Happily ever after is the goal of every wedding, except for weddings of convenience, a growing practice among celebrities and other millionaires. Of course, these stars will never say it out in the open, although the smoking gun is often the nastily or cleverly crafted prenuptial agreement. Regardless of which side one is on, the bride or the groom, the rich or the poor, the prenup is like a safety net to protect the well-endowed partner from getting taken advantage of, to the chagrin of the poorer or the less-rich in the equation.
Prenups were conspicuously absent in the May 2012 nuptials of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, a man who is worth $19 billion. So even Donald Trump couldn’t stop asking what would happen if Priscilla Chan divorces Zuckerberg. It is a no-brainer that in the absence of the so-called safety net, Chan will get the better end of the bargain, to the tune of easily $10 billion.
For a calculating person like Zuckerberg, based on his recent portrayal in the movie, The Social Network, experts doubt if the smoking gun was at all missing. They suspect that it’s there, it’s just not out there. Well after the nuptials spells are broken, it always comes down to this, the dollar valuation of what the union actually means.
Still, the agreement that both precedes and supersedes the lawful union of two people can have a stabilizing effect on the enterprise. For example, if it’s there, the lesser-endowed partner would more likely want to stay in the union. After all, he or she doesn’t get the lion’s share at throwing in the towel.
In actual practice, the divorce of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes in July of this year, demonstrates just what happens when the safety net is in place. As TMZ reported, Holmes was getting peanuts from the settlement. While this is a real sad story, it brings to the fore just who is the more materialistic-minded between the two. Apparently, Holmes could not care less about the fortune of the man she married, she just wanted to be out of it, that’s all.
For the royals, the agreement is taken care of even before it can be discussed in the media. This is what one might expect from the knot-tying ceremony between Prince William and the now, Duchess of Cambridge in the UK in April 2011. It’s not even talked about because it is a given. If carefully tying the knot is preceded by the prenup, a royal betrothal has a prequel even for that. Otherwise, the financial future of the royalty can be in jeopardy, which is something that cannot happen.
The crux of the matter is, the safety clause that controls the machinations of a wedding legally, is no guarantee of living happily ever after. Still, it exerts some form of pressure on the part of the weaker link to stay in the knotted state. It may not be perfect, and often requires a lot of legal wrangling, but if the rich groom or bride manages to swing it, the knot is more likely to stay in place. It is rather like a soft dog leash.
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Patricia Couch is a wedding blogger and a part-time graphics designer at a custom wedding invitation designs agency.