How the prenup became mainstream |
One 2023 poll found that half of adults in the United States say they’re opening to signing a prenuptial agreement. | Lorenzo Di Cola/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Prenuptial agreements, long exclusive to celebrities and the ultra-rich, have trickled down to the rest of us.
A 2023 Axios/Harris poll found that half of US adults say they’re open to signing a prenup, and that younger people are driving the trend.
Forty-one percent of Gen Z and 47 percent of millennials who are engaged or have been married said they entered a prenup, according to the poll.
There might be several things driving the trend: new apps that make it easier and cheaper to draw up prenups, influencers touting the value of prenups on social media and in podcasts, and young people being more likely to be the children of divorced parents and therefore more realistic about the possibility that their marriage won’t last.
The New Yorker staff writer Jennifer Wilson did a deep dive into the world of prenups, speaking to divorce lawyers, married couples, and others to better understand why prenups are growing in popularity. She shared some of her findings with Today, Explained host Noel King.
Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
What got you thinking and writing about prenups?
I just noticed them all over. You’ve seen prenups on TV shows like Sex and the City or reality shows like Real Housewives. And in those contexts it makes sense because we’re talking about people with a lot of money. The stereotype is that you’ve got a rich guy and he wants to figure out a way to screw his gold-digging younger partner out of her share of the assets.
But I started seeing prenups appear on shows like Love Is Blind. There was a contestant who worked in HR and she wanted her fiance to sign a prenup, and neither of them really had much money. And I expected the conversation on social media to be sort of making fun of this a little bit. Like,........