ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the evolution of marriage and divorce laws both as they establish the procedures and grounds for marriage and divorce and as they also affect the property of the parties. It offers an economic analysis of marriage, divorce, and property to aid in understanding why people marry, how they select their spouses, why they sometimes decide that they no longer want to be married, and what is property. The Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act, which has been enacted in some states, makes a premarital contract only one factor to be used by the court in determining whether the division of the spouses' property is equitable. Understanding the impact of marriage and divorce on property requires a review of those laws. In the United States, two different legal systems developed that addressed matrimonial property, one based on the common law of England and the other on the civil law of continental Europe as it developed in Mexico.
