And it sounds pretty terrible to be honest. The case discussed is a landmark one because it actually gave a prenuptial agreement standing in British law. Prior to this, they were routinely ignored. In this situation, the husband was suing the wife (a wealthy heiress), after signing an agreement saying that they wouldn't go after each others possessions.
Formal declarations of mistrust, pre-nups are emotionally unfortunate. They overtly plan for failure, and thus involve a jarring cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, couples are vowing to be true till death parts them; on the other, they're already hammering out the details of their divorce. But when nearly half of British marriages do end in divorce, practicality may get the better of romance, especially for those who bring considerable assets to the relationship.
Thus couples that can bear the contamination of an otherwise joyful celebration should have their agreements honoured. For British courts to have hitherto invalidated pre-nups has been high-handed, like British marital law in general. In the UK, divorcing couples don't have assets divided 50-50. It's worse than that. The courts can do whatever they want.
However unattractive, pre-nups are at least a way round a law that dictates simply because you love someone and share their bed, that person has a claim on everything you own. In a time when women had little or no ability to support themselves, a husband's monies being legally regarded as joint assets helped to protect the wife. But these days both sexes have access to the workplace, and the protection that women like Katrin Radmacher require isn't from helpless penury, but from rapacity – the greed of ex-husbands who violate what should be legally binding contracts to turn divorce into a nice little earner.
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