If a couple decides to get married and one partner is a business owner, they may want to protect their business in the event of a divorce, because business assets earned during the course of a marriage are considered marital property. For instance, if a small business was only worth a few thousand dollars before the marriage, but worth $4 million 10 years later at the time of divorce, essentially all of the business is marital property. And, because the business cannot be chopped up and sold just for the other partner to get their fair share of the marital property, they will either become a partial owner or they will end up with the majority of the other marital property.