新视野大学英语读写教程听力 第三册 te-unit09-a

英语听力 2019-08-14 06:11:10 95
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[00:02.63]1  A future husband wanted to be sure that
[00:05.69]if his marriage didn\'t work out,
[00:07.96]he could keep his treasured ice-cream collection safely stored away in a freezer.
[00:13.54]A woman insisted on verifying who would walk the dog.
[00:18.50]One man wanted the right to get a divorce
[00:21.53]if his bride-to-be gained more than 15 pounds once she became his wife.
[00:27.18]2  These are some of the crazier clauses of prenuptial agreements.
[00:31.93]But make no mistake about it,
[00:34.49]what most of them are about is money
[00:37.48]— and how financial assets will be divided up if a couple divorces.
[00:43.16]And divorce with its accompanying money problems is common in the Unite States.
[00:48.92]3  Prenupital agreements — or "prenups"
[00:52.45]— are designed to address these problems as they arise.
[00:56.23]Prenups are negotiated by lawyers for the prospective spouses,
[01:01.38]and signed before a minister binds them in marriage.
[01:02.88]They have been gaining in acceptance in the United States since the early 1980s,
[01:08.61]when more states began passing laws
[01:11.23]that affected the division of financial assets in a divorce.
[01:16.09]The laws are based either on "community property"
[01:19.84](split evenly) or on "reasonable distribution"
[01:24.01](whatever a judge thinks is "fair").
[01:26.75]4  The prenups of the famous make the head-lines:
[01:31.18]lawyers for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
[01:34.60]contested the prenuptial agreement between her
[01:37.66]and Aristotle Onassis after his death,
[01:41.26]reportedly winning $26 million in an out-of-court settlement.
[01:46.33]5  But prenuptial agreements are also for lesser known,
[01:51.09]although wealthy folks.
[01:52.92]"It\'s because divorce has such great economic consequences,
[01:57.39]and successive marriages have become so common," said a family law lawyer.
[02:02.39]6  A typical candidate for a prenuptial agreement
[02:06.35]is a man who has accumulated considerable wealth,
[02:10.35]has already been stung once,
[02:13.48]and wants to reduce his exposure to future problems.
[02:17.55]"They want to make their own arrangements,rather than let a court decide,"
[02:23.02]said the president of the New York chapter of
[02:25.75]the American Academy of Marriage Lawyers.
[02:28.92]7  Protecting children from a previous marriage is a strong reason
[02:33.60]for prenuptial contracts.
[02:35.87]"Someone may have an estate of $1 billion
[02:39.94]and he may not want a second spouse to get a payment of half a billion.
[02:44.80]He may want more for his children," said a lawyer.
[02:48.43]The effort to shield assets to be passed on to children and grandchildren
[02:53.91]is making prenups more common among retired people in their 60s and 70s
[02:59.88]who are remarrying after a spouse has died.
[03:03.16]8  Another situation that calls for premarital agreements
[03:07.59]occurs when a potential spouse has,
[03:10.86]or is in line for, great inherited wealth or a family business,
[03:16.15]especially if the future partner has little or nothing at all.
[03:20.40]9  But even when both parties have signed such an agreement,
[03:24.83]it can be impossible to enforce it in court
[03:28.68]if proper guidelines have not been followed.
[03:31.67]A lawyer is required to write the document,
[03:35.38]for mistakes in language—even a misplaced preposition—can be disastrous.
[03:41.17]But never, ever, warn marriage law consultants,
[03:45.42]should you use the same lawyer as your future spouse does.
[03:49.60]10  Another problem is a prenuptial agreement signed under pressure.
[03:54.82]To avoid this,
[03:56.19]some lawyers will not draw up an agreement once a wedding date has been set.
[04:01.19]"I figure there\'s a sword hanging over their head,
[04:05.37]and that\'s pressure," they said.
[04:08.03]Such lawyers counsel their clients never to send out wedding invitations
[04:12.89]until both signatures are on an agreement.

[04:16.17]11  But not everyone takes this advice.
[04:19.55]A classic example is cited by lawyers:
[04:22.90]"An agreement is stuck under somebody\'s nose on the day of the wedding
[04:27.36]— and it\'s usually a \'she\' — and she signs, but doesn\'t even read it."
[04:33.23]Another lawyer recalled one awkward episode
[04:36.76]where the two sides were still editing the contract,
[04:39.71]arguing over what to keep and delete,
[04:42.55]as 150 wedding guests were arriving for the wedding.
[04:47.45]When an agreement could not be forged,the wedding was canceled.
[04:52.63]12  A dispute can also break out over prenuptial agreements
[04:56.63]if a couple decides to divorce while living abroad,
[05:00.70]or when they have different passports.
[05:03.15]A lawyer in a London law firm that often handles divorces
[05:08.08]for British-American couples noted that in Britain,
[05:11.97]prenuptial agreements were "just about ignored"by the courts
[05:15.96]because English law says that circumstances of a marriage aren\'t static,
[05:20.82]and therefore a judge should decide how financial assets will be divided.
[05:26.80]13  That can lead to "court-shopping",
[05:29.93]since what matters is the law of the country where the couple is getting divorced.
[05:34.75]He gave the following example:
[05:37.60]"A wealthy Mr.Ed Smith gets married to Mrs. Smith,
[05:42.06]and they enter into a New York prenuptial contract.
[05:46.06]They live in England, and then decide to get divorced.
[05:49.55]English lawyers will say to Mrs. Smith,
[05:52.36]\'No, that contract is not valid,\'
[05:55.09]while Mr.Smith will want it to be an American case.
[05:59.27]The issue of where it will be held
[06:01.68]can greatly multiply the amount of time required to reach a settlement."
[06:07.08]14  Romantic love has no bearing on this process,
[06:11.08]say these lawyers, who consider prenups to be business agreements.
[06:15.76]Their justification:
[06:18.21]some 50 percent of all marriages in the United States end up on the trash heap.
[06:24.36]15  Moreover, the discussions for a prenuptial agreement,
[06:28.79]which involve laying bare all one\'s finances,
[06:32.17]sometimes save a couple from a terrible marriage.
[06:35.95]"It sheds light on issues which could later widen
[06:39.73]and result in divorce," said a lawyer.
[06:42.90]16  But there is still hope.
[06:45.46]"Many people sign an agreement,
[06:48.19]put it in a drawer and never look at it again," the lawyer added.
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