Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The debates going on during the last decade about the role that marriage has played in modern society have focused mainly on whether marriages should be limited to a man and a woman. Through all of it, opponents of gay marriage have insisted that marriage is the cornerstone of our society. Apparently they disregard agriculture or safety from predators or any of the other reasons that communities actually exist.
Through all of that, I shook my head and considered how cheaply people treat marriage, with drive-through chapels in Las Vegas, high divorce rates and high school seniors getting engaged to the only people they’ve ever dated. But maybe I should have kept my mouth shut.
The Kansas House of Representatives recently passed a bill which, if it makes it past the Senate and Gov. Mark Parkinson’s desk, would mandate “covenant marriage” in Kansas. Covenant marriage essentially makes it law that marriages will only be licensed if couples undergo counseling first and that divorces will only be granted under special circumstances. Those circumstances are reported in The Topeka Capital Journal as including one spouse cheating on the other, or being convicted of a major crime.
Although these are certainly good reasons to end a marriage, it seems odd to limit grounds for divorce to those and a few other things. There is really no easy way to legally define the circumstances for many divorces. I agree whole-heartedly that people rush into divorce out of excitement at times. I’ve seen plenty of my friends rush into marriages with people they have not been involved with for more than a few months, and then go through very ugly divorces after even shorter periods.
That said, people make rash decisions all the time. I’m all about making it harder for people to self-destruct, but legislating morality, which basically all laws regarding marriage are, is pointless, and based on current social whims.
Putting strict guidelines on divorce cannot quantify emotional distance, no matter what, and cannot affect unreported spousal abuse, either.
The protection of marriage is, in itself, commendable. Two people attempting to commit their lives to each other is a nice concept, if not always executed all that well. Yet the people who have taken it upon themselves to do this have never really known exactly what to do.
For the longest time, we’ve been told that the protection of this “institution” lies in making sure that it can only be carried out between a man and a woman, using the somewhat flawed logic that it takes that combination to produce children.
The concept of a “covenant marriage”, as Kansas may have in the near future, is another attempt at regulating a concept whose very role in society has changed constantly through the centuries.
Yes, some people cheapen it by rushing into marriages that they have to know won’t last, but this is one of those cases where it needs to be their lesson to learn. There are very few issues where I don’t take the stand that regulation is needed, but then there are few that affect people on such a strictly personal basis.
— Cohen is a senior from Topeka in political science.
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