Feminist Schemes to Deny Men Prenuptial Choices - Killing the Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs

If financially successful men did not alter their behavior, then feminist schemes  that use government power to deny men the ability to protect themselves in marriage might artificially decrease men's bargaining power relative to less financially successful women.  This appears to be the goal of feminist family lawyers who wish to dissuade, impede, or prevent men from protecting themselves with an objective and enforceable prenuptial contract.  But, men are very likely to change their behavior.  What happens if they do?


Despite the fact that "women need men like fish need bicycles," there are continuing assertions about "bargaining power imbalances" associated with prenuptial contracts. Presumably women should be in a very strong negotiating position because men that want to father their own children absolutely need women as a matter of simple biology.  If women do not need men, and men do need women,  it is fair to ask what power men do have in prenuptial negotiations?

Men seem to have bargaining power because of the financial resources they can provide.  Financially successful men with high incomes are in much higher demand than men with low incomes.  Among the benefits of marrying financially successful men versus average men are:

1. She gets a higher standard of living during the marriage.
2. She gets more resources to provide for any children. 
3. Upon divorce,  there will be more joint assets to divide.
4. Upon divorce,  she will get  more child support.
5. Upon divorce,  she will get  more spousal support.
6. There may be a way to get some of his premarital assets,  or gains on those assets.

If a man chooses to marry a less financially successful woman compared to a similarly successful woman:

1. He gets a lower standard of living during the marriage.
2. He gets fewer resources to provide for any children.
3. Upon divorce,  there will be less joint assets to divide.
4. Upon divorce,  he will pay more child support.
5. Upon divorce, he will pay more spousal support.
6. He is more likely to lose some of his premarital assets,  or gains on those assets, because these assets can be attacked based on her needs.

Not surprisingly, women often have a much larger desire to get married to successful men than the successful men have to marry them.  Indeed, (http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UWSLawRw/2003/6.html#Heading84)

"Firstly, desire to ensure the marriage occurs reduces a woman’s bargaining power.[60] It may make rejecting a prenuptial agreement outright very difficult if the woman doing so believes that it will result in her fiancé not proceeding with the wedding."

This reduction in bargaining power using the "desire for marriage" argument results in some very strange reasoning:
https://smolyhokes.blogspot.com/2018/11/prenups-and-strange-reasoning-about.html
But, leave the strange reasoning aside.

Regarding marrying a less financially successful woman, note that negative items 1-4 usually just "come with the territory" and it is hard to do much about those negatives.  But, prenuptial contracts can often protect men and have a positive impact on items  5 and 6.  Default marriage contracts and schemes like "feminist relational contract theory" attempt to deny men the ability to protect themselves from being legally plundered in divorce. (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jols.12132  ,  https://smolyhokes.blogspot.com/2020/06/feminist-relational-contract-theory-new.html)

Leaving aside discussion on whether schemes that deny men choice to protect themselves are tyrannical or fair,  who do these schemes help and who do they hurt?

The schemes are designed to help women at the expense of successful men.  But, successful men can (usually) evade these schemes either by not marrying or by marrying only similarly successful women. With an ever increasing number of successful women, today it is not so difficult for successful men to to marry successful women.  The real winners with these schemes (denying men the choice of protecting themselves with an objective and enforceable prenuptial contract) are successful women.  The real losers of these schemes are the less financially successful women whose bargaining power is further decreased.  Their chances of marrying a successful man and enjoying the benefits of his higher income are substantially reduced.  Demanding money and entitlements after divorce,  keeps a less financially successful woman from benefiting from a successful man's higher income during marriage because he is less likely to marry her.

This demand to keep benefiting after divorce is reminiscent of the "Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs" story.  (http://www.read.gov/aesop/091.html)   Plundering the goose may appeal to feminist lawyers,  but the goose understandably sees it differently.  If the goose is not kept ignorant of it's fate,  the goose will not supply the golden eggs.  For this reason, feminists want to keep the marriage contract subjective, unknown, vague, and unpredictable. Could this be the reason that men are not required to have legal counsel about the negative financial consequences before they marry? (See: https://smolyhokes.blogspot.com/2018/01/marriage--no-good-deed-goes-unpunished.html)

Successful men historically have tended to marry successful women. This is known as "assortative mating."  Marrying a financially successful woman already is far more beneficial for men than marrying a less financially successful woman, even with an objective and enforceable prenuptial contract.  Removing the protection of an enforceable prenuptial contract, further drives successful men away from less financially successful women toward more financially successful women. "Assortative mating" becomes even more beneficial than in the past.

Feminist attorneys do not hold women responsible for protecting themselves from bargaining power inequalities in negotiations.  It is up to successful men to protect women from bargaining power inequalities by not marrying women with substantially less bargaining power.  A man should marry only a similarly successful woman who has enough bargaining power to provide him something in the bargain commensurate in value to what he provides her in the bargain. People have bargaining power in a negotiation based on what they can offer that the other person values. If a woman cannot offer enough,  find a woman who can. Always get a written contract with objective and enforceable terms. One should never sign a contract with unknown, vague, or subjective terms, unless one wants to be the subject of legal plunder.

As an aside, note that in the above paragraph,  women are absolved of responsibility to protect themselves, for  which they should be responsible,  and instead,  men are are held responsible. This transfer of responsibility from women to men seems to be a pattern in feminist thought.  See:

1. Adult Behavior and Personal Responsibility Versus "Affirmative Consent" and Other Lunacies (https://smolyhokes.blogspot.com/2016/04/adult-behavior-and-personal.html)
2. Sexual Harassment and Swimsuit Calendars - Dishonest Nonsense (https://smolyhokes.blogspot.com/2015/12/sexual-harassment-and-swimsuit.html)
3. “NO MEANS NO,” EXCEPT WHEN A MAN SAYS NO (https://smolyhokes.blogspot.com/2015/11/no-means-no-except-when-man-says-no.html)    The Pros and Cons of Forced Marriage in Canada (https://smolyhokes.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-pros-and-cons-of-forced-marriage-in.html)

In conclusion, informed men usually (but see items 4 and 6 below) still retain the bargaining power to refuse marriage contracts that are too financially dangerous to them.  Ever-changing new feminist legal theories attempt to preserve the non-negotiated entitlements and ambiguity of unwritten and unspecified default marriage contracts.  Who is helped and who is hurt by these feminist schemes?  Consider:

1. Already,  successful women are in high demand giving them high bargaining power.  Preventing successful men from protecting themselves in marriage to less financially successful women increases the supply of successful men for successful women. This gives successful women even higher bargaining power.  Thus, more financially successful women are helped by denying men the option of objective and enforceable prenuptial contracts.
2. Already,  less successful women are in low demand giving them low bargaining power.  Preventing successful men from protecting themselves in marriage to less financially successful women decreases the supply of successful men for less successful women. This gives less successful women even lower bargaining power. Their chances of marrying a successful man and enjoying the benefits of his higher income are substantially reduced.  Thus, less financially successful women are hurt by denying men the option of objective and enforceable prenuptial contracts.
3. The new theories often work by exploiting men's ignorance,  resulting in men "buying a pig in a poke" because of this ignorance. (Note that there is no requirement that men have legal counsel to understand default marriage contracts nor how new legal theories impact the default contracts.) Over time, men decrease their ignorance about current theories, so ever newer theories are required to maintain ignorance.
4. The new theories are often applied retroactively,  especially without a prenuptial agreement.  Even if men protect themselves against the current default terms when they marry,  they are not necessarily protected against ex post facto terms, that they never agreed to, tyrannically being forced upon them.  
5. New theories sometimes simply preclude writing clear, objective, predictable, and unambiguous marriage contracts. (See: https://smolyhokes.blogspot.com/2020/06/feminist-relational-contract-theory-new.html)
6. What if men are aware of items 1-5 above and  refuse to marry and submit to legalized plunder?  What if men will not give their explicit consent to marriage and perhaps even publicly state so?  The trick in this case is to force marriage or marriage-like terms upon men without their explicit consent.  This is advantageous because marriage entitlements (that the men must provide), which caused them to eschew marriage in the first place, can now be forced upon them.  For the moment, this would seem the pinnacle of plunder.  It is one thing when men, in their ignorance,  are plundered because they sign a default marriage contract without legal counsel.  It is quite another thing when men,  in their ignorance,  are plundered because they do not obtain legal counsel about not signing a marriage contract.  This elevates exploiting  ignorance to an entirely new level.   See: https://smolyhokes.blogspot.com/2015/11/no-means-no-except-when-man-says-no.html