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I was speaking with a lawyer today (not the famous or infamous as the case may be Aida Castillo Julia) and he brought some interesting points to my attention. One is that in the case of someone who marries and is drawing a pension it is fully protected in the event of divorce. Second is that there is a practise here of setting up a "sociadad" if you want to purchase expensive goods such as property or stocks after marriage and protect yourself from losing half the investment in case of divorce. You must have one other partner and it can even be her. It can be set up with any ownership percentages. He said for example you could make her a ten percent owner so she feels she has something but in case of divorce that's all she'd get. Cost to set one up about $700US. A pre-nup is refered to as "capitulaciones matrimoniales". That can protect something you bring to the marriage but nothing you acquire after including any increase in value of prior holdings.

... in response to Legal tidbits, posted by Cali vet on Jan 22, 2003

I'm not sure if you have to go out of your way to set up a "society" I think it is the default when getting married in Colombia. One of the passages in M's divorce decree specificaly says "It is declared dissolved and in a state of liquidation the conjugal society formed by virtue of the marriage" [Declarase disuelta y en estado de liquidacion, la sociedad conyugal conformada en virtud del matrimonio].

Sounds like your lawyer was talking about the BUSINESS arrangement "Sociedad Anonima" {or Autonima, never can remembemer which without looking it up) which is basicaly a closely held corparation and is the "SA" you see on the end of so many business names. Sometimes you also see a business named "Whatever SA de CV" which is a public corporation. But (at least that's how it's always been explained to me) the SA and SA de CV have nothing to do with marriage or divorce, instead they provide the same limited libability protection that a corporation provides up here.