# Marry a Conservative Catholic, Or You're Written Out of My Will! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 29, 2009, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989 "2009-09-29T15:51:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/21 "2009-09-29T17:57:41Z")
> [@Camus](#): > > Does it have to be an Orthodox Jew or can a Reform Jew qualify? Conservative and Reform Jews do conversions to Judaism that Orthodox Jews do not view as valid. What if one of the grandchildren married such a convert, who was recognized as Jewish by some Jews but not others? Orthodox and Conservative Judaism say that you’re Jewish if your mother is Jewish. Reform Judaism recognizes patrilineal descent as well- if your father is Jewish and your mother is not, but you are raised Jewish, they consider you Jewish. What happens if one of the grandchildren marries someone from a situation like that? ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/22 "2009-09-29T18:20:24Z")
> [@Camus](#): > > The biggest problem doesn’t seem to be public policy but of interpretation. I assume that the bequest is a bit more specific, but if not, how does one define “of the Jewish faith”? Does that mean a practicing Jew or does being born into Judaism count? Does it have to be an Orthodox Jew or can a Reform Jew qualify? I didn’t read the link to the actual opinion, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the Illinois Supreme Court, whether stated or not, gave extra berth to this clause given that Jewishness is both a religious and ethnic concept. As a minority with a long history of persecution, Jews may have more of a stake in ensuring the survival and continuation of their culture and religion, thus making this particular provision not contrary to public policy. > > This is as opposed to the thread title concerning conservative Catholics, since they are not a distinct group and it would be difficult to measure what exactly constitutes a conservative Catholic. Or Catholic for that matter, since that could include a Marionite Christian or a few other small denominations that still use the name “Catholic” in some variation. > [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > Conservative and Reform Jews do conversions to Judaism that Orthodox Jews do not view as valid. What if one of the grandchildren married such a convert, who was recognized as Jewish by some Jews but not others? > > Orthodox and Conservative Judaism say that you’re Jewish if your mother is Jewish. Reform Judaism recognizes patrilineal descent as well- if your father is Jewish and your mother is not, but you are raised Jewish, they consider you Jewish. What happens if one of the grandchildren marries someone from a situation like that? You’re fighting the hypothetical. You can presume that the bequest is worded such that these ambiguities do not occur. Now on to the question: Should your dead grandparents be permitted to influence your marital decisions by giving you a million dollar testamentary jackpot if you marry someone they approve of? ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/23 "2009-09-29T18:25:15Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > Now on to the question: Should your dead grandparents be permitted to influence your marital decisions by giving you a million dollar testamentary jackpot if you marry someone they approve of? I’ve got less of an issue (though still some misgivings) about them being allowed to do it to their grandchildren than to later generations. A conditional gift to people you know sounds more reasonable to me than trying to control the life of as yet unborn future generations. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/24 "2009-09-29T18:35:42Z")
Contracts impacting the institution of marriage are, I thought, null. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/25 "2009-09-29T18:38:48Z")
A prenup is a contract impacting the institution of marriage, and it is not void. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/26 "2009-09-29T18:52:04Z")
So, was it a pleasant pastel shade, or more of a nauseating lime? ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/27 "2009-09-29T19:20:04Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > Now on to the question: Should your dead grandparents be permitted to influence your marital decisions by giving you a million dollar testamentary jackpot if you marry someone they approve of? Actually, I find this much less objectionable than I do somebody who argues – all the way the state Supreme Court! – that they automatically have a right to money somebody else earned just because they’re related. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/28 "2009-09-29T19:21:39Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > Contracts impacting the institution of marriage are, I thought, null. Impacting, no. Precluding, yes. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/29 "2009-09-29T19:38:12Z")
Well, it is not their money anymore once it is put into the trust. Or even for that matter, after they die without a trust. It is a question of whether the interpretation of the law is correct, and if it is, should the legislature change it, and if they do change it, is it enforceable under religious freedoms protections of the state constitution and federal constitution. My recollection of my Wills & Trusts class was that this sort of thing was allowed. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/30 "2009-09-29T19:38:40Z")
What if the will were worded differently? What if Max and Erla set up a trust fund that would give a $1 mill wedding gift to each grandchild upon their first marriage, provided they marry a Jew. Any left over money, after X years, would be donated to the local synagogue/homeless shelter/humane society. Now we have Max and Erla offering a gift for getting married to a Jew, not withholding an inheritance. Would this pass? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/31 "2009-09-29T19:43:45Z")
The way I see it, the grandparents here are being jerks, but are legally within their rights. There would be no dispute if they just said “Distribute the estate uniformly among Saul, David, and Hymie, but nothing to Max, just because we don’t like him.”, correct? If “just because we don’t like him” is a valid reason to cut off Max, then isn’t “He married a goyim” also a valid reason? On the other hand, there’s also nothing stopping the descendants from further redistributing the estate amongst themselves, is there? It might be best for long-term family harmony if the Jewish-married descendants (who got a full share) voluntarily gave up some for their inappropriately-married siblings and cousins. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/32 "2009-09-29T19:56:02Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > Actually, I find this much less objectionable than I do somebody who argues – all the way the state Supreme Court! – that they automatically have a right to money somebody else earned just because they’re related. Do you think Grandma and Grandpa were surprised to learn–after all that toil!–that one day they would die and somebody else would get their property? We used to have a form of ownership known as [“fee tail”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fee_tail) that gave the grantee what amounted to an inalienable (that is, unsellable) life estate and automatically passed, in a similar form, to the grantee’s heirs. They likewise took an inalienable life estate that passed automatically to their heirs, and so on. The obvious objective to this form of ownership is to keep the property in the family; an objective most people find inoffensive, perhaps even desirable. It nevertheless proved very unpopular with those who held the entailed land, since it represented an asset with a significant cost of carry but which could not (without a particulary byzantine legal operation called the [“Common Recovery”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Recovery)) be converted into cash. Back to the principle that Grandma and Grandpa, by virtue of the sweat of their brow, control the disposition of their assets after death. Should Grandma and Grandpa be able to direct the marriages of their progeny into eternity by entailing Blackacre and subjecting it to a shifting executory interest\* such that the tenure expires if a mixed marriage is entered into? Or can we not countenance that death might mean giving up some power to influence what goes on in this mortal coil? - Yes, I’m pretty sure fee tail can’t be altered in this way. Don’t fight the hypothetical. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/33 "2009-09-29T19:56:08Z")
> [@villa](#): > > A prenup is a contract impacting the institution of marriage, and it is not void. In Ontario, terms in a pre-nup or any other domestic contract may be void due to being contrary to policy. A few weeks back, a judge changed the wording in a draft consent order from “This Court order that the child shall be raised in the Christian faith” to “This Court finds that the parties agree that the child shall be raised in the Christian faith.” Note that the judge was not willing to make the term in to something enforcable. It’s quite remarkable what some folks will try to put in a pre-nup. (One of my clients was asked to sign a prenup that required her to not go outside the home except in a burqa with full head covering and veil in the presence of the husband for the purpose of atttending mosque, and to have at least one baby per year for the first three years, failing which she would be required to consent to a divorce and not have the dowery returned.) Just because a couple of consenting adults make a contract that affects only the two of them does not necesarily mean that all the terms of the deal will be enforcable. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/34 "2009-09-29T20:08:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The way I see it, the grandparents here are being jerks, but are legally within their rights. There would be no dispute if they just said “Distribute the estate uniformly among Saul, David, and Hymie, but nothing to Max, just because we don’t like him.”, correct? If “just because we don’t like him” is a valid reason to cut off Max, then isn’t “He married a goyim” also a valid reason? That’s certainly true. But decedents require the assistance of the state to pass their assets. And the question is whether the state should withhold that assistance, especially when it interferes with something we like to encourage, namely that people enter happy, fulfilling marriages that are not contracted just to get an inheritance. Public policy isn’t the end of the story, of course. If the grandparents disinherited a grandchild because, during the lifetime of the grandparents, the grandchild married someone not approved of, the courts wouldn’t undo that disinheritance. What we seem to balance is (1) our natural inclination to allow the owner of property to dispose of that property however she sees fit, (2) our public policy interest in promoting freely chosen spouses, and (3) our interest in preventing property ownership from being cluttered with conditions that really only matter to people who long ago became worm food. My own take is that the combination of (2) and (3) outweigh (1) [and I would add that (3) alone is not enough to outweigh (1), there needs to be an additional public interest before we can muck around with the testator’s wishes]. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/35 "2009-09-29T20:17:02Z")
(And the pedant in me feels the need to correct myself: I should have said “goy”, right? Marrying goyim would make one a polygamist, I think.) ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/36 "2009-09-29T20:20:20Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > In Ontario, terms in a pre-nup or any other domestic contract may be void due to being contrary to policy. > > … > > Just because a couple of consenting adults make a contract that affects only the two of them does not necesarily mean that all the terms of the deal will be enforcable. Indeed. ANY contract can be void due to public policy. But **Paul in Qatar** ’s comment suggested contracts impacting marriage were, by their nature, void. And that is bollocks. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/37 "2009-09-29T20:21:28Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > One of my clients was asked to sign a prenup that required her to not go outside the home except in a burqa with full head covering and veil in the presence of the husband for the purpose of atttending mosque, and to have at least one baby per year for the first three years, failing which she would be required to consent to a divorce and not have the dowery returned. Of course, the irony is that they were baptist. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/38 "2009-09-29T20:22:29Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > So, was it a pleasant pastel shade, or more of a nauseating lime? Limeish, with odd spots that looked like water discoloration. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/39 "2009-09-29T20:44:31Z")
Educate a foreigner here: isn’t freedom of religion part of the US Constitution? So such a will would be unconstitutional. Right? ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989/40 "2009-09-29T21:03:20Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Educate a foreigner here: isn’t freedom of religion part of the US Constitution? So such a will would be unconstitutional. Right? No. The US Constitution (more specifically, to address your question, the US Bill of Rights) protects Americans from having their rights infringed by their own government. A will, being a matter of private law, cannot be unconstitutional. It can have many problems that prevent it being executed, and be found void for a number of reasons, but “unconstitutionality” will never play a role. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-a-conservative-catholic-or-youre-written-out-of-my-will/511989.md?page=3)