Ok, I know my last idea about waiting 6 months to get married was met with some opposition(ok with alot of opposition) but I think this idea has some merit. So here it goes.
So my plan is that before you can get a license you have to take a marriage couseling class. Now before y’all start slamming me hear me out. When you get a drivers license you have to take a class so hopefully you know enough to avoid a wreck. And we all know what a “wreck” a divorce can make out of you and your kids. So I think that analogy applies.
This is totally not all my idea but think about it. This is some of what I learned from this dude. And it makes sense. When you are dating the other person really doesn’t get to know the “real” you because you are on your best behavior. Well, you and I know after you get married those things you held back on from doing while you were dating go out the window. You know like picking your teeth with a piece of paper, picking your nose, or farting real loud at your inlaws table at Thanksgiving dinner just for fun , you know silly things like that. (On a side note this might a fun thread on its own “What things does your spouse do after you got married that he/she didn’t do before”)
But what about the more important things. Things that can really cause a divorce like differences of opinion on spending habits, credit, when to start havings kids, who is going to be in charge of the money, where to live, and how about even where are going to spend the holidays with her folks or yours. These are the things that should be brought out before the marriage commences and discussed with a proffesional before you walk down the aisle to see if they are going to cause problems down the road.
Now your next argument is probably going to be about the cost of the class. You’re right there would be a cost for that. But think about the cost of divorce I can guarantee that it will be massively higher than the cost of this class. Heck spend a little less on the wedding(we all know you can cut some waste there) or a little less on the ring because if the marriage does work out you can buy her a bigger rock later.
I know ya’ll are going to hate this idea because ya’ll hate all my ideas but seriously doesn’t any of this make sense and would it help reduce divorce.
Works for me. Every church I know of strongly encourages if not requires you to take some private sessions with the minister before he/she will perform the ceremony, but that doesn’t cover courthouse quickie marriages.
Well Bill, I’ll get the ball rolling and be the first one to say I hate your idea. I hate it because I am not an idiot. I knew all of the things you mentioned before I got married and I suspect most reasonable people do. It would be an insult to my intellegence and a total waste of my time to attend a class in the bleedin’ obvious.
The absolute last thing I need/want is the government playing councelor in my life.
It’s an interesting idea Wildest Bill, but it won’t work. Why, you ask?
Let’s start with this: What are you going to teach in your class?
How to get along with your wife/husband? If they don’t know how to get along with someone by the time they are of marriageable age, I don’t see how a class is going to help.
How to budget money? Sure, sounds like a good idea. But why limit it to marriage. Everyone should know how to budget. Maybe add it to the high school curriculum, but a marriage course???
Courtesy and graces (such as not farting in front of your in-laws)?? See above under “how to get along…”
Having kids? These things should be discussed before you get married. But I’m willing to bet that just as many marital spats start up when one of the partners changes their mind later in the marriage. A class beforehand wouldn’t solve this problem.
And, of course, unlike driving (which you compare marriage to, with respect to taking classes), you can’t use a “one size fits all” approach. Most people can (and should) be taught to drive the same way. With marriage, however, you can’t ask me to relate to my wife the same way that Sam Blowhard relates to his, or the same way that Jim Meekperson relates to his. Our wives (and we ourselves) are all different people and what would work for one would not necessarily work the others.
(picking myself back off the floor) When I saw your name on the reply to post column I said to myself oh boy what is he going to say on this one. Then I read it and all I have to say is WOW! That’s it. Just WOW!
But then I thought maybe you were being nice because you saw how generous I was going to be on your on fee as an expert witness on how crappy the school system did teaching me proper grammer case against them and still letting me graduate.
A lot of churches require that couples have some pre-marital counseling before the wedding. I was just married in September, and the church we went with (not either of our faiths) asked that we have at least two sessions with a minister. Some good friends of mine were required to go on a weekend retreat for the same purpose.
My friends and my fiance & I were a little skeptical and intimidated by this, thinking it would either be invasive or a chance for the churches to try to recruit us, so-to-speak. I know this is a pretty limited sample to speak from, but it was a good experience for everyone. Rather than being overtly religious, the sessions were a chance to make sure that you’d both talked about the issues that can lead to divorce if they’re not handled well: money, children, spirituality (particularly if it’s an inter-faith marriage), stuff like that. We ended up really enjoying them, and we only paid a nominal fee ($50 in our case, which was pocket change compared to the rest of the wedding costs).
Anyway I think as long as the cost was minimal, it would be cool for all churches or justices of the peace to offer similar sessions. I think they do help the tough issues easier to talk about, and get both people aware of patterns in their own behavior that they might not have seen before.
So can they help? Sure, I think so. I don’t know that it will lower divorce rates. Marriages are tremendously complex things, and I can’t imagine that discussions which merely scratch the surface of big issues between two people will make a difference in the long run if both people aren’t willing to work on them. But it gives them a launching point, if nothing else.
WB, while I applaud your efforts, is this really necessary? Back at the other thread, there were never any accurate figures given for divorce rates. Are they going up? Down? Steady?
And why are people getting divorced? Incompatiblity? Other spouse is an ax murder/serial killer or something worse? Or did the people simply fall out of love?
Before you start suggesting solutions to a problem, make sure there’s a problem.
I do agree that classes, either at the end of high school or thru a local religious institution, would be a good thing for prospective newlyweds.
Thanks. Back at the other thread, there were never any accurate figures given for divorce rates. Are they going up? Down? Steady?
And why are people getting divorced? Incompatiblity? Other spouse is an ax murder/serial killer or something worse? Or did the people simply fall out of love?
If there are any divorces, than yes I would say it is a problem. Especially when there are children involved.
This answer goes to you a Zev. Are ya’ll talking about the same high school that were intrusted into teaching me proper English…HA!
The fact that you did not learn proper English is not your school’s fault, but your own.
Besides, if a person is incapable of learning basic English or math in high school, what makes you think that a mandatory class is going to teach them anything useful about marriage?
You actually want the divorce rate to be zero? :rolleyes:
Freyr:
Um, you know, some people don’t get married in a church at all, or get religion involved in their marriage in any way, so we can nix that idea immediately. It would be a clear church/state violation to require people to do this.
Frankly, I don’t believe the government has any business granting “marriage licenses” anyway. Here’s how our marriage license application went:
“Are you both 18 or older?”
“Yes.”
“More closely related than first cousins?”
“No.”
“Either currently married to anyone else?”
“No.”
“Here you go.”
Yeah, that’s real productive. I honestly don’t feel that free adult citizens should require the permission or approval of the local magistrate to commit their lives to one another.
I think Wildest Bill’s plea for more premarital counseling is a good one. More and more religious organizations are recognizing the value of some kind of premarital counseling, and even requiring it before a clergyperson will agree to officiate at a wedding.
However, I’m not sure that I agree that premarital counseling should be legally required. The analogy with cars is not quite on-target, IMO: that is, the operation of a car requires a very specific set of skills and knowledge that can be easily taught. It’s so obvious that trained drivers on the whole are safer than untrained drivers that it makes sense to require driver’s ed before issuing a driver’s license.
However, marriage is a very different kettle of fish, as other posters have pointed out. There’s no simple universal set of skills for being married, and there’s no simple universal way to counsel people about it. (What about second marriages, for instance? Do the widowed get an exemption on the grounds that they’ve already been through counseling? Do the divorced have to get extra counseling on the grounds that it didn’t work the first time?) I think private organizations that conduct or sponsor or encourage marriages should emphasize the importance of pre-marital counseling, but I don’t think the government will really do any good by saying that you can’t get married without it.
It’s like your wait-six-months-before-marrying idea in that respect: a good general principle, but likely to be counter-productive and even discriminatory if legally mandated for everybody.
For a Republican, you certainly would like to expand the powers of the government.
Although, as always, your heart seems to be in the right place, I think ideally the couple should take the class of their own free will, don’t you? Maybe, as a wedding present, it could become traditional to “give” the class to the bride and groom as a gift. But I absolutely do not think this is at all something the government should become involved in, whatesoever. There are plently of “Making Love Work” books out there - if the newlyweds want one, go buy it.
For another idea of how to fix marriages, read my sig.
My wife and I were required to go through a weekend class before we could get married at a certain church. The class was a big eye-opener in a lot of ways. The main thing I learned is that the world is full of very foolish people, and classes don’t help foolish people who don’t see a value in what is being taught.
Basically, two councilor couples got up and talked about an issue such as do you want children, how will you handle finances, how will you share work around the home. Then we got with our spouse to be and talked about it. Then we came back into the group and if anyone had issues they would use the councilors and the group to hash it out. I could not believe that at least half the couples had never discussed a whole lot of this stuff. I could also not believe the councilors ideas of resolutions, and that the couples believe problems were solved just because they stopped talking about it. Yes, they know they have a problem now, but the problem is fundamental in that it is what they want in life, and that usually means you need to pick a different partner. If two people are going in opposite dirrections they don’t carpool, and knowing that they are going in two different directions doesn’t make it any better.
I do think the classes are good for some, but fools are fools, and fools who attends classes are still fools. Before you try to get support for this idea, find the best possible class in your opinion, and see if it’s grads divorce rate is any different than that of the general population. Based on my experience, I would have to say it makes no difference, but if the statistics show anything different, I would be willing to entertain the idea.
I recently got married by a judge (in the same criminal justice center I have been incarcerated in twice) and we got a long speech on the sanctity to marriage, and a fairly long set of vows we had to be walked through. I was kinda surprised that it was a fairly religious feeling ceremony, with Jesus mentioned more than once. That last part was kinda funny, the judge probably didn’t notice that I had a Jewish last name (I’m not religious, though, and my family is sorta-kinda Methodist).
** Bill **
well, gee whiz. What you seem to be suggesting is that it would be a really good idea for people to think things all the way through before they get married. I don’t think anyone would disagree with that.
You also seem to want the goal to be “have fewer divorces”, and to achieve that, try and figure out before hand who shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place. That’s where you’ll get into trouble. NOBODY, who’s embarking on getting married really wants to believe that their marriage will end in divorce.
My ex and I went through an extensive pre marriage counseling thing. we were divorced 5 years later. He then married wife #3 (I was #2). went through an even more extensive pre marital counseling. THEY were divorced in 3 years. He then married wife #4. THEY went through even more premarital counseling. He’s still married to her (breaking land/speed records), now 6 years later.
Now, I know my little anectdotal story won’t proove any dynamics in general, except to point out that hindsight is grand, and works pretty much every time.
I recently was the best man in a wedding in Utah, and the groom asked me to look up the law on what was required for a marriage license. I found an interesting set of provisions that sometimes require what Wildest Bill is suggesting.
In Utah, state policy is that all persons getting married who are either under 19 years of age or have pbeen previously divorced should get marital counselling. Counties set up Premarital Counselling Boards which are responsible for creating a Master Plan for Counselling in the county. The county can charge no more than $10 for counselling in addition to the usual marriage license fees.
In essence, if you live in Utah, if you have been divorced (or are 18 or under) and want to marry, you must either apply for the license more than six months before it is issued, or get marriage counselling either from the county board or a clergy member.
I think that this scheme has some serious Constitutional problems, and I do not know whether it has ever been tested in the courts, but it is out there. (By the way, it was the first marriage for my friend and his wife – and they were both over 18 – so the requirement did not apply to them.)
Seems like those mormons like both of my ideas. (On second thought I don’t know if theirs is such a great endorsment oh well I’ll take whatever I can get.
Great idea. And you shouldn’t be allowed to have a boyfriend or girlfriend without getting a learners permit. I don’t think I need the government giving me lessons on how to have a successful marriage.
**
If you didn’t get to know the real person then you haven’t been dating long enough. And I don’t know about you but after a while I’m no longer on my “best” behavior. Especially if you end up seeing one another in the morning.
**
I don’t need or want to discuss this with “professionals” before marriage. My life is my own and the government doesn’t need to help me.
, you know silly things like that. (On a side note this might a fun thread on its own “What things does your spouse do after you got married that he/she didn’t do before”)