NYU Sociology Professor Dalton Conley proposes isolating the legal rights conferred by marriage – and making them each individually transferable to a partner (or purchaser) of choice.

This view of marriage as a contractual relationship represents a shift in values.

An apparently unintended benefit of the Professor’s proposal is that it could certainly simplify the divorce process.

In the hypothetical world proposed, all rulings in a divorce should be governed by a contract entered prior to marriage, subject to modification by one or more additional contracts entered during the marriage. In other words, all married couples should have prenuptial agreements and some would also have one or more postnuptial agreements.

Read more in this New York Times article: Spread the Wealth of Spousal Rights.