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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

A legal marriage is a legal contract, and all contracts are transactional (as far as I know). I don't think it's wise to pretend that a marriage contract is different from any other, and it's most useful in cases of conflict where a 3rd party (judge, hospital, etc) needs to determine what to do.

The love aspect of it does not and should not have to do with the legal aspect. At the end of the day, putting food on the table and a roof over your kids' heads is life's priority, so finding a partner who can assist with that is understandably a prerequisite before any of this love/compatibility stuff can be built on top.

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I sure wish I had treated it (as you say) more like a "real" contract. It would have saved us a ton of trouble to lay out our respective expectations, roles, responsibilities, duties, and penalties for breaking the above.

I think it would have saved us both a ton of trouble, misunderstandings, and hurt feelings.

Not that it isn't important to lay out those things before signing a marriage contract...

but I'm not sure how much flexibility you have in deciding the (legal) penalties for breaking those informal expectations etc.

I imagine the terms of a marriage contract are defined by each state, as sort of a take-it-or-leave-it contract.

There might be ways to hedge, like prenuptial agreements. However (and not exactly the same thing), I recently spoke with a corporate attorney regarding company protections in the unfortunate case something happened to one of the company founders under various scenarios (e.g. if a company founder gets married and dies within 5 years of incorporation, is there a way to require the spouse to sell those shares back to the company, rather than them owning a controlling stake). Prenuptial agreements were brought-up, and my attorney basically said, "yeah those exist, and are an option, an expensive option, but in a legal battle, pffft, don't expect a prenup to be your pocket ace."

> A legal marriage is a legal contract

Not really; its sometimes referred to as a contract, but legally the law of contracts doesn't apply either in formation of marriages, or when the expectations associated with marriage are broken.

Marriage is somewhat analogous to a legal partership (especially in common law jurisdictions, where merely behaving as if it existed can cause it to legally exist.)

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