# Marriage requiring renewal every 5 years **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 30, 2016, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081 "2016-05-30T13:53:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/21 "2016-05-30T16:06:49Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > It seems to me that that wouldn’t be “marriage”; it would be a different sort of relationship. It would fundamentally change the type of relationship if, instead of thinking “we are permanently committed to one another” and “we are a family,” you’re thinking “in a short time I’ll have to decide whether to stay with this person, and they’ll have to decide whether to stay with me.” I’d think you’d avoid becoming as closely attached (emotionally, financially, etc.) to try to make the separation easier if and when it happens, and you’d be keeping your options and your eyes open for your next partner. Exactly. People should get married because they have the intention of staying together forever. It may not work out that way, but the intention of both people should be that they want to stay together forever. It’s okay that divorce is messy and hard. It means people won’t take that step unless they are serious about ending it. Simple arguments, disagreements, or apathy shouldn’t be enough to end a marriage. The 5-7 year agreement sounds more like an extended car lease. In this type of system, people wouldn’t have as much incentive to work through the tough problems. If someone wanted that type of system, living together would be more appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/22 "2016-05-30T16:16:18Z")
> [@GulfTiger](#): > > “there’s a perfectly fine divorce system in place” > > expensive too > > another reason to not get married. Divorce is not particularly expensive. The expensive part is generally living separately after living together. Of course, if you fight over every asset, the price goes up. But not being married won’t save you from that. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/23 "2016-05-30T16:20:59Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > The 5-7 year agreement sounds more like an extended car lease. In this type of system, people wouldn’t have as much incentive to work through the tough problems. If someone wanted that type of system, living together would be more appropriate. Also, people won’t be able to benefit from the specialization of talents marriage encourages. For example, having one partner take a less demanding, less profitable career path to free up the other partner’s time to work crazy hours and travel. Child-rearing is another obvious path where specialization pays huge dividends. Another useful path is letting one partner follow a high-risk, potentially high-rewards career path while the other works a steady job. None of that is really plausible without a meaningful commitment and without continuously mixing your current assets. But really, it’s on the OP to explain why temporary marriages would make divorce easier, or why living together and maintaining separate finances/economics existence is not a perfectly plausible alternative for people who would otherwise prefer this option. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/24 "2016-05-30T16:31:15Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > People should get married because they have the intention of staying together forever. It may not work out that way, but the intention of both people should be that they want to stay together forever. Why? ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/25 "2016-05-30T17:01:29Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Why? Why should marriage be forever? Because that’s the generally understood concept of a marriage relationship. There are many terms to cover the different types of relationships and what they mean: hooking up, having fun, just dating, exclusive, living together, marriage, etc. Whether you call it marriage or something else, there should be a term for “I want to be with this person forever in a loving relationship and I will be committed to making that happen.” No matter the type of relationship, being with someone else will always have challenges. Being married provides incentives to work though the inevitable issues that come up. When you have the mindset that you’re with this other person forever, you’re more motivated to find agreeable solutions and compromises to those problems. Other relationships that can easily be dissolved don’t. People would be more likely to move on or slog along until the end of the term. The first part of the relationship is usually the fun part. Why bother trying to find a compromise when you can just bail and get that honeymoon phase again? ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/26 "2016-05-30T17:18:22Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > Why should marriage be forever? Because that’s the generally understood concept of a marriage relationship. Ok. “Generally understood” concepts change, though. I’m not seeing why “generally understood” means marriage _should_ be forever. > [@](#): > > There are many terms to cover the different types of relationships and what they mean: hooking up, having fun, just dating, exclusive, living together, marriage, etc. Whether you call it marriage or something else, there should be a term for “I want to be with this person forever in a loving relationship and I will be committed to making that happen.” Why do we _need_ such a term? > [@](#): > > No matter the type of relationship, being with someone else will always have challenges. Being married provides incentives to work though the inevitable issues that come up. When you have the mindset that you’re with this other person forever, you’re more motivated to find agreeable solutions and compromises to those problems. Other relationships that can easily be dissolved don’t. People would be more likely to move on or slog along until the end of the term. The first part of the relationship is usually the fun part. Why bother trying to find a compromise when you can just bail and get that honeymoon phase again? I guess what I’m asking is this: What do you see as the societal advantages to maintaining the idea of marriage as lifetime, til’ death, work through your shit and stick together no matter what? Further, given that an awful lot of marriages really _ought_ to end, for the health and well-being of the participants, why do you feel that pressure to stay in a damaged, unfulfilling, or otherwise dysfunctional marriage is of benefit to society? . ---
**Author:** ![Waltzes\_with\_Cacti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90ced4/32.png) [@Waltzes\_with\_Cacti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waltzes_with_Cacti)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/27 "2016-05-30T17:22:15Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I think it’s stupid. If I wanted to stop being married, there’s a perfectly fine divorce system in place, what does this system add, other than needless bureaucracy every 5 years? This, what **MrDibble** said. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/28 "2016-05-30T17:28:58Z")
When you marry someone, you are designating them your next of kin. Its a serious deal. Usually, you are replacing your parents - which is how it should be, your parents won’t be around forever, your siblings will become more distant as you age. If you are in an accident and someone has to decide what level of treatment should be given, it will be your spouse. If you die without a will, your assets will go to your spouse. I’m not sure I’d want someone who I was 4 1/2 years into a five year contract with to be choosing whether to pull the plug or not. Its way simpler if I die than if he were to say “I’m tired of this” and I take my things and go away. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/29 "2016-05-30T17:31:33Z")
> [@andros](#): > > I guess what I’m asking is this: What do you see as the societal advantages to maintaining the idea of marriage as lifetime, til’ death, work through your shit and stick together no matter what? > > Further, given that an awful lot of marriages really _ought_ to end, for the health and well-being of the participants, why do you feel that pressure to stay in a damaged, unfulfilling, or otherwise dysfunctional marriage is of benefit to society? > . I think there should be access to divorce, but pair-bonding–creating a family relationship with an outside party–seems to be pretty natural behavior. The legal system needs to recognize that sometimes adults shape a family relationship between each other for the same reason that it needs to recognize that parents and children have a different relationship than random strangers. Allowing people to become a single economic unit allows for much more specialization and increased total productivity and contentedness. That requires the law to recognize the relationship and put some legal protections in place for those who opt in to it. For example, my husband is giving up some of the most productive work years of his life to stay home with our son. This makes both of us much more happy–I get to work the crazy hours I want to work because it satisfies me while also feeling good about how my son is being raised. He gets to focus on a work that he finds meaningful but that I honestly couldn’t do if you paid me twice what I am making now. It’d be stupid for him to do this if he didn’t have legal protections in place to stop me from just kicking him to the curb if I decide I have a better offer–he owns half of our assets and if we keep this arrangement long enough, he’d be entitled to my support while he got himself re-established. Get rid of marriage, he’d have to go to work and I’d have to work less and our son would be in day care and we’d all be more miserable. This kind of specialization is only possible if you really are a social and economic unit, and the name we have for that unit is “marriage”. It’s a valuable thing to be able to do. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/30 "2016-05-30T18:13:15Z")
> [@GulfTiger](#): > > “there’s a perfectly fine divorce system in place” > > expensive too > > another reason to not get married. But as you pointed out in your earlier post, the issue of child support and property division arises whether you’re married or just living together. If you live together for five years, share assets and liabilities, have a kid, and one of you takes time off for child-rearing while the other works, there’s still a lot of entanglements that need to be straightened out. It’s not the marriage licence or the divorce process that causes the entanglements. What divorce and property laws do is they provide a framework for parties to end the relationship and untangle it. If there are no equivalent laws for those who just lived together, it can be very messy and more expensive, both in money and emotions. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/31 "2016-05-30T18:35:38Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > I think there should be access to divorce, but pair-bonding–creating a family relationship with an outside party–seems to be pretty natural behavior. The legal system needs to recognize that sometimes adults shape a family relationship between each other for the same reason that it needs to recognize that parents and children have a different relationship than random strangers. Allowing people to become a single economic unit allows for much more specialization and increased total productivity and contentedness. That requires the law to recognize the relationship and put some legal protections in place for those who opt in to it. > > For example, my husband is giving up some of the most productive work years of his life to stay home with our son. This makes both of us much more happy–I get to work the crazy hours I want to work because it satisfies me while also feeling good about how my son is being raised. He gets to focus on a work that he finds meaningful but that I honestly couldn’t do if you paid me twice what I am making now. It’d be stupid for him to do this if he didn’t have legal protections in place to stop me from just kicking him to the curb if I decide I have a better offer–he owns half of our assets and if we keep this arrangement long enough, he’d be entitled to my support while he got himself re-established. Get rid of marriage, he’d have to go to work and I’d have to work less and our son would be in day care and we’d all be more miserable. > > This kind of specialization is only possible if you really are a social and economic unit, and the name we have for that unit is “marriage”. It’s a valuable thing to be able to do. No arguments. I’m just wondering about the assumption/societal norm that marriage \*must \*be, or _should_ be, a lifetime commitment. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/32 "2016-05-30T19:05:34Z")
Because “marriage” is what we call it when you make the commitment to at least aspire to a lifetime. It’s like you’re asking why married men can’t be a bachelor. It’s just the definition. There are other names for other types of relationships. They tend to be more varied in their details, so they often have a description rather than a term. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/33 "2016-05-30T19:32:58Z")
I’m not certain “lifetime commitment” is necessarily part of the definition of marriage. As a society, the US has certainly accepted that it is not, at least from the State’s point of view. But I guess we’re talking about the aspirational aspect. What is the benefit to society to aspire to all marriage being a lifetime commitment? (And do those benefits outweigh the negatives?) ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/34 "2016-05-30T19:45:09Z")
> [@andros](#): > > But I guess we’re talking about the aspirational aspect. What is the benefit to society to aspire to all marriage being a lifetime commitment? (And do those benefits outweigh the negatives?) It’s not that society is imposing the lifetime expectation on marriage. Rather, it’s reflecting the desires of the people in the relationship. There are still benefits to society. Provided the relationship is generally good, it can provide an excellent environment to raise well-adjusted children and helps ensure the health and safety of the spouses as they age, all of which reduces the burden to society at large. Society creating burdens to divorce means spouses will more often work towards agreeable compromises rather than breaking up. This can lead to a more emotionally connected and enriching relationship. Couples who easily break up may never know if they could have worked it out and instead could have had a deeply satisfying relationship for decades. The “grass is greener” mentality is definitely true in relationships, since the beginning of a relationship is almost always the most exciting and passion-filled part. The easier it is to move on, the less likely it is for someone to find a lifetime-long relationship. That’s not important to everyone, which is why getting married is beneficial. It makes certain both people are on the same page for what they expect from the relationship. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/35 "2016-05-30T19:47:35Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > Exactly. People should get married because they have the intention of staying together forever. It may not work out that way, but the intention of both people should be that they want to stay together forever. It’s okay that divorce is messy and hard. It means people won’t take that step unless they are serious about ending it. Simple arguments, disagreements, or apathy shouldn’t be enough to end a marriage. > > The 5-7 year agreement sounds more like an extended car lease. In this type of system, people wouldn’t have as much incentive to work through the tough problems. If someone wanted that type of system, living together would be more appropriate. We’ve **already** lost the incentive for people to work out their problems. It used to be that in order to get a divorce, you had to be able to go to court and prove that your spouse was unfaithful, or abusive, or something like that. But since no-fault divorce came in, you can get divorced any time, anywhere, for any reason or no reason at all. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/36 "2016-05-30T20:02:44Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > It’s not that society is imposing the lifetime expectation on marriage. Rather, it’s reflecting the desires of the people in the relationship. Then those people can choose to stay together for life. Nothing’s stopping them from making that commitment. > [@](#): > > There are still benefits to society. Provided the relationship is generally good, it can provide an excellent environment to raise well-adjusted children and helps ensure the health and safety of the spouses as they age, all of which reduces the burden to society at large. Absolutely. “Provided.” If it’s not generally good, but societal assumptions and mores pressure the couple to stay married anyway, that can result in a poor environment for kids and could increase the burden on society at large. Does the benefit afforded by the former cases outweigh the harm in the latter? > [@](#): > > Society creating burdens to divorce means spouses will more often work towards agreeable compromises rather than breaking up. This can lead to a more emotionally connected and enriching relationship. Or an emotionally distant and dysfunctional relationship. > [@](#): > > Couples who easily break up may never know if they could have worked it out and instead could have had a deeply satisfying relationship for decades. Couple who stay together out of societal pressure may never know if they could be happier, more fulfilled, and more productive if they were single or in another relationship. And those who do divorce against that societal norm will be failures. Being divorced used to be scandalous, if you’ll recall, and divorcees were often treated with scorn. > [@](#): > > The “grass is greener” mentality is definitely true in relationships, since the beginning of a relationship is almost always the most exciting and passion-filled part. The easier it is to move on, the less likely it is for someone to find a lifetime-long relationship. That’s not important to everyone, which is why getting married is beneficial. It makes certain both people are on the same page for what they expect from the relationship. Sure. As do limited-term contract marriages. Or merely marriages without an explicit lifetime commitment. I think your last sentence there is the most important one: whatever both parties agree on is what we should support as a society. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/37 "2016-05-30T20:06:50Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Depending on the jurisdiction where they live, the main difference may be that the law makes it _ **more** _ difficult to untangle that five year relationship than if they are married, because there may not be any equivalent to divorce and property separation for people who live together without getting married. > > It’s the fact of living together that causes entanglements, not the marriage certificate. Quoted for truth as far as Ontario goes. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/38 "2016-05-30T20:08:15Z")
> [@andros](#): > > No arguments. > > I’m just wondering about the assumption/societal norm that marriage \*must \*be, or _should_ be, a lifetime commitment. Well, to get the biggest advantages, you have to combine assets in such a way that getting back out is hard without some real sacrifices. So it only makes sense, generally, for a long-term relationship. It’s just like some other investments that only make sense in the long term. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/39 "2016-05-30T20:09:58Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > We’ve **already** lost the incentive for people to work out their problems. > > It used to be that in order to get a divorce, you had to be able to go to court and prove that your spouse was unfaithful, or abusive, or something like that. But since no-fault divorce came in, you can get divorced any time, anywhere, for any reason or no reason at all. You had to be able to pay someone to go to court to lie for you. I don’t want to know that much about your marriage. It’s enough to me that you don’t want to be in it. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081/40 "2016-05-30T20:13:00Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Well, to get the biggest advantages, you have to combine assets in such a way that getting back out is hard without some real sacrifices. So it only makes sense, generally, for a long-term relationship. It’s just like some other investments that only make sense in the long term. Yes! This seems to be an example of societal pressure toward a lifetime commitment. And I’m still not certain we as a society receive a net gain from that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-requiring-renewal-every-5-years/756081.md?page=3)