Prenuptial agreements — they say the darnedest things!
Marlene Browne, a divorce attorney and author, has seen one stipulating a wife’s weight not exceed 130 pounds, and others codifying the acceptable minimum number of sexual encounters per week.
Besides being more than a little insane, such demands are, more importantly, not enforceable in a court of law.
That’s also what the courts told a certain “Mr. Weiss,” a name ascending to the level of Brown v. Board of Education or Marbury v. Madison among legal mavens. In the 1996 California case “Marriage of Weiss,” a Jewish father sought to legally compel his non-Jewish ex-wife to raise their children as Jews, as they had agreed upon in a prenup. The court found that clause was not legally enforceable.
But the times, they are a-changin’, says Browne, in San Francisco recently to promote her latest book, “The Boomer’s Guide to Divorce.”
In the near future, Browne believes California’s courts may enforce Weiss-like stipulations about raising children Jewish — and you’ll have Barry Bonds to thank for it.
Yes, that Barry Bonds.
The prenuptial signed by Bonds’ former wife, Sun, showed her less compassion than her former husband doled out to National League pitching in 2001. While in Canada and without legal representation, the limited-English speaker signed away claims to all but a pittance of Bonds’ fortune.
That, along with a pair of other cases, spurred action by the California legislature. New laws on the books render it much more difficult to make such one-sided prenuptial agreements stick (among a plethora of stipulations, a woman in Sun Bonds’ position must now be repeatedly advised to seek legal counsel and wait at least a week before signing). But if one suffers the slings and arrows of tortuous legal requirements, a far broader range of prenuptial stipulations are now legally enforceable.
So, Browne predicts, it’s just a matter of time before a second “Marriage of Weiss”-like case comes before the courts. And this time, the outcome may well be different.
Of course, Browne notes, Jews should be used to signing additional documents prior to marriage (and she knows this not only as an attorney licensed to practice in three states but as a Jew-by-choice once divorced now happily married again).
“In my experience, and in my premarital agreement, forget the ketubah. You need a contract that, in the case of the state dissolving the marriage, you will before a beit din [rabbinic court] and do what you have to do to give a get [halachic divorce decree] to your wife,” she said.
In fact, the Conservative movement has officially been suggesting a contract guaranteeing a get for nearly 40 years, Browne continued.
And, as far as mixed couples putting their intention to raise Jewish children in writing — and courts enforcing it — it’s all right with her.
“Think about a Jewish man who withstands his family’s objections and thinks ‘What’s important is the way our children are raised.’ If she says she’ll raise the children Jewish, why not enforce that agreement? I think it’s a fraud not to.”
“The Boomer’s Guide to Divorce,” by Marlene Browne (376 pages, Alpha Books, $16.95).