It is much more common for the business in question to be owned by one spouse and not both. However, that doesn’t make matters any less complicated. In this scenario, the question turns from “What do business ethics dictate?” to “What constitutes marital property?” For instance, if one spouse spent the majority of the marriage building a multi-million dollar empire, should the other spouse be entitled to a percentage of the shares? And if so, how much? Illinois is an equitable distribution state, meaning that marital property does not necessarily have to be divided equally, it just needs to be divided fairly. In the case of the business, the judge will consider how much of a role, if any, the non-owner played in making business ownership a possibility. For instance, if the non-owner helped run the books and took care of the children while the business owner put in late nights, weekends, and early mornings and contributed part of his or her income to get the business off the ground, the judge might award ample share of the business to them. On the other hand, if the non-owner had no role in the business’s success whatsoever, the judge might see no reason to grant them any share. With that in mind, the judge is not likely to grant the other spouse partial ownership; rather, they will have the business valued and order the spouse-owner to pay the other spouse his or her due share. It is also important to keep in mind that just because the spouse-owner had ownership of the business prior to getting married does not mean that the business is not marital property. Marital property is considered any income source that contributes to the family’s expenses, which a business is.