The 4 Year Marriage Limit
I was reading Old Twentieth by Joey Haldeman and one of the more interesting ideas were the formation of 10-year “marriage” contracts between immortal humans. Basically, people who lived forever needed to find a way out of “’till death do us part”.
Which caused me to think about the establishment of 4-year Marriage Limits. Here’s my thought hack:
You agree to marry someone, with a base contract of 4 years.
After 4 years, you can either choose to renew your marriage or part amicably, with whatever you brought into the partnership, and an equal division of anything generated during the partnership’s 4 year-term (business, residence, loans, etc.) Here’s why:
- You won’t take your partner for granted; they could always leave, so you’ll always value them choosing you
- You won’t take the relationship for granted – much like life & death, relationships are re-cognized when they have a visible end
- You’ll have incentive to work out (if you’ve stopped) so your partner starts noticing you near the 3-year mark
- Less risk of divorce and infidelity. If you’re in love with someone, and they’re with someone else, you can always wait until their / your term is up…and see how you feel then.
- Forever is a long time… a REALLY long time, but if you’re committed to someone, why not recommit your vows to them after 4 years? After 20 years, you’ll have committed to them 5 times!
- Western civilization (if not most of life) is segmented into 4 year phases: 0-4 for early child development, then 1st – 8th grade, high school, college (or post), and 2-4 rounds of work or research independently, until children, which result in another 3-5 rounds…From 18 – 50, a person could have 8 commitments
- Lastly…it’s still a commitment. Whether it’s a day, a month, a year, or the rest of your life, your committed to someone, so setting a limit to it doesn’t cheapen it; it makes the commitment have definition and scope.
But what about blah blah blah?
Some Rough Facts:
- life is short
- people can love many people : as my college professor of marriage said: how sad is the person who can only love and see love in one other person in the world?
- people can get sick the sameness
- people DO fall out of love
- what’s the difference between 32 years of marriage and 8 renewals?
- it’s realistic, flexible enough to allow options, but committed enough to stay strong in the long-term
- is there a harm in it?
- anyone judging the value of a four-year commitment could be a stuck-up snob who believe in unrealistic ideals that force people to be unhappy
- here’s an ideal worth believing in: unhappiness. recognize it and build systems to adjust for it
- maybe you want to go back to college, maybe you plan to be somewhere else in 4 years, sell the company, move to asia, etc.
- you could always renew after a break: i.e. 4 years together, apart 1 year, then together again
Anyway, it’s an interesting thought exercise.
3 Comments to The 4 Year Marriage Limit
Wondering… What if the couple has children? What if one is still in love with their partner and the other is not and ready to leave? Things could still be as bad as a messy divorce regardless of putting an option for renewal on a marriage. Yes, all the technical tie downs such as owning a home, loans, cell phone contracts would be a big relief not to deal with but when feelings and emotions are involved there isn’t much you can do to control what could happen next.
This idea will not prevent unhappiness, boredom or taking your partner for granted. I think it could go either way – just as anything else in life can with or without an expiration date. A piece of cheese can still go bad way before the expiration date – can’t it? If you have these terms to a marriage why even get married at all?
What causes a couple to grow, understand and develop different skills and ideas of what a relationship can be is if they truly believe they are a team. Relationships can reach their most intimate level after something really devastating takes place. Now if this devastation takes place right around contract renewal time what would 2 people do? Probably part ways – right? If they are married without a renewal they would most likely work through it and maybe reach a greater and more intimate understanding of each other. Maybe – right? Or get a divorce? Too many variables so it’s hard to say. What might work for one couple might not work for another.
Maybe, instead of having an option of getting rid of something such as your partner you are contracted to add something to the relationship. Perhaps after being married for 4 years you are contracted to live in Japan for the next four years? The four years after that the couple can decide to have children? For the next four why not have a whole body makeover (gym, healthier eating habbits, etc). These terms can all be agreed upon before the marriage even begins.
steveSeptember 1, 2010
Whats the big deal? Who stops anyone from getting married 10-20 times? if need be!.
PEOPLE! the whole issue here is CHILDREN!
somehow marriage should be a commitment not to take lightly so at least children have a chance to get as much as possible both parent as example of life and of what a couple is all about so that he/she does the same eventually in his/her future (you know the natural need of procreation…thing..its just written in our genes thats all…;-) deuh)
Thats why I am all for same sex marriage but f..ing no if children are exposed to it daily as a “normal”‘.
Anyway, the lack of values over generations to come will just give more work to shrinks and educators. Thats great.
It’s not a matter of any single authority stopping a person from getting married multiple times. It’s the perception of “marriage” as a “til-death-do-us-part” contract.
Like saying, “what keeps you at work 8 hours a day? you can leave any time you want”.
The whole issue isn’t the children. They’re an a priori, pre-condition of an issue in the contract. The real issue is the contract. How do you account for “children” in this contract? How do you account for “parents” as well? Pets? What about goals in life? What about last name?
The idea is that if you can change your perception of time in this contract, and consider it a variable instead of a constant (defined as a constant but never considered anything but) you can change the nature of the contract and potentially the relationship for the better.
Your thoughts that “marriage should be…” something are personal. Just as your “clause” in the marriage includes whether or not same-sex is permissible on a condition of children existing. See what you’re doing? You’re building a contract based on conditions and clauses. But the one condition you don’t factor is time.
Your definition is not a standard definition, it may not be the best definition, and so, I’m challenging the standard contract and taking to task one of the most fundamental constants: time.
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July 26, 2010