Doing the extra paperwork before making a commitment might actually see an increase in the number of marriages which endure, to my way of thinking. Rather a sort of sobering second thought, rather than rushing into a matter that is designed to be a life-altering event, especially if a family is the objective.
One time when I had a vacant unit a young lady called me and asked if she and her boyfriend could come and see it, and what the requirements were. I told her I didn't care whether they were married, but I always do a credit check on prospective tenants.
So they showed up the next evening, and she continued to do almost all of the talking. Turns out they were planning on getting married and were looking for a place that was big enough for both of them. They liked the place, and she had already run a credit check on herself and brought the printout.
I asked the boyfriend what he wanted to do and he said he wasn't familiar with credit checks. I told him we could do it right there on my computer if he trusted me with his numbers, and he said sure. So we ran it and the girlfriend grabbed it out of the printer before I even had a chance to look at it.
I saw her eyes getting larger and her jaw dropping. She stared at him and said, "You're paying
a thousand bucks a month to an ex-wife I never heard of, to support a child I don't know about???"
They left rather abruptly after that, not even saying thank-you or goodbye. I was cool with that, I could see that these two were not going to be doing anything together ever again once they got out of the car.
But two days later she called me to apologize for her rudeness, and to
thank me for stopping her from making the biggest mistake of her life!
For others who may be contemplating a relationship, but not of the ''Til death do us part" variety, I believe Robert Heinlein had some excellent suggestions in that people can enter into renewable and extendable contracts, not unlike rental and lease agreements. While some might consider this to be very cold-hearted and calculating, I suggest stop and rethink this. Most people make emotional decisions, not logical ones. When their feelings change, they often wish they had not acted on those emotions.
This is a very good reason for a long engagement, or at any rate a long intimate relationship, before tying the knot. The rainbows, fireworks, birds singing, bells ringing, and all that stuff can sometimes last as long as two years after two people meet and really hit it off. Then it all starts to wear off and they're faced with each other as
regular folks. It's the regular folks who have to be compatible, who have to appreciate each other, who have to be willing to fill in each other's blanks, who have to be excited about building a life together... not the starry-eyed kids who spend half their time smooching and planning romantic getaways.
This is also a good reason why the place where most Americans meet their spouses--at work--is one of the best places to do that. At work you're not putting on airs. You're being your responsible self, part of a team, showing off your strengths and weaknesses, and speaking frankly to each other. If you're attracted to somebody in those circumstances, wouldn't that be a good glimpse into what they'll be like in the "team" of husband and wife, how they can cope with the travails of daily family life, how they resolve disagreements, how strong they are under pressure? Once you've been married for a few years, entire weeks can go by without any rainbows or fireworks, but you'll have real-life situations to deal with every single day! Wouldn't you like to be married to somebody who can carry their weight, make wise decisions, and not bitch about it?
If you don't know the answer to that question, well I hope you're not planning on getting engaged any time soon!
If contractual obligations were harder to enter into, my logic suggests that a greater commitment should translate into fewer contracts in need of termination, for the desire to maintain them should be reinforced by the effort of achieving them in the first place.
The lawyer who handled my divorce forty years ago (which was a lot more degrading than it is today; one of us had to stand before a judge and say that they had been mistreated by the other one, and you had to bring a witness to say they had observed it) said the problem was not that divorce is hard, but that
marriage is too easy!
