Why Does A Wall Street Man Get Married At All
A few months ago, Bloomberg News reporter Caroline Byrne chronicled a British divorce court’s chilling new open-handedness with the ex-wives of rich businessmen. The most recent House of Lords decision implies that the women are entitled to half of all of the men’s future earnings, in perpetuity. British law remains messy: There is still no clear rule, just a bunch of contradictory precedents that suggest there never has been a better time to divorce a London hedge-fund manager. The situation for rich men has grown so dire that a U.K. divorce lawyer named Jeremy Levison tells his clients: “Don’t get married. If you must, make sure your other half is as rich as you.” British law has put a fine point on a question that has been hovering over Wall Street for a long time now: Why does Wall Street Man get married at all? He cares a great deal about money, obviously, as he spends so much of his life getting it. And if he does get rich it is because, in theory, he has a special gift for assessing the odds of financial transactions. Yet at some point he — and it’s typically “he” though on rare occasions it’s a “she” — blithely ignores the odds of this potentially disastrous deal: Why?
Put another way: The expected benefits of marriage to a young Wall Street male haven’t obviously improved, but the expected costs to him are going through the roof. Worse, the very act of making a fortune on Wall Street probably only increases the chances of losing a wife.Pay an investment banker who seriously dislikes his wife half a million dollars and he may be a bit more tempted than usual to put his marriage at risk, but he’ll still think before leaving it. It’s possible that, just like ordinary folk, he forgets his narrow financial interests when he falls in love, and only later, when he falls out, appreciates the value of what he has sold: a call option on half of whatever financial fortune he’s made (obtaining in the bargain a put option on his soft, aging, hairy body). Why so many young men who set out so single-mindedly to become rich on Wall Street ignore the British divorce lawyer’s advice. Take a look at the numbers towards the end of the article.
