In 2026 America, even fairy-tale romances are lawyered up. The massively publicized wedding of pop star Taylor Swift and football player Travis Kelce this past weekend was accompanied by what is thought to be the “most sophisticated” prenuptial legal agreement in history. This was to protect their respective fortunes—which is obviously less about Kelce’s $70–$90 million than Swift’s $2 billion—in the unfortunate case that the union goes south in the coming years.
The newlyweds are a famous example of an exploding trend. Whereas in 2010 only about 3 percent of Americans said they had a prenup, by 2023, 47 percent of millennials and 41 percent of Gen Zers who were engaged or married had these agreements in place. In a similar trend, married couples are increasingly likely to keep separate bank accounts—up from about a sixth to almost a quarter since 1996, according to the Census Bureau.
This boggles the average Boomer or Gen Xer mind. Negotiating your divorce before your wedding and making sure your spouse can’t touch your savings seems to many like a terrible strategy to build trust and intimacy. But hey, maybe the young folks are onto something. Come to think of it, when my wife, Ester, and I combined our households in the late 1980s, we had a resource asymmetry very similar to Swift and Kelce’s: I had two cardboard boxes of belongings and 50 bucks in my checking account; she had at least five boxes of stuff and a cool $250. She’s just lucky I wasn’t marrying her for her money.
