Covenant Marriage

[PoliSciProf]

Some states (Louisiana, Arkansas and Arizona according to wikipedia) have enacted legislation creating a new category of marriage called covenant marriage. The purpose of this is to make divorce harder to get and to support marriage as a social institution by requiring some sort of pre-marital counseling. Does anyone know if the Church has taken a position on this? It strikes me that any legislation that produces more stable and successful marriages would be a good thing. LA enacted its law in 1997. Does anyone know if covenant marriage has made a difference re divorce rates or in any other socially beneficial way?

Since this thread is about secular marriage law, not sacramental marriage, I think it fits this forum in the same way threads about same sex marriage belong here.

 

[JimG]

It seems to me that similar results could be obtained simply by repealing no-fault divorce laws, rather than having several ‘degrees’ of marriage.

It was no-fault divorce laws that turned what had been, even civilly, a sacred covenant marked by permanent vows, (and breakable only for serious grounds) into a temporary cohabitation which could be ended by either party at any time for any reason.

Marriage commitments, no matter how serious sounding the vows, became less permanent and less enforceable than your home mortgage contract.

 

[PoliSciProf]

It seems to me that similar results could be obtained simply by repealing no-fault divorce laws, rather than having several ‘degrees’ of marriage.

It was no-fault divorce laws that turned what had been, even civilly, a sacred covenant marked by permanent vows, (and breakable only for serious grounds) into a temporary cohabitation which could be ended by either party at any time for any reason.

Marriage commitments, no matter how serious sounding the vows, became less permanent and less enforceable than your home mortgage contract.

The original push for CM was made because of the difficulty of repealing no fault divorce laws. I agree with you about the consequences of these no fault laws. My thinking is if CM helps (and I am not sure) then we as Catholics should push for it.

 

[JimG]

I don’t know. It seems rather like telling your kids, “Look, I really mean it this time!” if you’ve never enforced discipline at all.

We already have degrees of marriage, of a sort. There’s temporary shacking up; there’s quasi-permanent cohabitation (“let’s move in together and see if it works!”), there’s common law marriage. (When in the mortgage business I recall couples agonizing over what to check on the ‘marital status’ block “hmm, well, we’re not actually married, but we’re common-law.” “Well, if that’s the case, then you’re married”, I would reply, settling the issue for them. “You can’t be partly married, you’re either married or you’re not. If you check the 'married block, you’re signing the note as husband and wife.”)

As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, any marriage is a covenant marriage. Apparently the reason for all the annulments is that according to most couples, it wasn’t.

I don’t know that setting another category would help. Educating people as to what marriage is would help.

It might be better, if they’re not really serious, just to advise them to shack up.

 

[Deacon_Ed_B]

A valid Catholic marriage establishes a covenant relationship between the husband and wife.