Divorce Ban or Marriage Expiration?December 2, 2009As the Divorce Ban bandwagon takes off to collect the 694,354 signatures needed to initiate a California ban on divorce, the focus is back on personal choice, the government and family values.
Led by social visionary and Sacramento resident John Marcotte, whose new proposition is either a full slam against divorce or a bird flip against the supporters of Prop 8, which banned gay marriage, Divorce Ban enthusiasts want straight couples to go all the way: uphold family values and never end your unions.
And imagine if legislation could make such a far-fetched notion the real deal? It might be the best thing for all of us. Just as George Bush begat Barack Obama, a Divorce Ban could spawn Marriage Expiration.
In theory marriage should make a couple's respect, a couple's love and a couple's caring a given. But often these nebulous concepts become a "for granted", paving the way to a couple's therapist and a couple's divorce attorney.
With Marriage Expiration a marriage license would act like a driver's license. You get to use it for ten years and then, poof, it's over. No divorce. Your marriage simply expires on your wedding anniversary. Like all good licenses, however, you can renew. And that would be the hope, that you renew your license — for your sake, for your partner's sake and for the sake of your relatives and kids and all the diehard friends who revere you and your soulmate. Family values prevail.
But expired licenses expire for a reason. They expire to make sure that you're still up to par and know how to get the car into first gear. If within that ten-year period you've become incapable of reading street signs or you've amassed so many DUIs that you're a hazard on the road, no one wants you careening down a freeway. On the other hand, if you've used your license wisely, cautiously transporting yourself, your joyriders and co-workers from point A to B, then you're welcome to make that cross country trip you've always been dreaming about. Keep truckin'.
So imagine the scenario in marriage. If a partner slacks off, scoffs at dirty dishes, forgets the word "thank you", blocks you on Facebook and calls you names, the transgressor flunks renewal qualifications. Of course, in the world of Marriage Expiration, there would be no government body deciding who qualifies and who doesn't. The couples do their own weighing. They can decide on their own to "opt in" for another ten years. Or not.
Perhaps just knowing that you can't nurse overgrown toenails and cultivate major slacker traits without risking an "opt out" would make each party bring on the roses and lollipop swirls. When those early dates lit up the first opt-in period, love was on its best behavior. In marriage, one might think, there's no good reason why it should entirely go to crap.
There are plenty of couples out there who don't need the threat of an expired license to keep their relationships warm and fuzzy. They're happy. These are the same couples who would go unscathed during a Divorce Ban. But for everyone else in the gray zone who's striving to keep the peace and wishing scented candles were good for late-night swoons instead of fodder for arguments about aromatherapy, the ultimate focus is probably not on maintaining family values, but on not having a heart attack or a nervous breakdown.
We have to ask ourselves what makes the most sense. If efforts to uphold family values become a dangerous game of knife juggling and dodging rage, then staying together for family values is really a case of family facades. Since legislating happiness is impossible, why force a "till-death-do-us part" certificate?
Because happiness is part of the family values package — isn't it? — Marriage Expiration would be the way to go. With a little paradigm shift, we can all rejoice at the happy person who decides to opt in instead of squirm at the brokenhearted who tries, with the help of lawyers, judges, documentation, court dates, dollars and fried nerves, to get out. NewsSipPhoto: Henry the Sixth uploaded by Giovanni Villani
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