Temporary Marriage

What seems anecdotally evident is borne out by statistics i.e. 40 percent of newlyweds had been married at least once before. At least that’s the report from our discussion piece (click: Temporary Marriage) as it argues for trial marriages, or marriage limited by contract, in the case of partners who do not intend to have children. A renewable contract would require partners to say, “I choose you again,” every five or ten years. Childbearing would trigger a longer commitment.

Discuss: imagine a shrink-to-fit marital model that actually comports with the realities of partner dynamics. Margaret Mead once suggested a two-step version of marriage that matches the partners’ sensibility, means, and circumstances – maybe an “individual commitment,” easily dissolved in the early stages, followed by a “parental commitment,” if and when ready. Longevity alone shouldn’t be the marker of a happy, healthy marriage when that “death do us part” vow becomes more of a sentence than an aspiration.

The contrary argument is that a pledge is a pledge. But then the question comes down to/with whom? Were the relationship to be deemed a private affair between two consenting adults the matter would seem contractual in nature and thus subject to update i.e. some combination of a living, breathing postnup and vow renewal.

That point comes across as rather impetuous, of course, when children (not to mention God and state) enter the picture but it does underscore the responsibility of the partners themselves to define their goals and expectations for the union and to perhaps ease the way through any subsequent dissolution.

At this point, the cultural scold might raise a hand to observe that this very idea undermines social cohesion. To that just consider the realities of all those existing relationships outside the nuclear unit e.g. the single-parent, extended, step, grandparent, and mixed families, each with their unique dynamics.

Then brace for impact as we might reach back a century and a half to find our own “That Which Does Not Kill Us Makes Us Stronger” philosopher who would likely have embraced the notion of a temporary marriage but not for the reason you might imagine (click: Ten Tips For A Great Marriage According To Friedrich Nietzsche).

A short-term marriage, you see, would flush out that distraction called romantic love. Get over it. Get over the notion that something so important as a good marriage is based on such an ephemeral sentiment. Love, like any other feeling, is not within one’s individual’s power. The promise of eternal love is thus absurd and most certainly a lie, or at least hypocritical.

Apparently, Nietzche considered the option of a two-year marriage himself. The goal is to achieve what he calls “star friendship,” that noble foundational basis not susceptible to those vagaries. He posits that man’s (yes, man’s) first marriage should be around age twenty-two to an intellectually and morally superior woman, necessary for his education; a second one then in his thirties to a younger disciple he would take in hand; and finally without a wife later in life to avoid spiritual retrogression.

But, wait . . . there’s more! Make it work; give her a (super) baby; get a little action on the side; let him suffer; and, then, for a final offending sendoff, take a whip to her (though, in fairness, "to him" as well, in the sense of each whipping the other into shape). Hold your fire as we discuss whether there may be any nuggets of insight amidst the chauvinistic outrage.

In essence, the only honest vow:

“For as long as I love you I shall render to you the actions of love; if I cease to love you, you will continue to receive the same actions from me, though from other motives.”

See if all that fits on a Hallmark card.