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Till Death, or 20 Years, Do Us Part

Matt - Tue, 2012-10-02 01:09

Article here. Excerpt:

'Last year, several lawmakers in Mexico City proposed the creation of short-term, renewable marriage contracts with terms as brief as two years. The idea was to own up to the reality that marriages fail about half the time.

Is marriage headed for an overhaul? A fundamental rethinking? Is it due for one?

When the Mexican legislators proposed their idea, which was not passed, the archdiocese there called it “absurd” and said it was anathema to the nature of marriage. I decided to put the questions to a different group: the people who study marriage and divorce. I was motivated not just by trend lines but, as a child of divorce, by ghosts.
...
Kenneth P. Altshuler, the president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the divorce-attorney trade group, said such contracts were neither so absurd nor impractical as they might sound. He thinks they could address some of the financial costs associated with divorce, which he estimates at hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

One key, he said, would be figuring out a formula for predetermining alimony, given the extent to which money becomes a proxy for bitterness during divorce. That could be solved, he said, through something like tables that show what payments each spouse would make based on his or her eventual income in Year 20.
...
As a thought experiment, Mr. Altshuler said, sure, given the lie we’re currently telling ourselves. There’s still a fantasy of Ozzie and Harriet, he said, “and if that’s what we’ve decided we’re striving for, we are failing miserably.”

“So perhaps we need to change our expectations so we’re not so unhappy,” he said.'

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How 'bout no alimony at all, Mr. Altshuler

Matt - Tue, 2012-10-02 01:22

Try this instead: Parties maintain separate financial accounts, agree on %ages of contributions to joint expenses based on income or expected income-- bad things like a lay-off can happen, as we know. What to do in the event of that sort of thing, or a spouse who is faithless economically to the contract, can also be handled by the agreement. If people want a "traditional marriage", then fine-- but it has to be stipulated in the marriage contract and worked out ahead of time how much the "non-working spouse" will get, if anything, should there be a divorce, or at the end of the contract. Also, what constitutes divorce grounds should also be laid out clearly, and standards of proof also delineated. The burden of proof would be on the divorcing spouse, just as in any contract where the violated party has to show how the contract was not fulfilled and in what way.

In essence, a renewable contract that has a number of years and clear responsibilities laid out in it is what is needed, and it has to be treated like any other contract rather than like how it's treated now-- ie, a vehicle for nymphotropism. The current state of affairs leaves the whole thing in the hands of the gov't and it is then handled post facto-- what other legal contract has stipulations for termination so malleably interpretable after the fact, I ask you? A contract to buy a house, which people usually don't own for more than 10 years, stipulates the parties' duties and obligations in the sale ahead of time, requiring truly extraordinary circumstances to get any kind of civil ruling altering the terms or changing their force and effect. Amazing the same thing isn't true with marriage. Amazing there isn't already a way to get a time-limited legal marriage, as well.

People have to get their collective heads out of their collective arses and see that we are living in the 21st century. Times have certainly changed and going back to the 1950s is NOT an option. It's about time the whole "M Word Thing" got brought up to date to keep with the times, otherwise it will well and truly be relegated to the dustbin of history as more and more people just don't see the reason for it or wisdom in doing it.

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