The Ideology of Challenging a Marriage Contract

The paper investigated the possibility of applying provisions of a simple partnership contract to the property and personal relations of spouses. The author joins supporters of the contractual nature of marriage, while realizing the weaknesses of this approach and that relationships between the spouses is not limited to an amicable agreement. Nevertheless, on the basis of a comparative legal analysis of the regulation of relations between the parties to a simple partnership agreement and the relations of spouses, it is possible to demonstrate the fundamental similarity of the legislator’s approaches to their normative regulation. Spouses, just like the parties to a partnership agreement, have a common goal, combine deposits, bear common expenses, share profits, and become co-owners of property acquired in marriage. The relationship between the spouses is of a trusting nature, each of the spouses has the right to dispose of common property, to establish legal consequences for the other spouse.

 In connection with the indicated similarity of the normative regulation of relations under the contract of a simple partnership and relations between spouses, the author endeavored to justify the invalidity and termination of the marriage contract, as well as admissibility of the spouses concluding a gift agreement on the basis of the provisions regulating the contract of a simple partnership. Thus, the contestability of a marriage contract containing conditions that put one of the spouses in an extremely unfavorable position is explained not only by the principles of justice and equality of spouses, but also by the prohibition of «leonine partnerships.» The nuptial agreement, acting as an agreement changing the dispositive regulation of the matrimonial agreement of the spouses, terminates when the spouses terminate the agreement and does not apply to newly concluded marriages between the same persons.

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