This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. In olden times, meaning about a decade ago,

asking your intended spouse to sign a financial agreement, a pre-up,

carried with it a whiff of scandal, I think.

This was a plotline from Seinfeld.

George Costanza asked his fiancée Susan to sign a pre-up,

hoping she'd get so mad that she'd be the one to call off their wedding. A pre-up?

Yeah.

What's so funny?

You don't have any money. I make more money than you do.

Yeah, give me the papers. I'll sign them. than you do.

Yeah, give me the papers. I'll sign them.

But times have changed.

Jennifer Wilson just reported a piece on pre-ups for the New Yorker.

And during her reporting, she found that younger couples now embrace pre-ups wholeheartedly for a whole complicated mix of reasons.

So, Jen, what got you interested in writing about pre-nups in the first place?

You know, I just noticed that suddenly they were everywhere.

They were all over TikTok.

There's this really prominent financial influencer named Your Rich BFF. Her

actual name is Vivian, too. And she did this video, you know, what's in my pre-up and what's in my

purse? So for a pre-up, we went 50-50 on everything that we brought to the marriage, 50-50 on

everything we'd earned during the marriage. And the only exception was a 100% carve-out of the equity in my business. You know, I sort of thought all the comments would be kind of mocking her or, you know, calling her privileged. But everyone was very supportive. You know, everyone needs a pre-nup these days. Like, you know, wait a minute. When I was young, the only people that got pre-nups were, you know,

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