Just ahead of World Marriage Day, an alert reader sent me a story about a bill that has been introduced in Tennessee, giving residents the option of contracting a “covenant marriage.” This option exists in three other states and gained momentum following the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.
This is something new to me. I did a little digging and found this story about the phenomenon in The New York Times:
Many states in America, depending on state-specific laws, allow “no-fault” divorces, in which either partner can end their marriage for any reason. But with a covenant marriage, there are stricter guidelines for ending a marriage. Revelations concerning Mike Johnson, the new speaker of the House, and his own covenant marriage have brought the unconventional commitment arrangement into the spotlight.
Covenant marriages are legally binding contracts or agreements between two people who have the intent to live together for the rest of their lives. Unlike traditional marriages, covenant marriages come with additional requirements, and ending one through divorce is more challenging. Currently, three states allow these types of marriages: Arizona, Arkansas and Louisiana.
Traditional marriage allows a couple to enter the union by filling out a marriage license (among other state requirements), but with a covenant marriage, which is often rooted in religious or moral convictions, the couple must complete premarital counseling with a clergyman or therapist ahead of time. State laws vary, but often one spouse must prove adultery (with photos, videos or witness testimony), physical or sexual abuse, abandonment for more than a year, or imprisonment in order to file for divorce.
“The reasoning behind it is that if you are going to stand in a church full of people and say you are going to stay married forever, why not sign this thing that makes it harder for you to get out of your obligation?” said Christopher Suba, a lawyer who has a private practice in family law in Louisiana and Texas. “With this, you can’t just decide you don’t want to be married anymore. It’s like you signed this agreement, and you are going to have to try a little harder than that.”
These kinds of marriages, though, are still rare:
“I had maybe five clients this year with covenant marriages,” said Melissa Benson, a family law lawyer with a private practice in Phoenix. “It is a very, very small percentage.”
In Maricopa County, the most populous county in Arizona, only 963 covenant marriage licenses have been recorded in the last five years out of 119,270 total licenses. And according to the Arkansas Department of Health, only 242 covenant marriages from the entire state have been registered in the last five years.
The biggest problem with a covenant marriage, Mr. Suba said, is that it’s very difficult to legally divorce. “This is an enforceable contract, and you have to do everything you can to preserve the marriage,” he said. “At the end of the day, if the judge decides you don’t satisfy all the requirements to dissolve the marriage, your petition for divorce would be declined.”
Requirements and details vary from state to state. About the Tennessee bill:
There are also more rigorous requirements to obtain [a covenant marriage], including the completion of premarital counseling from an ordained minister, religious priest, clergyman or licensed counselor. Tennessee law already encourages couples to get premarital counseling by incentivizing a discount on the traditional marriage license fees; however, it would be required to obtain covenant marriage distinction.
Additionally, the couples would need a notarized attestation and statements of intent, according to the proposed Tennessee bill.
According to Rep. Gino Bulso, who is sponsoring the bill:
The language of the bill specifies that a covenant marriage is between a “man and a woman,” without mentioning same-sex couples. Bulso claims the language is not exclusionary.
He also told Know News that the Covenant Marriage Act seeks to challenge the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling that protects same-sex marriage under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
“The bill seeks to challenge the U. S. Supreme Court’s egregiously wrong 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges,” Bulso said. “The bill is not ‘anti’ anything or any person. It simply recognizes the natural order of things.”
