A prenuptial agreement is a marriage contract document usually made and signed by couples before or at the beginning of their union in order to produce results in the distribution of assets.
It is a common practice applied to give marriages a binding effect which is most often come into effect during the legal separation and divorce proceedings.
In some jurisdictions, a prenuptial agreement typically lists all the property that each spouse owns in the relationship, including debts, and specifies the role of each party's property rights after the dissolution of the marriage.
Prenuptial engagements are sometimes called "premarital agreements" or sometimes "contracts" in modern times' language.
The agreement to share properties, or the Prenuptial agreement it is called, has been a debatable topic, especially in societies that are rooted deeply in a patriarchal system where women are not allowed to own properties with the mindset came to change due to the advent of the women rights campaigns spreading across the world.
It is a rule for marriage to be free of conflicts that must be applied, and that is what it meant for married couples to sign prenuptial agreements. Many couples, however, shy away from signing the prenuptial agreements or the marriage contracts because they disregard the move as a way of commercializing the marriages.
Some couples may deem it to be ruinous in nature because of the fact that marriage contrasts forecast something fishy about marriage, the divorce, which is the most fearful event for any married couple.
Nonetheless, marital contracts are vital documents that have been in practice for quite some time, at least for centuries.
The main aim of the marriage contract of bringing the couple into agreeable environments is to lay an environment where both a man and a woman agree to divide assets in case of conflicts that may arise at any stage of marriage. Prenuptial contracts apply differently due to the fact that countries have different legal regimes regulating prenuptial agreements, but the majority of the nations have more something in common than dissimilarities.
The practice has been in place for over 2,000 years, adopted from Egyptians and was initially written in verbal agreements indicating properties each spouse would come within marriage. And that implied it is a 2,000-year legal precedent.
Egyptians laid solid foundations for the current usage of marriage contracts, but other societies, such as the Hebrews, attributed to the spread of marriage contracts.
However, according to the helloprenup.com website, the Hebrew culture has been using marriage contracts for over 2,000 years with their unique version.
The website explains Hebraic "Keturah" is the oldest legal document that gave financial rights to women within marriage, and it is described as the first written stance of a document that gave a woman the right to inherit their husband in case he died.
"In Hebrew tradition, the Keturah are often framed and hanged in the couples' houses," the website writes.
"In Britain, dowries are often thought to have been the earliest examples of prenuptial agreements. England's royals were the early adopters of the modern interpretation of a prenuptial agreement." helloprenup.com further explains.
According to Helloprenup.com indicates that Edward IV and Eleanor Butler signed a prenuptial agreement in the mid-1400s. Three centuries later, in the mid-1700s, Elizabeth Oglethorpe requested General James Edward Oglethorpe to sign a prenup so that Elizabeth could ensure she'd have property rights.
According to a 2018 survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, 62% of the lawyers surveyed indicated the number of clients seeking prenuptial agreements had increased during the past three years.