Divorce-proof marriage unveiled

The United States is going through one of its periodic bouts of nostalgia for the good old days. This time, the subject is marriage.

Wouldn't it be wonderful, sighs a vocal section of opinion, if Americans could get married and stay married, have their children in wedlock, and live happily ever after, just like those blissful families of the sanitised garden suburbs and the Fifties photographs?

After months of preparation and discussion, the southern state of Louisiana has decided to do something. On Friday, a law comes into force for a trial period that will establish two classes of marriage: the "permanent" - or covenant - marriage, and the rest.

The difference comes before the marriage (pre-marital counselling for covenanters, none for the rest) and then if the marriage fails.

If you are married without a covenant, you can untie the knot with the minimum of formality. In Louisiana even now, a couple can end a marriage by consent after only six months.

If you have a covenant marriage, however, certain conditions must be met before divorce is possible. They include desertion by one or other spouse, adultery, two years' separation, physical or sexual abuse, or either spouse being sentenced to a long prison term.

The right-wing Christian Coalition naturally loves the idea. It has been in the forefront of campaigning to make divorce more difficult.

A section of economic opinion is all for it, too. Between them, they argue: more durable marriages would reduce the number of single mothers on benefits, reduce the number of Saturday-fathers, reduce the number of tug-of-love children, and reduce the cut to lawyers from lengthy divorce proceedings.

That is even before you count the emotional cost of divorce to all concerned and the mooted link between broken homes, poor school performance and juvenile crime.

The reasons for concern are evident: almost half of all marriages in the United States currently end in divorce, and the increase in "no-fault" divorce is one factor often cited.

The new arrangements in Louisiana none the less have their critics. Some fear a return to the "faked" adulteries and other habits of the bad old days to end a marriage. Others say that making divorce harder, even if both parties agree in advance that it should be harder, will only add to the pain if the marriage genuinely fails.

All in all, though, the state legislators felt that reducing the divorce rate was an aim that was sufficiently desirable to justify at least trying the Covenant. And a great many other states, not just in the conservative south, are watching closely to see how it will fare.