新视野大学英语读写教程听力 第三册 te-unit09-a

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[00:00.00]喜欢hxen.net，就把hxen.net复制到QQ个人资料中！Premarital Agreements
[00:02.63]1  A future husband wanted to be sure that
[00:05.69]if his marriage didn't work out,
[00:07.96]he could keep his treasured ice-cream collection safely stored away in a freezer.
[00:13.54]A woman insisted on verifying who would walk the dog.
[00:18.50]One man wanted the right to get a divorce
[00:21.53]if his bride-to-be gained more than 15 pounds once she became his wife.
[00:27.18]2  These are some of the crazier clauses of prenuptial agreements.
[00:31.93]But make no mistake about it,
[00:34.49]what most of them are about is money
[00:37.48]— and how financial assets will be divided up if a couple divorces.
[00:43.16]And divorce with its accompanying money problems is common in the Unite States.
[00:48.92]3  Prenupital agreements — or "prenups"
[00:52.45]— are designed to address these problems as they arise.
[00:56.23]Prenups are negotiated by lawyers for the prospective spouses,
[01:01.38]and signed before a minister binds them in marriage.
[01:02.88]They have been gaining in acceptance in the United States since the early 1980s,
[01:08.61]when more states began passing laws
[01:11.23]that affected the division of financial assets in a divorce.
[01:16.09]The laws are based either on "community property"
[01:19.84](split evenly) or on "reasonable distribution"
[01:24.01](whatever a judge thinks is "fair").
[01:26.75]4  The prenups of the famous make the head-lines:
[01:31.18]lawyers for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
[01:34.60]contested the prenuptial agreement between her
[01:37.66]and Aristotle Onassis after his death,
[01:41.26]reportedly winning $26 million in an out-of-court settlement.
[01:46.33]5  But prenuptial agreements are also for lesser known,
[01:51.09]although wealthy folks.
[01:52.92]"It's because divorce has such great economic consequences,
[01:57.39]and successive marriages have become so common," said a family law lawyer.
[02:02.39]6  A typical candidate for a prenuptial agreement
[02:06.35]is a man who has accumulated considerable wealth,
[02:10.35]has already been stung once,
[02:13.48]and wants to reduce his exposure to future problems.
[02:17.55]"They want to make their own arrangements,rather than let a court decide,"
[02:23.02]said the president of the New York chapter of
[02:25.75]the American Academy of Marriage Lawyers.
[02:28.92]7  Protecting children from a previous marriage is a strong reason
[02:33.60]for prenuptial contracts.
[02:35.87]"Someone may have an estate of $1 billion
[02:39.94]and he may not want a second spouse to get a payment of half a billion.
[02:44.80]He may want more for his children," said a lawyer.
[02:48.43]The effort to shield assets to be passed on to children and grandchildren
[02:53.91]is making prenups more common among retired people in their 60s and 70s
[02:59.88]who are remarrying after a spouse has died.
[03:03.16]8  Another situation that calls for premarital agreements
[03:07.59]occurs when a potential spouse has,
[03:10.86]or is in line for, great inherited wealth or a family business,
[03:16.15]especially if the future partner has little or nothing at all.
[03:20.40]9  But even when both parties have signed such an agreement,
[03:24.83]it can be impossible to enforce it in court
[03:28.68]if proper guidelines have not been followed.
[03:31.67]A lawyer is required to write the document,
[03:35.38]for mistakes in language—even a misplaced preposition—can be disastrous.
[03:41.17]But never, ever, warn marriage law consultants,
[03:45.42]should you use the same lawyer as your future spouse does.
[03:49.60]10  Another problem is a prenuptial agreement signed under pressure.
[03:54.82]To avoid this,
[03:56.19]some lawyers will not draw up an agreement once a wedding date has been set.
[04:01.19]"I figure there's a sword hanging over their head,
[04:05.37]and that's pressure," they said.
[04:08.03]Such lawyers counsel their clients never to send out wedding invitations
[04:12.89]until both signatures are on an agreement.