Almost everyone knows what Prenuptial Agreements do: they are premarital agreements for the division of property following a divorce. What no one really knows is how many of them exist. Data from Legalmatch.com client intake reports, however, shows that these agreements are most popular for the following age brackets:
AGE % CLIENTS SEEKING PRENUPS
18-25 11%
26-32 23%
33-39 21%
40-46 18%
47-53 14%
54-60 6%
61-67 2%
68 and above 1%
The median age for a first marriage in the United States is 26. Most second marriages (i.e. where at least one of the spouses has been married before) occur after the age of 35. Although most experts think prenuptial agreements are most common for second marriages, LegalMatch’s numbers show that a large number of people younger than 35 are getting prenuptial agreements.
Nothing wrong with that, and most divorce attorneys think it’s a wise idea for people to officially designate what is and is not separate property prior to their marriage, whether it’s their first, second, or 16th. If folks going through a second marriage are doing it, that probably means it would have been a wise idea the first time around as well.