Court Opinion

ID: 9667374
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:44:00.668925+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:37.401968
License: Public Domain

GRAVES, Justice,
concurring.
I concur with the majority but write separately to express some additional thoughts in this case. Entering such an antenuptial agreement during the period of excitement on the eve of a wedding *582evokes questions about the sufficiency of the parties’ consent and indicates that Ap-pellee likely had serious mental reservations about marriage as it is defined in Chapter 402 of the Kentucky Revised Statutes. Perhaps, an croii-nuptial agreement would be a more apt description as KRS 402.005 defines marriage as a union for life.
The intimate partnership of life and love which constitutes the married state is rooted in the conjugal covenant of irrevocable personal consent. In the eyes of society, marriage receives its stability from the human act by which the partners mutually surrender themselves to each other without any hesitation or reservation whatsoever. While there is no single definitive explanation for the breakdown of the sacred institution of marriage, the casual attitude expressed in this antenuptial agreement is no doubt a facilitating factor contributing to a disturbing trend.
Indeed, Justice Vance’s dissents in Gentry v. Gentry, 798 S.W.2d 928 (Ky.1990) and Edwardson v. Edwardson, 798 S.W.2d 941 (Ky.1990) are just as relevant today as when written. Since 1916, it was the declared public policy of this Commonwealth that antenuptial agreements contemplating divorce and separation were void as they tended to promote (or at least predict) marital instability. Stratton v. Wilson, 170 Ky. 61, 185 S.W. 522, 523 (1916). In Edwardson, supra, the Court acknowledged that promoting marital stability was a “substantial state interest.” Id. 945 (citing KRS 403.110). Yet, the Edwardson Court nonetheless overruled Stratton, supra, explaining that the policy declared therein was no longer necessary or pertinent as it was designed primarily to protect women, who were “decidedly second class” citizens at the time. Id. at 944. Unfortunately, the great strides made by both women and children, as a class, have done nothing to validate the majority’s reasoning in Edwardson, supra.
While anecdotal, but sadly not surprising, it was the husband and not the wife who scored the commercial deal of the century in this fateful contract. Perhaps the wife felt lucky to receive the scraps she did obtain, as she was granted the ultimate privilege of being this man’s wife and bearing his children for at least the duration of her youth. Or perhaps as behavioral studies have continually demonstrated, the wife never believed that her incredibly bad bargain would ever come to fruition. See Reviewing Premarital Agreements to Protect the State’s Interest in Marriage, 91 Va. L.Rev. 535, 543 (2005) (citing one study demonstrating “that although most people accurately estimated the country’s overall divorce rate at fifty percent, they assessed their own chances of divorce at zero”).
Our current case law nevertheless mandates that brides and grooms-to-be must be held to their bad bargains, no matter how foolish, last minute, or ill-conceived they may be, unless such bargains rise to the level of being unconscionable. In Shraberg v. Shraberg, we acknowledged that there is “a measure of protection for parties from their own irresponsible agreements.” 939 S.W.2d 330, 333 (Ky.1997). In that case, we thought it unfair that a husband should have to live on $40,000 per year while his wife and kids enjoyed $160,000 per year. Id. This case is similar, yet the parties are flipped, in that the husband will be living on $1,000,000 per year while his kids receive child support (which the dissent assures us is “adequate”) and the mother of his children receives nothing.
It is indeed chauvinistic for one to contend that the agreement in this case is somehow fair since the wife was merely *583some lowly hotel clerk1 while the husband was a youthful and successful stockbroker. Perceiving these positions as vastly disparate on life’s socioeconomic ladder, some would suggest that the wife’s nine and a half years of living beyond her assigned socioeconomic rung with her stockbroker husband was more than enough consideration for her (1) discontinuance of employment; (2) her bearing of two children; (3) her caring for those two children; (4) her maintenance of the household; and (5) her role as her husband’s consort, hostess, and social liaison. Indeed, the record demonstrates that the wife held numerous and lavish parties for her husband’s associates and held positions in several high-profile community organizations for the purpose of benefiting her husband’s reputation and promoting his career.
Yet, as the majority rightly acknowledges, the varied contributions of a homemaker is not of nominal value in this Commonwealth. KRS § 403.190 specifically states that the services of a homemaker spouse is relevant and significant consideration towards the acquisition of marital property. Id.; see also, Goderwis v. Goderwis, 780 S.W.2d 39, 40 (Ky.1989). KRS § 403.110 states, more broadly, that the laws of marriage dissolution “shall be liberally construed and applied to promote its underlying purposes” which include; (1) “[strengthen and preserve the integrity of marriage and safeguard family relationships;” (2) “[mjitigate the potential harm to the spouses and their children caused by the process of legal dissolution of marriage;” and (3) “[m]ake reasonable provision for spouse and minor children during and after litigation.” Id. The concept codified within these statutes, of course, is that marriage is a partnership that both spouses contribute to in equal, yet differing ways, and that children and the accumulation of financial assets is a corresponding result or byproduct of that partnership. See Marriage as a Contract and Mamage as a Partnership: The Future of Antenup-tial Agreement Law, 116 Harv. L.Rev.2075 (2003); Divorce and the Displaced Homemaker: a Discourse on Playing with Dolls, Partnership Buyouts and Dissociation under No-Fault, 60 U. Chi. L.Rev. 67 (1993).
In the case of homemaker spouses, the division of labor in a family is compartmentalized. One spouse focuses time, talents, and experience to the marketplace while the other spouse focuses equal time, talents, and experience to the family. In such a system, the partnership strives to achieve maximum output and return in two essential areas of life — one spouse will have more time and energy to develop greater skill and earnings potential in the marketplace while the other will have more time and energy to ensure that the children and the household thrive and grow. This system is nothing new and has always been valued as a meaningful and successful model for maintaining both a marriage and a family.2
However, when homemaker spouses find themselves in the midst of family breakdown through either separation or divorce, they are prematurely forced to abandon their chosen callings and start anew in the marketplace. These spouses are understandably ill-equipped to compete in such an arena as they are frequently impaired by the loss of youth and lack of skills. Years spent homemaking are viewed by potential employers as years of “unemployment.” Contacts and *584relevant experience are almost always lacking on a homemaker’s resume and many are simply regarded as too old for entry-level employment. Rehabilitative alimony for homemaker spouses is therefore not a gift, but something these hardworking spouses have earned after years of toiling outside the marketplace on behalf of their families. This is analogous to an on-the-job anatomical injury in workers’ compensation and the resulting functional impairment.
The antenuptial agreement in this case is fundamentally unfair in large part because it accords almost no consideration for the wife’s contributions as a homemaker in this marriage. Were we to hold as the dissent suggests it would be foolish, indeed, to continue investing in a marriage through the role of a homemaker as such a contribution would be accorded diminished status under the laws of Kentucky and hence, this Court would be contributing to the feminization of poverty.
Fortunately for the children and families in this Commonwealth, the majority continues to respect and protect the partnership theory of marriage, the sanctity of the family, and the important contributions of homemaker spouses as such concepts are codified in our statutory law. See, e.g., KRS §§ 402.005, 403.110, 403.190.
Accordingly, I concur. Roach, and Win-tersheimer, J.J., join this concurring opinion.

. Who, apparently, was past her prime at the ripe old age of 29.

. This division of labor concept has also been very successful in our modern industrial society, to wit: the assembly line.