Marriage in New York

The New York story on Ellen Barkin and Ronald Perelman's divorce offers a glimpse at how the other one-millionth lives, but what's really interesting is the accompanying story on pre-nups.

I had to laugh at the opening quote from Zack, a hedge fund manager in his mid-20s who makes way more money than I'll ever make: “People are starting to look at marriage like a business relationship. It’s sort of amazing to think that it’s taken until this century to realize that’s what it really is.”

Uh, Zack, up until the last few centuries, marriage was always a business relationship, and everyone knew it. But I guess it would be asking too much to expect historical consciousness from a twentysomething hedge fund manager.

Still, I feel bad for these young people who have so much money and so little faith that they are insisting on prenuptial arrangements for their first marriages. I know I've gone on record affirming marriage as the coming together of two individuals, but for all that, I can't imagine going into it with that kind of mistrust. If I didn't feel comfortable sharing my money, and confident that the person I chose to marry would be reasonable in the case of divorce, I can't imagine getting married (and if this sounds naive, I'll just say that in all the horrible divorces I know, and I know quite a few, at least one, if not both, of the participants was unreasonable long before divorce) (the only exception is a case of massive deception which unhinged the other partner, who then became, understandably, unreasonable).

Then again, I'm not a twentysomething hedge fund manager.