Prenups Are Having a Moment. So Why Not Decide Now?

Somewhere in the last few years, the prenup stopped being the thing rich people did quietly and became the thing your friends mention over drinks, right between the venue tour and the argument about whether your cousin gets a plus-one. Less scandal, more spreadsheet.

It's not your imagination. Polling in the last few years has shown that roughly half of Americans are now fine with prenups, and among engaged and married millennials and Gen Z, close to half say they've actually signed one. (A 2023 Harris Poll for Axios is the one everybody cites; the numbers have only moved in one direction since.) That's a big shift from a generation ago, when the word alone could end a dinner.

So what changed? And more to the point, why does a prenup make sense whether or not it's trending? Short version: you're getting a set of rules for your marriage either way. Why not decide them now, while you're both being reasonable and still speaking to each other in full sentences?

Why prenups went mainstream

A few things happened at once. People are marrying later, so they’re walking in with careers, savings, businesses, student loans, and sometimes a condo. More couples are second marriages with kids from the first. And a generation that grew up watching their parents divorce has, reasonably, decided that “we’ll figure it out if it happens” is not a plan.

Add a cultural shift toward talking about money openly, and the prenup went from “you’re planning to leave me” to “we’re adults who discussed our finances before merging them.” The second framing is the correct one. A prenup is not a bet against the marriage. It’s a decision two people make together about what belongs to whom and what happens if life goes a different direction.

You’re getting a set of rules either way

Here's the part the trend pieces overlook. If you marry in Illinois without a prenup, you don't have "no rules." You have the default ones. The Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act supplies the rules for classifying property, dividing the marital estate equitably, and deciding whether maintenance, what most people still call alimony, is appropriate and, if so, for how long. It was written by the legislature for everyone, which means it was written for no one in particular.

A prenup replaces the generic version with one that fits your actual life. Under the Illinois Uniform Premarital Agreement Act, 750 ILCS 10/4, a couple can decide in advance:

• which property is separate and which is marital, including things either of you owns now or acquires later;

• how property is managed, controlled, or transferred during the marriage;

• what happens to property if you separate, divorce, or one of you dies;

• whether spousal maintenance is modified, limited, or waived;

• how life insurance benefits are handled;

• which state’s law governs the agreement; and

• any other matter that doesn’t violate public policy or a criminal statute.

  
  

So the real question was never “prenup or no prenup.” It’s “our terms or the state’s terms.” Put that way, deciding now starts to look less like pessimism and more like basic planning.

Why now beats later

Because now is when you agree.

Two people who like each other can settle in a paragraph what two people who don’t will litigate for months. Contribution, commingling, appreciation on a premarital asset, whether the business is marital because a spouse worked in it: these are entire subfields of divorce litigation, and they’re expensive ones. A prenup settles them before there’s anyone to argue with.

Because the line between “mine” and “ours” gets blurry fast.

You’d think property you owned before the wedding stays yours. Often it does. But refinance the condo in both names, use joint income to pay down a premarital mortgage, or let your spouse help build the business you started, and “it was mine before” gets complicated. Deciding now keeps it simple.

Because it protects the person with less, too.

Prenups have a reputation as a tool for the wealthier spouse. That’s half the story. If one of you plans to step back from a career to raise kids, a prenup can say up front that the decision will be recognized, not penalized. It can guarantee maintenance rather than waive it. Deciding those things now, when you’re both on the same side, is a lot easier than proving them later, when you’re not.

Because the conversation is the point.

Drafting a prenup makes two people sit down and be honest about money before the marriage instead of after. What do you own? What do you owe? What do you expect? Couples who’ve had that conversation tend to be surprised by how much they learned, and not in a bad way. Plenty of marriages run into trouble over money that was never discussed. A prenup is a structured way to discuss it.

It holds up in Illinois

A trend is only worth following if the document is worth having, and in Illinois, it is. The default under 750 ILCS 10/7 is that a signed prenup means what it says. A party who wants out has to prove one of two things.

First: the agreement wasn’t signed voluntarily. Duress, fraud, and coercion are the classic arguments. In practice, “I felt pressured” is not enough. In In re Marriage of Woodrum, 2018 IL App (3d) 170369, the court enforced a prenup the wife signed a little over two weeks before the wedding, reasoning that she had a real opportunity to get independent advice and to ask for changes, and didn’t. The argument “I didn’t have a choice” gets weaker every day you actually had one.

Second: the agreement was unconscionable when signed, and the challenging party didn’t get fair financial disclosure. Illinois requires both. The agreement must have been unconscionable at the time it was executed, and the person challenging it must show they weren’t given fair and reasonable disclosure of the other party’s finances, didn’t waive that disclosure in writing, and couldn’t reasonably have known the information anyway.

Unconscionability is decided by the judge as a matter of law. A lopsided deal with full disclosure will usually hold. A lopsided deal where one person hid the ball is where things really start to fall apart.

There is one narrow exception, and it only applies to maintenance. Under 750 ILCS 10/7(b), if a prenup limits or eliminates maintenance and enforcing it would cause undue hardship because of circumstances that weren’t reasonably foreseeable when it was signed, a court can order maintenance to the extent needed to avoid that hardship. If the plan was that you’d both work, and fifteen years later one of you can’t, the waiver may bend. It does not mean maintenance waivers are meaningless. It means they’re not bulletproof against a change nobody saw coming.

It’s easier than the internet makes it sound

Under Illinois law, a prenup has to be in writing and signed by both parties. That’s it. No consideration is required beyond the marriage itself, no notary is required by statute, and there’s no mandatory waiting period. It takes effect when the marriage happens, and under 750 ILCS 10/6 it can be amended or revoked later by a written agreement signed by both of you.

Now the part that separates a good prenup from a trendy one. Illinois does not require either person to have a lawyer. But the two ways to break a prenup are “I didn’t sign voluntarily” and “I didn’t know what I was signing up for,” and independent counsel for each side is the best answer to both. It is very hard to argue you were blindsided by an agreement your own lawyer explained to you. If you’re the one with more assets, paying for your fiancé’s attorney is not a generous gesture. It’s protecting your own agreement.

The other things that make a prenup hard to attack later: full financial disclosure from both sides, attached as schedules; time between signing and the wedding, ideally weeks, not hours; terms that are defensible rather than punitive; and a clean, dated, signed document that both of you actually keep a copy of.

A few things a prenup can’t do

For the record, so nobody gets the wrong idea:

Child support. A prenup cannot reduce or waive a child’s right to support. The statute says so directly. Child support belongs to the child, and two adults can’t sign it away before the child exists.

Parenting time and decision-making. You can’t pre-decide who gets the kids. Allocation of parental responsibilities is always decided based on the child’s best interests at the time, not on what two people thought made sense before the honeymoon.

Lifestyle clauses. The weight-limit and dishes-on-Tuesdays provisions you’ve read about are, at best, unenforceable and, at worst, a way to make a judge dislike your whole agreement. Keep it financial.

Already married? There’s a version for you too

If the wedding came and went without a prenup, a postnuptial agreement can cover most of the same ground. Postnups in Illinois are treated as contracts between spouses rather than under the Premarital Agreement Act, so the analysis is a little different, and disclosure and fairness matter just as much, arguably more. Same idea, different timing.

The bottom line

Prenups are popular now for a good reason: people figured out they were going to get a set of rules for their marriage either way, and they’d rather write their own. Illinois enforces them, with narrow exceptions for involuntary signing, unconscionability without disclosure, and unforeseen hardship on maintenance. The best ones are drafted with both sides represented, full disclosure, and enough lead time that no one can credibly claim they were ambushed.

If you’re engaged and thinking about it, the right time to call is now, not the week of the wedding. Nobody ever regrets having the conversation early.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are prenups really more common now? Yes. Recent polling (a 2023 Harris Poll conducted for Axios is the most-cited) found that about half of U.S. adults support prenups and that a large share of engaged and married millennials and Gen Z have signed one. Later marriages, more premarital assets and debt, and more openness about money are the usual explanations.

Are prenups enforceable in Illinois? Yes, generally. Under 750 ILCS 10/7, a prenup is enforceable unless the challenging party proves it was not signed voluntarily, or that it was unconscionable when signed and they didn’t receive fair financial disclosure (and didn’t waive it). A separate rule allows a court to award some maintenance despite a waiver if enforcing the waiver would cause undue hardship from circumstances that weren’t reasonably foreseeable when the agreement was signed.

Do I need a prenup if I don’t have much money? Probably still worth considering. Prenups aren’t only about protecting what you have today. They can address future earnings, debt, a business you might start, an inheritance you might receive, and what happens if one of you steps back from a career. They also protect the lower-earning spouse by guaranteeing terms rather than leaving them to a judge.

Does a prenup have to be notarized in Illinois? The statute requires a written agreement signed by both parties. Notarization is not required by law, though many attorneys recommend it as an extra layer of proof that the signatures are genuine.

Can a prenup waive alimony (maintenance) in Illinois? Yes. A prenup can modify or eliminate spousal maintenance. The exception is the undue-hardship rule in 750 ILCS 10/7(b), which lets a court require maintenance to the extent necessary to avoid hardship caused by circumstances that weren’t reasonably foreseeable at signing.

Can a prenup decide child custody or child support? No. A prenup cannot adversely affect a child’s right to support, and it cannot decide parenting time or allocation of parental responsibilities. Those are decided based on the child’s best interests at the time of the case.

How far before the wedding should we sign? There is no legal minimum in Illinois, but the closer to the wedding, the easier it is to argue the agreement was signed under pressure. Weeks are better than days. Months are better than weeks. Starting early is the single easiest way to make the agreement stronger.

Can a prenup be changed after the wedding? Yes. Under 750 ILCS 10/6, a prenup can be amended or revoked after marriage by a written agreement signed by both spouses. No additional consideration is required.

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