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→Negotiating a marriage agreement
===Negotiating a marriage agreement===
If a marriage agreement is appropriate and desirable, the people involved will negotiate the terms of the agreement and one or both of the parties will draft a written agreement. As with all family law agreements, it is important that both parties get independent legal advice about what exactly the agreement means, how it affects their present rights and responsibilities towards one another, and how it will impact on those rights and responsibilities if the marriage comes to an end. Getting independent legal advice makes the agreement harder to change later on by preventing one spouse from saying "I didn't know what it meant" or "she had the lawyer, not me." and challenging the agreement later on.
Marriage agreements should be signed well in advance of the marriage ceremony. If an agreement is being negotiated on the brink of the wedding, the court may be concerned about the fairness of the circumstances in which the agreement was negotiated and made. The emotional stress involved in arranging and potentially cancelling the wedding might be found to mean that someone was coerced into signing the agreement.