household expenses). The court further found that the amount of respondent’s RRSP subject to equitable distribution was $11,549 (the balance as of September, 1980) not $8,300 (the balance as of the trial). Respondent has appealed. Respondent contends that the parties’ RRSP’s should have been treated as separate property rather than as marital property. Both RRSP’s, however, were acquired “during the marriage and before * * * the commencement of a matrimonial action” (Domestic Relations Law, §
236, part B, subd 1, par c). Neither was acquired by bequest, devise or gift from someone other than the spouse; as compensation for personal injuries; in exchange for separate property; or was described as separate property by the parties in a written agreement (§
236, part B, subd 1, par d). Thus, the RRSP’s plainly come within the definition of “marital property” in the statute (see
Forcucci v Forcucci, 83 AD 2d 169 ,171). Moreover, in his answer respondent does not deny petitioner’s allegation that the RRSP’s are marital property; he merely disputes the amount of his RRSP which should be considered for equitable distribution purposes. Relying on
Kobylack v Kobylack (110 Mise 2d 402), respondent asserts that the RRSP’s should not be subject to equitable distribution, but that, instead, each party should be entitled to his/her own RRSP.
Kobylack is clearly distinguishable from the instant case, however. In
Kobylack the court found that the husband acquired his profit-sharing plan with his “discretionary income”, which was “treated separately by the parties” from their contributions to the mutual household
{id., at p 408). Here the parties have claimed no such separate category of “discretionary income”, but, to the contrary, appear to have treated their marriage throughout as an economic partnership. During the first one and one-half years of their marriage, the parties here actually had close to an equal financial partnership, both working for similar salaries and contributing equally to the purchase of their house and to the household expenses. Although their partnership was no longer financially equal after the move to Ithaca (caused by respondent’s job change), petitioner still contributed whatever she earned toward the household expenses, plus $7,377.79 of her RRSP, approximately the same amount respondent contributed during that period from his RRSP. She maintained the marital home, and indeed the court below found that respondent “asked the petitioner not to seek employment” when they moved to Ithaca. Furthermore, virtually the entire 1979
joint income tax refund of the parties was applied to the Marine Midland loan which had been used to purchase additional funds for respondent’s RRSP in 1979. On the record before us, therefore, there appears no reason why both parties’ RRSP’s should not be subject to equitable distribution as “marital property”. Marital property is to be distributed on the basis of the factors enumerated in the equitable distribution statute (Domestic Relations Law, §
236, part B, subd 5, pars c, d;
Forcucci v Forcucci, 83 AD2d 169 , 171,
supra). On the one hand, certain factors such as the shortness of the marriage, both parties’ vocational skills and work experience, their relative youth (ages 41 and 32 when divorced) and good health, and the fact that no children were born of the marriage, all tend to suggest that each should receive his or her own RRSP under equitable distribution. On the other hand, this marriage was clearly an equal financial partnership in its early stages when both parties had similar earning power and contributed equally to the purchase of their house and to their living expenses. If they had continued thus to share all expenses equally, any discrepancies between the two RRSP’s would be attributable to agreements between them as to how their “partnership” would spend and invest its money, rather than to any intention that one partner should have a larger retirement fund than the other. We assume this financial equality would have continued but for respondent’s causing the parties to move to