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First in Fortune

The following opinion piece, reproduced below, was written by Libby Leffler, founder of First, and originally published on Fortune.com.

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Libby Leffler

The new power move: why smart women are demanding prenups

Summer weddings are in full swing and the peak fall season is approaching, with September and October accounting for one-third of all marriages annually, according to The Knot. While trends in the ideal months to marry rarely change, women marrying in 2025 have fundamentally different financial profiles than previous generations.

Today’s brides are CEOs, startup founders, creators and brand builders, engineers, physicians, real estate investors, scientists, and small business owners. They have negotiated complex equity packages, are growing businesses and brands, and have acquired significant assets, with women outpacing men in attaining advanced post-graduate degrees and purchasing single family homes. They will reap the benefits of an estimated $80 trillion “Great Wealth Transfer” of inherited assets from Baby Boomer parents, a wave that will significantly reshape our economy and financial landscape.

But when it comes to the institution of marriage, many of us are still operating by the rules of an outdated playbook that treats transparent conversations about financial planning as unromantic. It is time for that narrative to change. In fact, the first legal experience that every couple should have isn’t a will – it’s a prenup.

The modern marriage paradox

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: while women now out-earn or make the same as their partners in nearly half of marriages, with this share having approximately tripled over the past 50 years

The modern marriage paradox has conditioned us to view prenuptial agreements as an instrument of mistrust that represents planning for failure, rather than success. This framing is not just fundamentally flawed, it’s financially dangerous.

This means businesses

After divorce, women experience nearly two times the income drop (41%) compared to men (23%), creating long-term financial exposure. For business owners and equity-holders, the stakes are even more significant: divorce can mean losing control of a company built from the ground up.

Among the customers of our online prenup platform, First, roughly 50% of our prenup initiators are women. They come with an understanding that having the most important financial conversations before marriage strengthens the foundation of their relationships, rather than weakening them. Dialogue about values, goals, expectations, and personal finances serves couples throughout their union. These couples understand that the prenup is a joining point, not a breaking point.

Modern women have discovered that prenups offer something more valuable than asset protection. They provide a strategic advantage and thoughtful framework for financial partnership. Think of the prenup as a business plan for the financial future of a marriage.

Meet today’s modern bride

Today’s modern couples are using prenups to address student loan debt, protect family businesses, clarify expectations about inheritance, and establish financial boundaries around spending and saving. A teacher marrying an AI engineer might use a prenup to protect one’s pension while clarifying how they’ll handle the other’s stock options. A freelance designer might want to ensure their creative business remains separate property while building shared wealth with their marketing executive partner.

I recently spoke with Rachel, a creative entrepreneur and technology executive who signed a prenup before her April 2025 wedding. Her prenup wasn’t about keeping assets from her partner. It was about creating clear expectations for how they’d build wealth together while protecting what each brought to the relationship, including social media channels and business ideas they dream up together or separately.

“I love that we live in a time where prenups are being reclaimed by wealth-building, entrepreneurial women,” Rachel told us. “Prenups aren’t just about who gets the house or the car. As women, it’s time we remove the stigma around prenups, not just for us and our assets, but for our partners and [their assets], too.”

Equally important is Melanie, who told me, “I didn’t want individual financial mistakes to become our financial mistakes.”

A Mindset Shift For Millennial and Gen Z Couples

Millennial and Gen Z women are approaching marriage with a fundamentally different mindset. They’ve witnessed their parents navigate difficult divorces without adequate protection. They’ve seen friends lose businesses or inheritance in messy separations. Importantly, they understand that love and financial planning aren’t mutually exclusive. They’re complementary.

This shift is particularly pronounced among high earners. About 47% of newlyweds and engaged couples between the ages of 18 and 34 are now considering prenups, recognizing that their financial success requires protection, just like any other valuable asset.

Normalizing prenups

The path forward requires us to shift our mindset to consider the prenuptial agreement as a standard tool in money management and as essential to career planning as negotiating one’s salary or equity in a job offer. This shift has already started to take place because of successful, modern women who are demonstrating that financial planning and romantic love can coexist harmoniously.

Women rewriting the financial playbook for marriage are not pessimists planning for divorce. They are modern, savvy optimists that believe their relationships can handle honest and transparent conversations about money. These modern couples are more likely to weather financial storms because they have started out by planning for sunny skies and rainy days alike.

In a world where financial independence is more within reach than ever before, protecting that independence is not selfish. It is smart. And smart people deserve marriages built on clarity, equity, and mutual respect.

The question is not about whether you’re planning for the worst. It is about whether you trust yourself enough to plan for the future you deserve.

Useful hyperlinks:

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