I left a comment on Baggage Reclaim about contract marriage, for a specified length of time, perhaps three years. Someone asked if that would be a good thing, or if merely waiting out the end of the contract would let people move on without resolving conflicts.
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I think people should get smarter about picking the people they consider marrying. That would solve more problems, though sadly not all, than a short term marriage.
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller write some compelling science fiction novels, set in the “Liaden Universe”. “Local Custom”, “Scout’s Progress”, “Agent of Change”, and “Balance of Trade”, among others, touch on what they call contract marriages, a contract to cohabit until a child is born that will go to one of the two clans, with moneys, property, and other concessions changing hands. They also talk about a life mating, which is a bit mystical, for that culture.
One thing that would have to be cleared up if there were such a thing as a non-life marriage, and that is divorce.
Upon reflection, though, I hesitate to recommend any kind of non-permanent mating. Communities grow or die. One part of growth is the birth of the young, and the formation of families. Families – marriages, handfastings, and other lifetime matings – form the real core that makes a community. The adults in a family assume new roles in their community, because of the mating. I would want to be assured that the community isn’t weakened when changing marriages or families.
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The reply posed a question – would children, if asked, prefer living with well adjusted parents living divorced and apart, or with abusive parents that were together.
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If the couple cannot maintain a marriage, one or both are horrible role models of adult family and community behavior.
If you have been following NML’s ebooks and writings, and the issues raised here on BaggageReclaim.ning.com, you are likely familiar with how we each (unthinkingly) repeat the patterns and choices we learned at our parent’s knees.
Those from functional families are less likely to wind up here. For those of us that fall into repeating patterns, most of our challenge is to grasp hold of those choices and preferences that we hadn’t questioned before, and find new perspectives and values in life. We have to deliberately find ourselves a new “way”. Those that grew up with unavailable parents, or withdrew for other reasons, have to learn to engage more fully, to create a life based on joy instead of defense against disrespect, distrust, and deceit.
My point is that socially, severing the parental rights of the non-custodial parent, including child support, wastes less money, time, effort, and emotional stress for each parent and for the community. By definition, the children are coming from a broken home, one that was dysfunctional – and thus have little basis for making a choice. They will be grieving the loss of one or both parents – making choices from a place of loss is emotional and not rational. It takes much time and introspection to know what is in our own best interest. Children in grief will be biased toward returning to the best of the world they have known, to deny the separation and loss. And they are likely to be driven muchly by their custodial parent – in denial, sympathy, or rebellion.
I think severing ties to either parent in a divorce has a better than even chance of losing a bad role model, with respect to the children’s future mature relationships.
The prospect of shared custody, of child care payments, these all presume relative affluence – and I don’t think that is rational. I think more and more that people are going to be facing an economic decline. Instead of hanging onto an untenable present in a divorce, we need to best prepare for the least difficulty in the future.
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