Covenant Marriage
Star-Telegram | 12/11/2006 | Two local legislators, two bills, one goal
Covenant marriage
Zedler’s bill would allow couples to choose a covenant marriage, which is harder to dissolve than a traditional marriage.
Couples who agreed to a covenant marriage would have to undergo premarital counseling and get marriage counseling before filing for a divorce.
Unlike traditional marriages, which can be dissolved in Texas without either party admitting fault, a covenant marriage could be terminated only on grounds such as adultery, abuse or a spouse being convicted of a felony. Absent that, a couple in a covenant marriage could be granted a divorce if they lived separately for at least three years.
We looked at this when Zedler filed it on November 13th. I even printed it out because I can get a better understanding from a paper than I can from a computer screen. My first reaction was “hey, if they want it, let them have it” because that is usually my first and final reaction to most things. Then I started thinking about when divorce laws changed to no fault and the reasons behind it.
I remembered our sisters five decades ago not having the means or the way to get out of oppressive patriarchal unions. This bill allows for a woman to get out of Marriage if she is physically abused and files and receives a protective order. What about the other forms of abuse, there are many and while they may not break bones they do as much damage.
What a wonderful way for an oppressive man to keep his wife in order than to just say “Sweety, I love you so much I want us to have a covenant marriage.” Does this bill cover the spouse that is cut off from all her friends and family in order to control her better? Not only doesn’t it but it makes her go to Marriage counselling with a controlling spouse knowing full well that with him in the room she would never have the nerve to actually air her problems. I’m not a man-hater or a Marriage hater. I have been happily married for nearly 15 years and I have no reason or desire to get a divorce, but I was married when I was 17 to an oppressive bully of a man. What he couldn’t control by verbal abuse he would control with physical abuse. I can’t imagine what I would have done given that situation if I hadn’t been able to walk away. I am absolutely positive that I would have chosen the covenant Marriage option had it been available at the time because I was young and in love and had a rosy future planned that included being married to the bully forever. I wish I could say that these sort of men don’t exist anymore but that is a fantasy and of course they would use a measure like this to control.
A measure like this won’t end divorce. If you want to do that then you will have to teach the next generation that we don’t cut and run when things get bad, not abusive, bad. The best thing my mother ever taught me about marriage was that it’s a cycle, you fall in and out of love and things are good sometimes and other times his breathing will drive you nuts but stick it out and the good comes back. We propetuate this myth of happily ever after when we should be teaching them that Marriage is a journey and there will be bumps.
In this article I think Rep. Toby Goodman said it best with this.
“I think they were misguided. I think they were filed for political reasons,” Goodman said. “You cannot legislate marital bliss.”
Technorati Tags: Covenant Marriage, Texas, Texas Politics, HB 180, Bill Zedler, Marriage, Toby Goodman, Politics,
Filed under: Bill Zedler, Bully, Covenant Marriage, HB 180, Marriage, Texas House of Representatives, Texas Legislature, politics, texas, texas politics
