On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Agreements on Tuesday, September 11, 2012.
In an earlier post I hinted that a prenup made a fine gift for a second marriage. But not all prenuptial agreements are created equal. An interesting case out of Kansas City refused to enforce a Muslim divorce. News of the case comes from The Volokh Conspiracy.
The Muslim premarital agreement is known as a mahr agreement. Mahr agreements are negotiated before the marriage between the groom and the bride’s family. Mahr agreements have two parts: a premarital payment in exchange for marriage vows, and a post-nuptial payment made if the marriage ends in divorce or death (a sort of deferred settlement). According to the wife in the Kansas case, her mahr agreement required the Husband pay her the deferred payment of 1,354 gold coins – worth about $677,000.
There were a lot of problems with the mahr agreement in the Kansas case. These problems often arise in marriage contracts from foreign countries which are primarily for religious purposes, or intended to be enforced in religious or foreign courts. The most important grounds the court gave for not enforcing the mahr included:
1. The mahr was never translated into English;
2. The mahr would function as a penalty, and Kansas is a no-fault state;
3. The mahr created tension between the Establishment and Equal Protection Clauses; and
4. The court suggested the mahr might not even qualify as a prenuptial agreement.
Florida law is slightly different from Kansas in this area. There are very few Florida appellate cases, and no Florida Supreme Court cases about mahr agreements. However, at least one Florida court has held muslim religious agreements may be enforceable in Florida, if they comply with secular contract law.
Whether you have a foreign premarital agreement, or want to enter into one, you can incorporate your religious or secular customs into a legal agreement, and have them enforced in Florida. As the Kansas case shows though, this is not something to be left for the imams back home.