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Grace Won: Welcome to Forum. I’m Grace Won, in for Mina Kim. When you say the word “prenup,” romance does not come to mind. In fact, until recently, asking for a prenup was considered offensive enough that someone might choose not to get married at all.
Here’s Seinfeld’s George Costanza learning about the power of a prenup to get him out of a wedding he doesn’t want.
Seinfeld (clip):
Ask her to sign a prenup.
What does that do?
Because most women, when they’re asked to sign a prenup, are so offended, they back out of the marriage.
Elaine?
I wouldn’t sign one.
Prenup. Of course.
Grace Won: But times are changing. Now, getting a prenuptial agreement is considered smart financial planning, even for couples with few or no assets. In fact, no one loves a prenup more than millennials. More than 40 percent of married and engaged millennials say they’ve signed one, and they’re using prenups to negotiate everything from intellectual property rights and social media handles to who gets the sneaker collection.
So is romance dead? Jennifer Wilson knows something about this. She’s a staff writer for The New Yorker, and her most recent piece is Why Millennials Love Prenups. Welcome to Forum, Jennifer.
Jennifer Wilson: Thank you for having me. I hope romance isn’t dead.
Speaker 1: Me too. Me too.
Grace Won: Maybe after this hour, we’ll get to the bottom of that question. So prenuptial agreements have often served as plot points—and not good ones, as we just heard. What has the culture said about prenups up to this point, Jennifer?
Jennifer Wilson: I mean, historically—well, not even historically. Even just ten years ago, whenever a prenup came up on a TV show, like on Sex and the City when Trey asked Charlotte to sign a prenup, it was the first inkling that the marriage might not work out. It was foreshadowing—some looming problem, some distrust.
Now it’s almost framed as female empowerment. Bethenny Frankel was on Call Her Daddy encouraging listeners to get a prenup because she had a very messy divorce. And all the comments were in agreement—“louder for the people in the back,” with clap emojis. In the piece, I joke that it’s quite the vibe shift.
Grace Won: Yeah. I guess we do have the Real Housewives to thank for something. Going back to that Bethenny Frankel moment, you write about the comments she received. What was it about how she talked about prenups that made people say, “Yes, and…”?
Jennifer Wilson: I don’t really think it was her specifically. I think this generation has just been primed to think more positively about prenups. There are lots of personal finance influencers on TikTok. There’s a really popular one who goes by the handle @yourrichbff, and she’s been very active promoting prenups. She did a viral video called “What’s in my prenup and what’s in my purse?”
It’s really in the culture. There was a recent season of Love Is Blind where a female contestant wanted her fiancé to sign a prenup, and when that clip circulated, so many people on social media were saying, “Yeah, this is financial transparency. It’s about trust.” It’s become kind of basic financial hygiene.
Grace Won: In that case, love is not blind. Love is a financial colonoscopy, I guess.
Jennifer Wilson: Yes. Eyes wide open.
Grace Won: You’ve noted that part of the comfort millennials—and Gen Zers, who are part of this trend too—have with prenups is an understanding that marriages don’t always last. Tell us more about that.
Jennifer Wilson: Whenever you talk about generations, you’re really talking about history. Millennials are the first heirs of no-fault divorce. About 25 percent grew up with parents who divorced or separated, and the figures are similar for Gen Z.
They’re used to divorce. They’ve seen ugly divorces. They’ve often seen one parent—typically the woman—not fare as well financially. So there’s a kind of realism there. I don’t want to call it trauma, but they’ve wisened up.
Grace Won: There’s a practicality to it—maybe this relationship lasts for some time, but not forever.
Jennifer Wilson: Right. And some of them think a prenup can actually help a marriage last longer, because you’re having those difficult financial conversations early. Hopefully, you won’t argue as much about money once you’re married. It’s the number one thing couples fight about.
Grace Won: There’s also this idea threaded through your piece that younger generations want clarity around the exit strategy—a desire to control what might happen.
Jennifer Wilson: Yeah. I was reading what I thought was an unrelated article in The New York Times about how Gen Z isn’t opening bar tabs—they’re closing out after every drink. It was annoying bartenders. They interviewed young partygoers who said they were anxious: “What if I have to leave suddenly and I’m stuck waiting?”
I remember thinking, well, it totally makes sense that this generation would want prenups, because divorce is like that—you can be waiting at that bar, or that lawyer’s office, for a really long time.
Grace Won: If you have such a low threshold, maybe a long-term relationship isn’t for you if you can’t handle a bar tab.
Jennifer Wilson: You said that, not me.
Grace Won: But this idea of planning for the demise of your marriage does seem like the antithesis of “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, till death do us part.”
Jennifer Wilson: I think it goes back to the sense that “till death do us part” may feel like a fairy tale to a lot of people. I spoke with a woman who calls herself a “prenup coach.” She’s a financial advisor who helps young couples think through prenups. She told me one reason millennials and Gen Z seek her out is that she’s one of the few advisors in her state who will manage wealth separately for married couples.
A lot of these couples go to financial planners who say, “Okay, here are your joint goals.” And they respond, “What about our individual goals?” The planners are like, “You’re married—you’re no longer individuals. You’re a unit.” But people just don’t see it that way anymore.
Grace Won: I remember when it felt radical just to say, “We’ll have a joint checking account, but I’ll keep a separate savings account.” That seemed shocking. This generation really sees the value of “me.”
One thing that struck me in your piece is that many couples seeking prenups don’t actually have a lot of assets. Traditionally, prenups were for people entering a marriage with significant wealth, often at the urging of parents or grandparents.
Jennifer Wilson: That part is still very true. Parents are frequently pushing for prenups. One lawyer I interviewed said she often tells her client, “Put your mother on the phone. I know this isn’t coming from you.”
But there’s also a lot of manifesting going on. More young people identify as entrepreneurs, content creators, influencers. They may not have much money now, but they’re thinking, “What if I get rich?”
I interviewed a couple who are aspiring screenwriters. They haven’t sold a script yet, but they wanted to make sure their intellectual property would be protected in the event of a divorce. They said, “We’re not millionaires now, but we might be one day.”
Grace Won: The idea being, I could be the next creator of Avatar, and if we divorce, I don’t want to share that with you?
Jennifer Wilson: In that case, my understanding was that any money made during the marriage would be split. But if they divorced, future sequels would belong to whoever created the IP. They told me that when they’re at home talking about their creative projects, they sometimes have to stop and ask, “Wait—whose idea is this? Yours? Mine? Ours?”
I also interviewed an aspiring actress who married a finance guy who makes much more money. She wanted a prenup stating that whoever contributed more to buying a home would get most of it. I asked her why, since that would likely be her husband. She said, “What if I book a show?” She was working as a cater waiter at Lululemon at the time, but that optimism really illustrates how many young people see prenups as motivation.
Grace Won: I like her optimism. It does feel very millennial—manifesting your future.
We’ve been talking about prenuptial agreements. More than 40 percent of engaged millennials and Gen Zers say they’ve signed one, and unlike previous generations, they don’t see them as romance killers so much as smart financial hygiene. We’ve been joined by Jennifer Wilson, staff writer for The New Yorker. Her most recent piece is Why Millennials Love Prenups.
