What are the factors used by courts in other jurisdictions to determine the voluntariness of a premarital agreement?

Decisions interpreting the enforcement provision of the Uniform Act in other jurisdictions also refer to such factors as inequality of bargaining power, coercion arising from circumstances peculiar to an imminent wedding, the absence of independent counsel for one party, and the parties' knowledge of the purpose of the agreement.⁹ The factors we have identified also are in most respects consistent with recent non-Uniform Act cases in other jurisdictions that examine what often is termed the procedural fairness of premarital agreements.¹⁰ These factors also are consistent

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with the circumstances previously considered in this state, prior to California's adoption of the Uniform Act, in connection with the issue of the voluntariness of a premarital agreement. In In re Marriage of Dawley, supra, 17 Cal.3d 342, 131 Cal.Rptr. 3, 551 P.2d 323, for example, we rejected the wife's claim that a premarital agreement waiving community property rights had been obtained through undue influence, pointing out that in the particular case the pressure to marry created by an unplanned pregnancy fell equally on both the parties, that both parties were educated and employed, and that the party challenging the agreement did not rely upon the other party's advice, but consulted her own attorney. (Id. at p. 355 and fn. 8, 131 Cal.Rptr. 3, 551 P.2d 323; see also In re Estate of Cantor (1974) 39 Cal. App.3d 544, 548-549, 114 Cal.Rptr. 160 [finding that the party disputing a premarital agreement made a knowing waiver of his marital rights]; La Liberty v. La Liberty, supra, 127 Cal.App. at pp. 673-674, 16 P.2d 681 [rejecting lack of independent counsel as a basis for rescission, given the parties' apparent understanding of the meaning of the premarital agreement].)

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