Massachusetts General Laws

Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 209, § 25 (2026)

Antenuptial settlements; force and effect

✓ current as of July 2026

Find cases: SyfertCases citing this section MAmalegislature.gov (official) JustiaChapter on Justia CornellLII Search CasesGoogle Scholar

Section 25. At any time before marriage, the parties may make a written contract providing that, after the marriage is solemnized, the whole or any designated part of the real or personal property or any right of action, of which either party may be seized or possessed at the time of the marriage, shall remain or become the property of the husband or wife, according to the terms of the contract. Such contract may limit to the husband or wife an estate in fee or for life in the whole or any part of the property, and may designate any other lawful limitations. All such limitations shall take effect at the time of the marriage in like manner as if they had been contained in a deed conveying the property limited.

Notes of Decisions

Cited in 5 cases, 1932–2002 · leading case: Osborne v. Osborne, 428 N.E.2d 810 (Mass. 1981).

Sort: Relevance Newest Treatment

Osborne v. Osborne, 428 N.E.2d 810 (Mass. 1981). · cites it 2× “G. L. c. 209, §§ 25, 26. Freeland v. Freeland, 128 Mass.”

DeMatteo v. DeMatteo, 762 N.E.2d 797 (Mass. 2002). “The Legislature has recognized that ante-nuptial agreements settling property rights on marriage serve the useful function of permitting the parties to arrange their financial affairs as they best see fit.”

Dominick v. Dominick, 463 N.E.2d 564 (Mass. App. Ct. 1984). “On the record before us it is impossible to determine whether the agreement would require the wife to transfer any interest in real estate or simply her interest in entities which owned real estate.”

Welch v. King, 181 N.E. 846 (Mass. 1932). “Therefore, under familiar principles, she cannot be bound now by that clause unless (1) its binding force was authorized by some enabling statute, or unless (2) she has ratified it since reaching majority.”

Bickford v. Bickford, 12 Mass. L. Rptr. 378 (Mass. Super. Ct. 1999). “See G.L.c. 209, §25. As the Supreme Judicial Court noted in Rosenberg , 377 Mass, at 673, “The right to make antenuptial agreements settling property rights in advance of marriage is a valuable personal right which courts should not regulate destructively.”

Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.