Oklahoma is considering "covenant marriages," according to a Fox News report:
The voluntary new form of marriage proposed by Rep. John Wright, R-Broken Arrow, would ban 'incompatibility' as grounds for divorce and require the couple to attend marriage counseling at least 15 days before the wedding.
Wright said the new marriage option would lead to a higher level of commitment between partners — and fewer divorces. Couples would choose a covenant marriage as a way to hold themselves up to a higher standard of working through problems without considering divorce first, he said.
'Any couple has trying times in their marriage, but successful couples learn how to work through their problems,' Wright said. 'This eliminates the easy-out mechanism.'
Real marriages like this that require genuine work and commitment from spouses are badly needed. The advent of "no fault divorce" has eroded our society about as much as anything. It breaks people's hearts and leaves broken homes with screwed up children who often end up in prison when they get older. If ever there was a case for government to promote or encourage something, this is it.
What we have now isn't real marriage. Real marriage means keeping that commitment you make at the altar, including the "until death do us part" part. In practical terms, what we have now is "I'll live with you as long as I don't get tired of you, in which case I'm out of here."
The article does point out that in some other states that have covenant marriage, only 5% of couples have chosen the "real marriage."
I don't know whether that's because they just don't know about it (I would venture it's probably not promoted very well), or couples just acknowledge up front that they want an escape hatch from marriage. If they refuse covenant marriage when it's available, that should tell prospective spouses something about one another.
A refusal of a covenant marriage (a real marriage) should tell those who refuse that one or both of them aren't ready to get married.
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