I'm finding it hard to be sorry for anyone here, as they all end up with what I consider to be wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. (My avarice runs out of imagination at about £2 million.)
I see Darat's point. If you marry someone, you declare "with all my worldly goods I thee endow", or in a more modern ceremony "all my wordly goods I with thee share". So if each party has mutually given all their wealth to the other, or goods have been sworn to be shared, then that's the deal that should be upheld on divorce. Otherwise the vows were meaningless.
But then I see the opposite point. Gullible idiots get conned every day of the week. Rich lonely geeks are seduced by gold-diggers. (Wasn't there a recent case where some woman serially married and divorced a ridiculous number or gullible idiots and made herself extremely rich?) To discover that you've fallen for a slick con act, and that she whom you regarded as your soulmate is in fact a heartless cow who is treating you like dirt and having an affair right in front of your eyes is bad enough. To realise that if you want out of this relationship, you have to give her half your total worth, rubs a lot of salt in the wound. (Obvioulsy this is just as possible the other way round, substitute "heartless gigolo".)
Consider someone who has done quite well for him/herself, and has, say, a house worth £300,000, the same in a pension fund, and £100,000 cash savings. He or she is lonely, and is taken in by a practised con artist. Should he or she really have to give away £350,000 to this creep? This would be the difference between a comfortable lifestyle and an impoverished old age for such a person.
And if we start to insist on absolute concrete proof of gold-digger intent in advance as the only way out of such an obligation - well, divorce proceedings are bad enough as it is, just imagine how they would be if that stipulation came into force!
Rolfe.
