Stanford Law Review Volume 73 January 2021 ARTICLE Nonmarital Contracts Albertina Antognini* Abstract. Marriage has long been a recognized limit on the right to contract. Wives were once prevented from contracting entirely, and now gender-neutral rules prevent spouses from contracting over matters that are considered integral to the marital relationship. Outside of marriage, then, scholars have generally assumed that individuals experience no similar impediments in exercising their rights to contract. In fact, the right to contract has been widely understood as an effective means of providing unmarried couples access to legal rights they otherwise lack. But there has yet to be any assessment of how such contracts actually fare outside of marriage. This Article provides that assessment. It considers how the right to contract is construed across intimate relationships. After canvassing the body of cases addressing express contracts in the context of nonmarital relationships, it shows that—contrary to conventional wisdom—courts routinely invalidate express agreements between unmarried couples. In particular, it argues that courts restrict the right to contract outside of marriage in precisely the same ways it is restricted within marriage. Contract doctrine thereby does the work of status, insofar as it limits access to property on the basis of the relationship and refuses to recognize services rendered, like homemaking or child-rearing. Contract, however, functions more expansively and less visibly than status because these * Professor of Law, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. I am especially grateful for the generous comments provided by Susan Frelich Appleton, Barbara A. Atwood, Katharine Baker, Ralph Richard Banks, Marisa Cianciarulo, Beth Colgan, Andrew Gilden, Thea Johnson, Elizabeth D. Katz, Saura Masconale, Toni M. Massaro, Kaiponanea T. Matsumura, Serena Mayeri, Goldburn P. Maynard, Jr., Alison Morantz, Robert Pollak, Jamie Ratner, Shalev Roisman, Naomi Schoenbaum, Norman Spaulding, Emily J. Stolzenberg, Rebecca Tushnet, and Andrew K. Woods. I also thank the University of Arizona legal librarians, along with participants at the Chapman Works- in-Progress Workshop, the University of Arizona College of Law Developing Ideas Workshop, the University of Arizona Freedom Center Colloquium, the 2020 Family Law Scholars and Teachers Conference, the 2020 Nonmarriage Roundtable, the Work, Family, and Public Policy Workshop at Washington University in St. Louis, and the 2020 Stanford/Yale/Harvard Junior Faculty Forum. Finally, I am indebted to my research assistant, Niya S. Tawachi, and the Stanford Law Review editors, in particular Katherine Giordano, Alyssa Epstein, Julián Álvarez, Jessica Blau, Donovan Hicks, Tyler McClure, Hannah Nelson, Alexandra O’Keefe, Jasmine Robinson, Danielle Roybal, Morgan Smiley, and Samuel Ward-Packard. All errors are mine. 67 Nonmarital Contracts 73 STAN. L. REV. 67 (2021) restrictions apply beyond marriage and other formal relationships to impact individuals in nonmarital relationships. This inquiry matters now more than ever. At a time when the number of individuals marrying is remarkably low and there are no ex ante rules regulating the rights of nonmarital couples, it is imperative to analyze whether contract is a viable legal option. This Article shows that the right to contract is limited outside of marriage and, as currently constituted, provides at best an incomplete resolution to the problem of what rights individuals ought to have in a nonmarital relationship. 68 Nonmarital Contracts 73 STAN. L. REV. 67 (2021) Table of Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................................................................. 70 I. Contracts in Families ................................................................................................................................. 81 A. No Right to Contract for Services ............................................................................................ 83 B. From Coverture to Contract ....................................................................................................... 88 C. Right to Contract in the Nonmarital Literature .............................................................. 95 II. Contracts in Nonmarriage .................................................................................................................... 100 A. Contracts Not Upheld ................................................................................................................... 102 1. Sex and services ...................................................................................................................... 104 2. Love and affection ................................................................................................................. 110 3. Presumption of gratuity and lack of exchange ..................................................... 113 4. Vagueness ................................................................................................................................... 117 5. Remands et al. .......................................................................................................................... 118 B. Contracts Upheld ............................................................................................................................. 122 1. Marital-like same-sex couples ........................................................................................ 123 2. Principally property-based claims ............................................................................... 127 3. Relationship-based or service-based contract claims ........................................ 134 III. Consequences of a Restricted Right to Contract ...................................................................... 137 A. Contract as Status ............................................................................................................................ 138 B. Marriage and Nonmarriage ....................................................................................................... 143 C. Possible Reforms .............................................................................................................................. 145 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................................ 151 Appendix A: Nonmarital Contracts Between Different-Sex Partners ................................... 154 Appendix B: Nonmarital Contracts Between Same-Sex Partners ............................................ 171 69 Nonmarital Contracts 73 STAN. L. REV. 67 (2021) Introduction A curious thing is taking place. As the social institution of marriage has become more companionate,1 the laws regulating marriage increasingly treat the relationship as being composed of individual and autonomous actors, each wholly independent from the other.2 Marriage, once governed by the reciprocal rights and duties established by the explicitly gendered and generally lifelong statuses of husband and wife, now allows for relatively easy entry into and exit from its strictures; it also accommodates a spouse’s right to contract around many of the once-sacrosanct marital obligations.3 The general outlines of this legal evolution were already identified in 1861 by Henry Sumner Maine, whose well-worn declaration affirmed that “[t]he movement of . progressive societies” is marked “by the gradual dissolution of family dependency and the growth of individual obligation in its place.”4 Stated in slightly more familiar terms, the move is one from status—”those forms of reciprocity in rights and duties which have their origin in the Family”—to contract—a “social order in which all . relations arise from the free agreement of Individuals.”5 Much has been written on the accuracy of Maine’s statement, and many 1. D. KELLY WEISBERG & SUSAN FRELICH APPLETON, MODERN FAMILY LAW 221 (6th ed. 2016). Societal pressure to find complete satisfaction in one’s spouse is also growing. See Hidden Brain, When Did Marriage Become So Hard?, NAT’L PUB. RADIO, at 13:44-13:50, 14:47-14:54 (Feb. 12, 2018, 9:00 PM ET), https://perma.cc/43HY-TWW8 (“[W]e wanted to self-actualize through our marriage. We wanted to grow into a more authentic version of ourselves. [W]e’re looking to our spouse, again, not only for love but also this sense of personal growth and fulfillment.”). 2. “[M]arriage is now thought of as a relationship between two autonomous persons and divorce as a clean break rather than a gradual dissolution of a community.” Richard H. Chused, Family (Proper)ty, 1 GREEN BAG 2D 121, 125 (1998). 3. Id. at 121; see also Katharine B. Silbaugh, Marriage Contracts and the Family Economy, 93 NW. U. L. REV. 65, 70-71 (1998) (noting that premarital agreements “are enforceable when the terms of the agreement fix property rights at the end of marriage” and “increasingly . when they fix alimony rights”). 4. HENRY SUMNER MAINE, ANCIENT LAW: ITS CONNECTION WITH THE EARLY HISTORY OF SOCIETY, AND ITS RELATION TO MODERN IDEAS 168 (Legal Classics Libr. spec. ed. 1982) (1861) [hereinafter MAINE]; see also Brian Bix, Domestic Agreements, 35 HOFSTRA L. REV. 1753, 1753 (2007) (“It is a cliché, in discussions of family law and agreements, to point to Sir Henry Maine’s famous quotation that society has moved ‘from Status to Contract.’” (quoting