On marriage

[pecunium]

John Scalzi had this to say about "Covenant Marriage" in Ark.

...just over two thirds of one percent of Arkansas marriages have been covenant marriages since the new variation of marriage was enacted into law in 2001.

Simple reason for that: As a concept, it's pretty damn insulting. "Covenant Marriage" implicitly suggests that people won't stay married unless they subject themselves to onerous governmental restrictions on their personal freedoms; basically, it's the state telling you that it expects you to get a divorce at some point, unless it makes it too annoying for you to get a divorce to make it worth your while. The State of Arkansas is banking on sloth, apathy and state bureaucracy to keep a bunch of bad marriages together, as if bad marriages are really better than divorce."

Comments

Urk.

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The whole "covenant" thing comes from the fundy belief that if your marriage isn't fundy Christian, it really isn't a marriage. Or not a real one anyway. I had to attend a fundy wedding a couple years ago, and the minister intoned that only marriages "in Christ" or some such garbage would make it. I turned to my husband and whispered, "Well, hon, I guess we're screwed." And like Scalzi says, Red states have higher divorce rates than blue states (probably the economy has something to do with it, as well as clueless people getting married too young).

Re: Urk.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Well, there are a host of things. It isn't so much the belief that a non-fundy marriage isn't real (there is a lot of that sort of parochial thinking... take a look at the RC) so much as a belief that people are weak willed and need a strong paternal force, in this case the church/state, to keep them on the strait and narrow.

Because a Unitarian, a Roman Catholic, [gasp] even an atheist, can get one of these.

But the idea is that no-fault divorce is why so many marriages break up.

A soupcon of ignorance (about relative divorce rates) and arrogance (that what we think works for us, will work for everyone) and you get this sort of thing. Thankfully it has not caught on (and we'll see in five years or so how well those who used it do... one wonders, can one flee the state, then file; after establishing residence in some other state, short of the limit? What would the conflicting aspects of full faith and credit do?).

TK