Divorces are intensely personal and often contentious affairs. Spouses fight. Anger grows. Accusations are traded back and forth. It can be impossible to know with certainty what goes on inside a marriage, or what causes one to end (divorce agreements are confidential, and people loyal to ex-husbands and ex-wives invariably color events in the ways that reflect best on their family members and friends). But when two such well-known figures as Ron Perelman and Ellen Barkin divorce, the relationship inevitably becomes a matter of public discussion.

What is most interesting about this article to me, however, is the detail it provides into the pre nuptial agreement between Perelman and Ms. Barkin:

Perelman and Barkin's prenup was another issue. In the months leading up to the wedding, Barkin had told a friend, she and her lawyers had raised concerns about certain clauses of the agreement (a Perelman friend denies Barkin raised such concerns). Barkin signed the contract the day before the wedding. "I would never use the word naive with Ellen Barkin in the same line," one of her friends says. "But she really loved him. She had heard all the other stories about his other wives. She thought this one would be different somehow."

Surprisingly enough, this is an all-too-familiar situation and certainly not one in which only celebrities find themselves. Many couples these days sign pre nuptial agreements and for good reason: such agreements protect the assets each spouse has amassed; assets that otherwise might be combined into the marital estate after marriage. Under state laws that govern how marital estates can be divided in any number of situations, especially those excluding divorce, and that puts each spouse at risk of losing their personal property.

Now when someone who is extraordinarily rich, like Ron Perelman, marries someone who is only ordinarily rich (or not-at-all rich) like Miss Barkin, there is cause for concern. Pre-nups must be fair. They cannot leave one spouse in a financially worse position than they would have been had they not married the other person. Pre nuptial agreements must take into account that whatever financial gains the richer spouse realized during the course of the marriage must be shared with the other spouse. In this case, however, Miss Barkin did have the advice of attorneys - and went against their advice.

I'll leave it to the reader to digest the rest of the magazine article, but suffice it to say that essentially the same kind of problems that can occur in other relationships - jealously, unwillingness to compromise, etc. - soon arose in the Perelman-Barkin marriage; problems that eventually came to a head and led to their divorce. And while the problems experienced by billionaires and movie stars may not have precisely the same analogue to those we experience, but I think we can all relate to the essence of them.

As to the fairness of the pre-nup, described in the article, I will also let the reader decide. What's important to note, however, is that the couple did have a pre-nup, that it was negotiated by lawyers and that each spouse was obliged to abide by its terms once they had each freely decided to sign it.

That much is true of all pre-nups and of all spouses. The end result is that this article presents a good objective lesson in how these things work, both in the lives of celebrities and those of us who watch celebrities. It's a lesson we can all profit by.