Marriage: It's Not Forever

As the divorce rate in America hovers around 50% it is obvious that many people do not like the idea of life time marriage.  This does not mean however, that people do not want to be married. The goal then should be to create a system whereby marriage is entered into without the lifetime commitment aspect already in place.

Therefore, a new system needs to put in place whereby the original marriage license would have a term of 7 years.

If the marriage is not to be continued beyond the 7 year period then all that needs to be done is that documentation be submitted by the parties involved. It does not matter if one partner wants to remain married, the other is able to end the marriage unilaterally. If the couple opts to remain together than nothing needs to be done and an automatic renewal period of 5 years would be added to the marriage period.

As a means of encouraging long-term marriage, a series of tax incentives would be developed by each of the individual states to keep couples together. As well, one time administrative costs of $2,500 per partner would be warranted at the time of marriage dissolution.  This fee serves as not only a minor deterrent but as a revenue stream to self-fund the cost of operations.

Distribution of marital assets would be conducted based on legal title holding and tax returns.  For example, if homes are in both names then it is split.  If the home is one persons name then they keep it. This deters splitting assets for taxation purposes and keeps them assigned as they should be. Income derived during the marriage remains the income of the earner.  Child support would be legally mandatory and cannot be over-looked under any circumstances by either party.

The goal of termed marriage licenses is two-fold. One, to decrease the spirit of acrimonious break-up between people and two, to reduce the costs involved to the individuals by reducing the involvement of the legal profession.  By removing the life time portion and making it easier to separate, people do not have to endure the strained and quite often prolonged impact on their lives.