So my father and I were having a discussion the other day and he said marriage laws work such that anything a spouse owns before a marriage is NOT community property and cannot be divided after a divorce, like say a house. Is this true? I was under the impression that once you tied the knot, everything became community property. Does anybody know how this works from state to state?

No, I'm not getting married anytime soon. I just want to know what the truth is!

depends on the state, laws vary. If a person owned a home before marriage, and during said marriage the partner contributed to making payments on that home, then the partner should be entitled to a said portion of the proceeds of that property. But laws are different YMMV and all that.

Depends on where you live. When in doubt PRENUP.

Here it's so called equitable division of assests. And if you have been married for a while that inlcludes everything. No matter if you had it before the marriage.