Men are planning for their divorce before they even get married

First off: duh. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being prudent. Pre-nups are a good thing. Use them.

Ah but second... As with many stories about divorce, it is once again portrayed as an evil blight on society.

Some men go to even greater lengths to secure their futures. “We had a few cases where engaged men told us they gave a good portion of their belongings to friends or relatives for safe keeping. One man admitted buying a house in his gay cousin’s name so he would have a place to live if things didn’t work out. This shows the sad state of relationships and the impact of divorce in this country.”

Haus believes the trend of setting up divorce nest eggs will continue. “As long as there is divorce, there will be people trying to beat the system.”

Dr. Haus and others like to attack the institution of divorce, saying it is too easy to get divorced yadda yadda. But they are missing two key points:

1. Divorce is symptom of a problem (or more realistically, problems), not a cause.
2. Marriage is a contract.

Regarding the first point, the way I see it the issue isn't that divorce is made too easy, it is that marriage is made too easy. We'll let just about anyone get married in this country (except gays, but we'll save that for another day). More often than not, people get married too young and for the wrong reasons. And worse, they go into it with all the wrong expectations. Our modern society has conditioned us to think of marriage as an expression of romantic love. And while I am not denying that that can be a very wonderful component of a marriage, it should not be the sole basis for one. Traditionally/historically, marriage was an economic union of two families. In large part - at least legally speaking - it still is. And this brings me to the second point.

Marriage is a contract, and divorce is a legitimate means for cancelling that contract. When you sign your marriage certificate, you are entering into a legal agreement with your spouse. Our country has volumes of laws that cover both this contract's life and its dissolution. We're in the thick of tax season, so you married folk know exactly what I am talking about.

Contracts can be broken, either mutually or by one party in breach. For instance, if a man cheats on his wife, he is in breach of his marital contract with her. If your employer failed to pay your wages as contractually promised, they too would be in breach of contract. Just as you would thereby be within your rights to file a legal claim for contractual dissolution (and damages), so too can the aforementioned wife via divorce. If we take away legal recourse for one type of contract, we might as well take it away for all types of contracts, right? Is that the kind of society you want to live in?

Obviously, in a free society we shouldn't impose limits on contracts - or rather who can enter into them - as that is clearly counter to both our economic and political systems (even though apparently millions of people can't grasp that notion). In so much, I can't offer a nice clean solution to fixing the first point above. Marriage is hard, and people need to understand that before entering into it. But you can't force people to think.

For the record, I am not and have never been married.