Who you are, and where you've come from
Front Matter
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The first page of your Marriage Contract contains your names and signatures, your contract title and your commencement (wedding) date, which is typically no fewer than 90 days after your have agreed and signed your Contract.
Contract Background
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Where did you meet? How did your love blossom? In your Contract Background you outline the story of your relationship, say why you both decided to marry, and express what marriage means to each of you.
Where you are going, and what you are bringing with you
1: Purpose of Contract
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Why have you each decided to commit to marriage? It's a good idea to think clearly about what your reasons are, discuss them fully, and then write them down. This is the first numbered section of your Marriage Contract.
2: Scope of Contract
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Here you set out the range of topics and issues you intend to cover in your Marriage Contract. This might include items such as the sharing of your family home, health and welfare, financial responsibilities, and the parenting of children.
Playing fair, and being honest
3: Good Faith and Fair-dealing
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Here you and your partner state that you each understand fully the commitments you are entering into, that you are freely choosing to accept the rights and responsibilities of marriage, and that you have each had independent legal advice.
4: Full Disclosure
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This section describes the Elements you each have completed in your open and honest sharing of values and circumstances, and refers to various reports and documents that are attached as Exhibits to your Marriage Contract.
Making promises in law
5: Marriage Provisions
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This is where your marry one another, where you offer and accept each other as husband and wife. What lawyers call 'offer and acceptance' is a contract's moment of formation when two people are of one mind and agree to exchange promises in law.
6: Marital Home Provisions
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Buying and owning a home together is probably a priority for every couple considering marriage – it's also one of the most important issues to think about. Your legal position should be clear from the beginning.
7: Wealth Provisions
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In this section you express your shared vision of your life goals and how you intend to realise them in financial terms. What comforts do you want for yourself and your family? What do you truly seek – and how will you reach for it?
8: Kinship Provisions
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If you are a couple to whom marriage means children, you will want to safeguard their futures in the legal commitments you are now making. This is the section where you set out how you will parent together the children you create together.
9: Sustainability Provisions
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Resolving conflicts requires commitment to find solutions, heal, forgive, and move on. In this section you agree that whenever you will fight you will fight fair, and that your goal in any conflict will be to solve the problem – and to love each other better.
10: Dissolution Provisions
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For your security and peace of mind as a couple and as individuals, and wherher it happens as a result of death or other circumstances, it is important to set out what will happen in the event that the contract is dissolved.
11: General Provisions
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Lawyers refer to these provisions the 'standard clauses'. Although some of what is contained in this section may seem obvious, it's important for you and your partner to include them and to ensure that you get them right.
Schedule of Exhibits
This is an itemised list of all the supporting documentation appended to your Marriage Contract. Whereas the sections of a contract are denoted by numbers (1,2,3 ...), the various sets of Exhibits are denoted by upper-case letters (A, B, C, ...).
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