I met a new friend on my flight from Nevada. We stayed in touch and the other day I invited him to have Indian food. A big boo boo on my part because he dislikes Indian food. He is not Indian, he is Bangladeshi.
Aside from that, he is conscious about what he eats. He only likes tea for breakfast, salad for lunch, and a little heavy meal for dinner like chicken or fish.
We are both business people so we consciously avoided talking about work. Our one hour tete a tete covered all about family, holidays, and relationships. He said the last time he visited friends from Singapore, they told him that divorce is now prevalent in India, Bangladesh, Singapore. And not only that, his friend told him that affairs are fairly common and are tolerated. My new friend was shocked to learn that. He said during his time, people are committed to each other. Marriage is mostly about commitment. And it’s not how much money you have or the success you’ve achieved, it all boils down to the importance of family. Your good relationship and how much you care for each other’s well-being. It’s not even a decision, he said these things should come naturally simply because you are family.
His friend also told him that because of the high incidence of divorce, annulment, separation, a pre-nup agreement is now a must.
Again, my friend is shocked because pre-nup was non-existent in their tradition before. I added that I didn’t know that there was such a thing until about 15 years ago. The law before was fairly simple and just so no pre-nup was ever necessary in most cases. Whatever you have, including those you inherited from your parents remain yours. Whatever you earn or acquire during the course of your marriage is conjugal and in the event of separation or divorce, these are the only assets that should be split in half or depending on the couple’s agreement on how they will divide the properties and money they have accumulated together. Not including whatever properties inherited or acquired before they got married.
He narrated a story about his wealthy friend from Singapore. He has a daughter, one and only child actually. He bequeathed to her a total cash savings of US$6,000,000 plus real estate properties. She married an Indian boy who’s father was known to be wealthy in India. There was no pre-nup. They were probably thinking it was not necessary because the couple are both equally wealthy.
After the wedding, the boy moved to Singapore. After two years, he divorced his wife and took half of all the assets she inherited from her father including $3,000,000. After taking all those money, he left and moved back to India. The family of the girl soon found out that although the boy’s father was supposed to be wealthy, he didn’t give his son anything, not a single rupiah.
My friend has two adult children and is fairly successful as a banker and entrepreneur. He said this story makes him think twice about what he is going to do when his children get married. I told him this is now a whole new generation. For practicality reasons, pre-nup makes sense. He told me “Annie, divorce is no longer a Western thing”.
