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You already have a prenup.

Your state wrote it.

Cover of The Marriage Contract, 2027 by Eric Silver

The Marriage Contract, 2027. The prenup you sign when you don’t sign a prenup.

Buy it on Amazon What’s free here

How much of the money each state leaves to the judge

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming District of Columbia District of Columbia

0 to 1920 to 3940 to 5960 to 7980 to 100

The Luck of the Draw Index: 0 is a contract you can read, 100 mostly says “ask the judge.”

If you’re married, you have a prenup. Your state wrote it. It runs to a few thousand pages of statutes and court decisions, it decides who owns your paycheck, who owes your spouse’s hospital bill, and who inherits, and it changes when you move. You agreed to all of it by signing a one-page license. Nobody handed you the rest.

At a county clerk's counter, two beaming people sign one sheet of paper. Behind them, where nobody's looking, a forklift sets down a pallet of law books stamped Rest of Agreement.
“Sign here. The rest will be along shortly.”

This book is the rest, read to you clause by clause. Every term appears twice: once as a lawyer would have drafted it if anyone ever had, and once in English. Words that look like this mark the places where the contract gives no answer and leaves the question to a judge you’ve never met.

Every term appears twice

As a lawyer would have drafted it

All property acquired by either Spouse from the date of marriage until the cutoff date fixed by state law (separation, filing, or decree) is marital property regardless of title. Upon dissolution the court shall divide marital property in such proportions as it deems equitable, without regard to marital misconduct in most states, after considering the length of the marriage, the age, health, income, and employability of each Spouse, each Spouse’s contributions including homemaking, and such other factors as the court deems relevant.
Article 3, the default contract

In English

In nine states, now. Elsewhere, at a divorce. From the wedding until you split, whatever either of you earns counts as shared, whoever’s name is on the account. In nine states it’s half each from the start, though only three must split it evenly. In the rest, a judge decides what’s fair, and you hope for the best.
Article 3, the term sheet

Ten terms in it that surprise almost everyone

  1. Your spouse doesn’t own your paycheck, until someone files
  2. Moving changes your contract
  3. Lawmakers can change the terms, and the change reaches you
  4. Your spouse’s hospital bill may land on you
  5. A joint tax return puts you on the hook for every dollar
  6. A beneficiary form overrides both your will and your divorce decree
  7. No prenup can give up 401(k) rights
  8. Put an inheritance in a joint account and it probably stops being yours
  9. Your will can leave your children nothing, but your spouse can still claim a share
  10. The biggest terms come down to one person’s opinion

That’s Chapter 34. The other thirty-five explain where each of those came from and what you can do about it.

Two identical bouquets lie on a florist's counter. One already has a tag: Party, eighty dollars. The florist is using a price gun to make the other's tag: Wedding, three hundred and forty dollars. A customer in a veil looks delighted.“Yes, they’re the same flowers—but would you rather have $80 worth of flowers or $340 worth of flowers at your wedding?”On a stepladder in the living room, one spouse is putting up a smoke detector. The other spouse stands below, arms folded, looking hurt.“So you’ve been thinking about burning the house down.”In a courtroom, a robed judge gives a big spin to a game-show wheel. Its wedges say fifty-fifty, sixty-forty, seventy-thirty, whatever feels right, and lunch first. Two nervous spouses and their lawyers watch.“The court has carefully weighed all eleven statutory factors.”A 1930s hotel room. A bored blonde woman and a man in an undershirt play cards on the bed. In the open doorway a photographer and a detective wait politely, one of them looking at a pocket watch.“We’re a little early. Should we come back and be shocked at nine?”An outdoor wedding with a glowing couple at the altar. Their officiant is a golden retriever in a clerical collar, seated behind an open book. One guest leans over to whisper to another.“By the powers vested in me by cheap-officiant-certs.com, I now pronounce you man and wife.”A slick brochure in the style of an airline loyalty program, titled Marriage Rewards. It lists Silver at nine months, with survivor benefits; Gold at one year, with half their Social Security; and Platinum at ten years, which you keep even after you cancel. Its small print mentions blackout dates and terms that may change without notice, and says to see Article 13.“Members enjoy priority boarding at the emergency room.”Two counters in a department store. At Wedding Registry, a happy couple scan a toaster, each pushing a separate cart marked His or Hers. Next door, nobody's at Divorce Registry except a robed judge holding one long scroll.“Over here, it all goes on one list.”In a church, an officiant reads vows to a couple. A person in the third pew, wearing a lanyard and a hospital billing polo shirt, writes careful notes on a clipboard.“… in sickness and in health…” “Could you repeat that last part? For our records.”Relatives in black sit in a half circle in a lawyer's wood-paneled office as the lawyer reads a will. The widow, at one end, looks calm and holds a thin booklet marked Probate Code.“And to my beloved wife, I leave… whatever the statute was going to give her anyway.”

All the cartoons

Should you buy it?

Probably, if

  • You’re married and curious what you signed up for. It’s written mainly for you, and it isn’t too late to change the money terms.
  • You’re about to be. The default might already be what you want, which saves a legal fee and an awkward dinner.
  • Someone has handed you a prenup. Every chapter compares the default with the common alternatives, which shows what signing would cost you.
  • You’re on your way out, and want to know what a judge could do before you pay two lawyers to argue about it.
  • You want to hand it to someone. “Did you know we already have a prenup? Want to read it?” is easier to say than “I think we need a prenup.”

Probably not, if

  • You need advice about your own case this month. Hire a lawyer licensed in your state. The book will make that meeting shorter. It isn’t a substitute for it.
  • You want to be talked into a prenup, or talked out of one. The book doesn’t argue for either. If you read it and keep the default, that’s a fine outcome.
  • You want a lawyer’s book. The author is an economist. No lawyer reviewed it. Every claim has a source in the notes, and sources that weren’t checked against the original say so.
  • You want your state’s rules in print. The book is the general edition. The state detail is on this site, one page per state.
Buy it on Amazon

In Kindle and paperback.

What’s free here, whether or not you buy it

Six short essays, drawn from the book

The contracts, the states, and the rest

What’s in the book

Thirty-six chapters in ten parts. Each has the Clause twice, a handful of real cases where the contract did something at least one person didn’t see coming, some law that sounds made up and isn’t, and the behavioral economics of why careful people treat this contract as they do. The economics is in boxes you can skip.

You Already Signed

  1. The Contract You Didn’t Read
  2. Why Nobody Reads It
  3. Luck of the Draw
  4. Who Wrote This Thing?
  5. Getting In, and Whether You’re In at All

Terms That Apply to Every Marriage

  1. The Perks
  2. Money While You’re Married
  3. Your Spouse’s Debts, and Your Spouse’s Tax Return
  4. If You Die Married
  5. The Form That Beats Your Will

The Property Clauses

  1. Whose Is It?
  2. How “Mine” Becomes “Ours”
  3. Businesses, Degrees, Stock Options, and Bitcoin
  4. The Division Clause: “As the Court Deems Just”

The Support Clauses

  1. Alimony: Whether, How Much, How Long
  2. Fault, Adultery, and Lifestyle Clauses

Terms You Can’t Negotiate

  1. The Kids
  2. Embryos, Pets, and Rings

Other Contracts, and None

  1. God’s Contract and the State’s
  2. No Ring, No Contract
  3. Round Two: Second Marriages and Blended Families

Crossing Lines

  1. Moving States
  2. Leaving the Country
  3. How Everyone Else Does It

How It Actually Gets Enforced

  1. Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law
  2. Your Brain in a Divorce
  3. Hiding, Spending, Finding
  4. What It Costs

Amending Your Contract

  1. Prenups and Postnups: What Makes Them Stick
  2. What People Actually Put in Them
  3. Three Contracts You Could Sign Instead
  4. How to Raise It
  5. Where the Contract Is Heading

The Part of Tens

  1. Ten Terms That Surprise Almost Everyone
  2. Ten Worst Arguments Ever Made in Divorce Court
  3. Ten Things to Do This Weekend

From the site

All articles

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How it was made

My training is in behavioral economics, and I’m not a lawyer. I’ve been married once, and our arrangements seem fine. What bothered me was finding out I’d agreed to a contract I couldn’t read, and then finding no book that would read it to me.

The book was drafted with a lot of help from an AI system, under my direction. No lawyer has reviewed it. The details are in its last appendix and at aporia.institute/ai.

2027 edition, in Kindle and paperback.

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