As the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbs ever higher, so does the frequency of prenuptial agreements. These are contracts that engaged couples use before getting married to stipulate how their property and cash will be divided in the event of divorce.

Prenups typically surface when the man and the woman aren't on an equal financial footing, with one party seeking protection from the litigious ravages of divorce should the marriage fail. Yet prenups are sometimes deemed necessary by partners of comparable means. For example, they may want to ensure that records of the family business aren't exposed in protracted court proceedings. Or, if only one party owns the business, that individual might use a prenup to keep his or her future spouse from getting a piece of it in a divorce settlement.

Pulling out a prenup may not be the best way to keep the romance aglow, but if you feel the need to protect yourself, there are some key points to bear in mind. Similarly, if you're on the receiving end of those two distrustful-sounding syllables, you have your own strategic points to consider.

Here are some of the basics.

• If you're on either end of a prenup, get a lawyer, and get one fast. Not only do you want to have an attorney, but you want your fiancé to have one as well. This way, neither party can claim that the other didn't know what he or she was doing.
• Disclose everything. If you're proposing a prenuptial agreement, you're probably the wealthier member of the couple, and it's incumbent on you to disclose all of your property and assets in the agreement. If you don't, your future ex-spouse's attorney will attack the agreement, saying his or her client would never have agreed to a given distribution had he or she known the full extent of your holdings. If you're presented with a prenup and you want to be protected down the road, ask your lawyer about including a clause stating that the property listed is indeed the full extent of your fiancé's holdings.
• Do it early. Not on the second date, mind you, but long before the wedding day. Often, people will propose prenups after the wedding bells have begun chiming. The hurried nature of such signing could be construed as a factor of duress, and hence disallowed in court. Then again, if you're not the one proposing the prenup, you may want to put off the signing until the wedding day to give yourself an out.
• The distribution of property shouldn't be so unbalanced as to be unconscionable, often grounds for being disallowed. So, if you're keeping the ski chalet in Zermatt and the beachfront house in Cannes, the least you can do is let the other party have the place in Vermont.
• Videotape the signing. This is done more and more often with myriad contracts to show that the parties actually did sign the papers themselves, and that there was no duress involved. If you're on the receiving end of a prenup, you may want to "forget" to recharge the video-camera battery.