A dowry brought by the woman into a marriage is a time-tested, catholic and historical action meant to help the young marriage and also as an acknowledgment by the woman’s father that she now belongs to her husband, who now has the responsibility to care for her. 

If a dowry isn’t given, then why is a prenup not a fair substitute?  If the marriage has no problems, then the man gets no advantage from the prenup; he is only protected from divorce should ever the wife leave for non-approved reasons.  

If a divorce would happen after a dowry were given, then the “split” would be equitable since the wife contributed.  As it is nowadays, no dowry, no prenup, no fairness for the husband.  That’s crap.

The end of the dowry tradition is a sure sign of feminism and the idea that a woman is “an exalted princess” who is so special that any man would be happy to live with her, even in a grass hut.  Pure Disney, fantasy-land, sentimentality.  

The tradition of the dowry has mutated into the custom that the bride's family pays for the wedding.  These are often absurdly expensive and a very poor use of resources.  

The tradition of the dowry has mutated into the custom that the bride's family pays for the wedding.  These are often absurdly expensive and a very poor use of resources.  

Why spend such ridiculous sums just on a one-day party? The young couple has countless needs, including a *paid off house*. People think nothing of having a 30 year mortgage (french for "death lock") on a small house with no land. How does a couple get enough for a large home that will fit 10+ kids? Hmmm? And what if they want/need some land (read: privacy) so every spanking or yelling by one/both parents is heard by countless busy-body neighbors with their fingers on speed dial for Child Protective Services?

It doesn't matter how hard working or responsible you are. Unemployment isn't just for welfare bums. Bad luck happens. I have been in 2 contract positions in the last year, both of which had an Indian hired AFTER me, and in both cases the Indian will have a full-time job at the company, and I was sent on my merry way. In one case the man needed to be sponsored and everything -- that's how well-established he was (not!) in this country. We have to be able to deal with such "bad luck".

Unless you are lucky enough to inherit land, or the husband is ridiculously talented and/or wealthy, how does a young couple get started on a real legacy? A homestead with some land, so you can do things like store furniture/equipment/stuff to loan out to your grown kids when they need it?  

White Americans have totally lost the concept of A) putting down roots, B) family members helping each other out and C) the value of owning land in favor of "convenience", city perks, teenager-like fun "on the town", laziness and sitting in front of the boob tube instead of taking care of acreage, and the uniquely American virtue of rugged individualism.

One of the biggest problems today is that no one has such a "home base" -- a place of stability -- from which to help their children. A nice big place that children can always call "home". What if  a grown daughter with 5 children had an emergency, like a house burning down? Where would she go? If her parents had a ranch with multiple finished-out buildings and/or a large house, she'd be set. Just think of all the things you can do if you have a small acreage outside the city. No laws about derelict vehicles, # of buildings you can have on one piece of property, no homeowners associations, plenty of space for outbuildings (read: storage with no monthly fee). Being able to store things means you can take advantage of free stuff, giveaways, clothing, homeschooling materials, etc. and then give or lend it to your children when they need it. You have a place to park RVs, boats, utility trailers, and countless useful pieces of equipment most people can't own because they don't have the space.

Everyone needs at least one person in their life with a "mini ranch" as described above. A person with a fully equipped workshop, who has welding equipment for example, or at least a utility trailer. Even better if you know one person with a mid-sized garden tractor, and/or a backhoe.

This sounds reasonable to me.

With prenups though, the Church or some disinterested third party would have to draw them up.

A) to be fair. To cover things like what constitutes abuse, etc. Some things are too subjective to leave to chance.
B) so neither party thinks the other party "doesn't trust them"

It would have to be routine, simply part of the marriage process in the Catholic Church in the fallen age of 2018.

I wasn't going to respond to this, 1) because this is the 2nd/3rd time Ladislaus has brought up these arguments and I partially responded to it before, which he ignored, so (as is his m.o. sometimes), he will just bring it up again on a different thread and act like the previous rebuttals don't exist.

I'm sorry, but I still don't get the point of a prenup in a Catholic context.

If there's a divorce and the wife ends up with custody of the children (as she is likely to do unless she's a criminal or drug addict), I've never seen any divorce judgment which completely impoverishes a man; every one I've heard about (directly from the divorced individual) simply makes provision that the wife and children continue to be supported, which is morally required anyway for Catholics.

The Court does not nicely ask the husband to support his family, they strip him of his familial authority and force him to support them AS THEY DECIDE.  This is pure socialism and police state tactics.

All this huffing and puffing about the inequity of divorce judgments comes from men who might thereby be deprived of starting up and supporting a new family ... at the standard of living they envision.  

Firstly, this is illogical.  Let's remember, the prenup is mainly designed to prevent a wife from leaving.  In the case of a husband leaving, a prenup wouldn't affect anything, so the courts would decide and the woman would be fine.

But in the case where the woman gets the divorce, why would the husband (and we're talking about a trad catholic here) be thinking about a new family?  HE'S THE ONE WHO DOESN'T WANT HIS REAL WIFE TO LEAVE.  But you brush that "insignificant" detail aside and immediately blame the reasons for a prenup on bad will of the husband - the husband whose children were stolen and whose wife left him.

Secondly, even if the husband were to have such intents of a new marriage, this is irrelevant to the justice required by a court system.  Let's say a known drug addict/pusher had been in prison and got out, only to find that his mother had died and she left him her small house in the will.  And let's say one day the guy comes home to find the house was on fire and eventually burned to the ground.  Let's say the insurance company takes him to court and try to get out of paying for the house by blaming his drug activities as the cause of the fire.  Even if the judge, the entire court room (and all of his family) knows that the addict is going to spend the $ on drugs/parties, THIS IS IRRELEVANT IN A COURT OF LAW.  The judge is not allowed to rule on what the addict MIGHT DO with the money.  It's none of his concern.  The judge must rule in favor of the addict that the insurance company owes him $ based on the policy/contract language.  

So it is with this scenario.  We are talking about justice here, plain and simple.  In the case of divorce, the husband owes child support and there's no getting around this (even though I object on the principals of anti-socialism and a libertarian view of america...but that's another matter).

But what does he owe his wife, who is the cause of this marital turmoil?  At best, it should be up to him to decide.  At worse, he should only owe 50% (with child support part of this).  Humanly speaking, if a wife ends a divorce for non-church-approved reasons, she is not entitled to ANY support from her husband.  That's just logical.  If she wants out of the marriage, she should be treated as if she's out of the marriage.

But we know there's more to marriage than just a human contract.  So, spiritually, the husband would still be obligated to support his wife (but it's his decision, not the courts).

I know a guy at work who has been divorced twice and is on his third "marriage".  He has 5 children from the previous 2 "marriages" and currently support his new "wife" (aka partner in sin) along with her two children.  So despite paying child support for the previous 5 children, he's still able to manage supporting the new woman and her kids (and she doesn't work).  He makes just a little less than I do.

What state was that in?  Not all states treat this stuff the same...not by a long shot.  

Was this a Trad family?  If not, then you are comparing apples-oranges.  A "normal" american family with 2 kids usually has a working mother, so any payments by the husband will be FAR LESS than what a Trad husband would pay, since 1) the wife's income is able to support her so she needs less help, and 2) A trad husband (typically) is the sole earner, which means his support is going to be VERY HIGH because the wife doesn't work.  Based on simple math, this should be obvious that your experiences don't translate to a Trad marriage.

Now, most of the bitterness you get comes from the situation where the woman shacks up with a new guy.  So the old husband continues to help support the children, while the two of them use the new guy's income to live large as it were.  Perhaps that might be a clause in a pre-nup.  

A prenup can't prevent anything happening AFTER the divorce, it's only concerned and only able to legally work BEFORE or DURING the divorce.  So that's why there should be penalties for a wife who leaves the marriage.  The husband should control as much as possible, that way 

1) he can have leverage on the wife and be able to NOT support her (except minimally) if she's living in an immoral situation with another man (because that is detrimental to her salvation AND the children's).  

2) if she divorces and stays single, and let's him have a catholic influence on the children, then he's able to be GENEROUS and give them MORE than even the courts would've required.

But what if the woman is just having an affair and not actually re-"married".  So the guy would have to prove that an affair were taking place.  And of course the wife will always find it offensive that the husband would imagine her capable of doing such a thing.

If the husband is able to keep financial leverage after the divorce then he can (hopefully) have some influence on this situation.  In absence of a prenup, where the immoral woman divorces and gets 50% PLUS child support, she's financially set and can go do whatever it is that she wants.  And considering that SHE'S the one that destroyed the family, we can pretty well assume that she won't have the grace to stay out of trouble or live a moral life.  Because until she reconciles with her husband and moves back in with him, the salvation of her soul is in serious jeopardy.  She's living in constant mortal sin, every day she's not reconciled because every day, she is rejecting her vows and harming her children, therefore there is no grace, no wisdom, no Providential protection afforded to her from God, because she's obstinately living in sin.

The courts will be involved as long as both parties can’t agree on things.  If a wife initiates the divorce, steals the children and wants the house too, I’m pretty sure the husband isn’t going along with that.  Ergo, a judge will be involved. 

If by chance you know a man who lost everything because the courts got involved, then it would most definitely be a rare case and not the rule. 

This entire conversation is about avoiding a RARE occurrence.  But rare doesn’t mean it can’t happen, therefore you try to avoid it.  “Hope for the best, plan for the worst.”

Most people live their lives like they’ll get a deathbed conversion and then they’ll make heaven, which is rare.  I don’t live my life like most people, and I don’t like to leave “rare” occurrences to chance, if I can help it.