Despite the fact that the prenuptial agreement has existed in Kazakhstani legislation for more than a few years, attitudes toward it in society remain ambiguous to this day. For some, it is a reasonable way to determine property relations in advance; for others, it is evidence of distrust between future spouses.

The reasons for such a perception lie not only in the legal plane but also in ideas about love, family, responsibility, and money.

In the traditional view, marriage is, above all, the union of two people and two families, based on trust, mutual support, and common interests. Therefore, the very idea of dividing property in advance or determining property rights may be perceived as something alien to the nature of family relations.

A quite reasonable question arises: "If we are becoming one family, why should we agree in advance on what belongs to whom?" In this respect, the prenuptial agreement encounters an important feature of our thinking, in which the family is perceived as a space of unity, whereas a contract is perceived as a space of delineation.

That is precisely why a legally neutral procedure can be perceived emotionally.

There is another reason as well – the idea that true love does not need legal guarantees. Here an interesting psychological paradox arises: the absence of agreements begins to be perceived as proof of trust, while the very attempt to reach an agreement is perceived as evidence of its absence.

But trust and agreement do not necessarily contradict each other. On the contrary, the ability to calmly discuss difficult topics can be part of a mature relationship.

And yet, for many people, the phrase "prenuptial agreement" automatically brings to mind the thought of divorce. However, the very framing of the question may be mistaken. The existence of an agreement does not mean an intention to dissolve the marriage, just as the existence of insurance does not mean a desire to have an accident.

Moreover, a prenuptial agreement is needed not only for a situation of possible divorce. It can determine the property relations of spouses during the marriage itself, for example, how property, income, and expenses are distributed.

Finally, one cannot rule out a rather simple factor: people do not always understand well what exactly a prenuptial agreement represents. If a person knows about it mainly from films, TV series, conversations with acquaintances, or stories about the high-profile divorces of wealthy people, they form a rather specific image: the prenuptial agreement as a tool for protecting one spouse's fortune from the other.

Therefore, the spread of this institution presupposes not only legal accessibility but also an increase in the legal and financial literacy of the population.

When people prepare for a wedding, they usually discuss a great many things: where the celebration will take place, where they will live, how many children they want, where they will go on a trip after the wedding. All of this seems a natural part of preparing for family life, but for some reason the conversation about money often ends up outside this preparation. Although it is precisely money that quite quickly becomes one of the everyday realities of family life. Who will pay the rent or the mortgage? Will the family budget be shared, or will each spouse retain a certain financial independence? What counts as personal money and what counts as shared money? How should decisions about major purchases be made? What should be done about loans and debts? How will the family's financial model change if one of the spouses stops working for a time or decides to devote themselves to raising children?

These are questions that are rarely asked on a first date and, perhaps, should not be asked on a first date. But they become quite natural when two people decide to spend a significant part of their lives together.

And here the conversation about a prenuptial agreement takes on a completely different meaning. It is no longer only about who will get the property in the event of a divorce, but about how two people actually envision their shared economic life.

Kazakhstani legislation gives spouses the opportunity to independently determine a whole range of property issues, such as establishing a regime of joint, shared, or separate ownership, determining the procedure for participation in income and family expenses, and also agreeing on the fate of specific property. Therefore, a prenuptial agreement can be not so much a document "for a rainy day" as a way to make the financial relations of spouses more understandable in advance.

Let us imagine two people who are about to enter into marriage. They love each other, trust each other, and sincerely expect to live together their whole lives. But at the same time, they understand what family money is in completely different ways. For one, all income after the wedding automatically becomes shared, while for the other, it is completely natural to have personal savings. One considers it normal to take out large loans, the other categorically avoids debts. One is ready to give up work entirely for the sake of the family, the other perceives the financial independence of each spouse as a necessary condition for healthy relations.

Which of them is right? In fact, the question is posed incorrectly. There may be no single correct model here; what matters more is something else – whether they are capable of hearing each other's position and developing their own rules.

That is precisely why a prenuptial agreement can be viewed not only as a legal document but also as a kind of indicator of a couple's ability to reach agreements. Because an apartment, a business, money, and property are merely the content of the conversation. Its real subject is far deeper. It is trust, boundaries, responsibility, and the ability of two independent people to build a shared life without losing respect for each other's independence.

However, it would be wrong to present a prenuptial agreement exclusively as a manifestation of rationality and maturity. Like any legal instrument, it can be used in different ways. If one of the spouses possesses significantly greater financial resources and effectively confronts the other with the choice "sign or there will be no wedding," then it is already difficult to speak of an equal agreement.

In such a case, the agreement ceases to be a space for reconciling interests and turns into an instrument of pressure. The situation is especially dangerous when the economic advantage of one spouse is used to place the other in a deliberately disadvantageous position. Therefore, of fundamental importance is not only the content of the agreement but also the circumstances under which it is concluded, the opportunity to freely express one's will, to discuss the terms, and to understand their consequences.

The legislation itself establishes certain boundaries for the content of a prenuptial agreement. In particular, it must not regulate the personal non-property relations of spouses, restrict their legal capacity or legal competence, or contain provisions contradicting the foundations of marriage and family legislation. Consequently, a prenuptial agreement is not an instrument with the help of which one person gains power over another, but, above all, a legal mechanism for regulating property relations.

Perhaps the ambiguous attitude toward the prenuptial agreement in Kazakhstan is connected with the fact that we still perceive it through the prism of opposition: love or calculation, trust or contract, family or legal formalities. But these concepts do not necessarily exclude each other. One can love a person and at the same time respect their property rights, trust one's spouse and at the same time agree in advance on financial matters, hope to live together one's whole life and still understand that life does not always unfold according to a pre-written scenario.

Probably, as legal and financial culture develops, the prenuptial agreement will gradually come to be perceived not as a harbinger of divorce but as one of the forms of a responsible attitude toward family life. The maturity of a family is determined not by the absence of difficult questions but by the ability of spouses to discuss them calmly, openly, and as equals. And if a prenuptial agreement becomes the result of precisely such a conversation, then behind its legal form lies not distrust but a quite adult attempt by two people to responsibly agree on a shared life.

Kazbek AKHMETOV,
Psychologist, Doctoral Student
at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University