the time for a onethat expires over time, yeah,
uh, and then another one and Ithink this is a really, really
one where it really should beconsidered and that's a couple
(51:45):
with assets from previousmarriages and family ties, with
children, with trust funds andthings like that.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Those kinds of situations a prenup is is
definitely wise.
Those kind of situations aprenup is is definitely wise, um
, not because the couple doesn'tlove each other, but that they
recognize, okay, we both haveassets that belong to our
children, not us, uh and so weneed to protect those, um, and
just kind of take, take thoseout of the equation of our
marriage.
Speaker 1 (52:10):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's good stuff, tim, good stuff.
Yeah, no, it's good stuff, tim,good stuff.
Cool, all right.
Well, hopefully you enjoyed theepisode.
We will see you guys next time.
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