Why No One Is Married
Texas no-fault divorce information
Marriage
today
is no more than "registered cohabitation" because no-fault divorce was
misinterpreted as "no cause & no proof" divorce. If you can divorce without
true cause--then you were not truly married in the first place. You were merely
cohabiting, as in ages past, regardless what name it's called.
You could
always walk away from a disagreeable cohabitation, but marriage was
defined in its protection by law.
You couldn't get out of a marriage just because you wanted out. You had to have
true cause: abuse, adultery, abandonment, or the like. And not only cause, but
genuine proof of it.
When the well-meaning no-faulters tried to take
adversarialism out of the divorce process, to make it friendly, it failed. The
door swung wide open to "no cause & no proof" divorce. Meanwhile,
adversarialism went right back into the property and custody battles.
The
old "fault" laws needed overhaul to bring spousal equality, and to make the
system friendlier, but no-fault's "no cause & no proof" divorce,
administered by warring lawyers, was the wrong implementation. The law should have
required that spouses be taught how, and
helped, to settle differences as
co-equals, to deliberate justly and fairly, with self-control, while honoring
their partner and the vows they made for a permanent union.
Beforehand,
almost any man could rule his wife and settle disputes by physical force. But
spousal equality demands at least a little education, a working knowledge of
civilized diplomacy and reasoned compromise--for both genders.
The no-fault laws did not train the partners to solve any problems. The laws simply--and grievously--empowered the courts to settle all their disputes for them, in one grand sweep, by divorce, no matter how whimsical or trivial the disagreement. No-fault did not elevate the status of wives as co-equal family managers. It lowered the status of both spouses, while it elevated the courts as the new, and not-so-charitable, family managers.
The no-fault divorce system, as implemented, funded divorce. It channeled money from troubled families to divorce lawyers, now at hourly rates in three digits, in exchange for dividing children and property. The court's officers were hired and paid to terminate marriages, not to save them.
The no-fault legal system, as envisioned, was to be a family hospital, to comfort the hurting spouses and bandage the wounded marriages. Instead, it became a family morgue. It promised to give relief from the former hostilities of the "fault" legal system, but it became more hostile than ever.
Reconciliation dollars, facilities, and assistance were promised, but they never materialized. A generation and a half later, we know that the experiment did not work as planned.
In truth, our no-fault laws, as implemented, abolished true marriage. After many years of no-fault, we no longer even respect the solemn covenants that partners make between themselves and God. Instead, we respect the solemn covenants that lawyers make between themselves and a judge.
Although
cohabitation is handicapped in many ways, it unfortunately has one important
advantage: ordinary cohabitation keeps
government out of the home. In contrast, the registered cohabitation that we still
call marriage invokes the jurisdiction of government officers. They receive
authority to manage the lives of both spouses and their children with legal
force.
No wonder people cohabit. No wonder we have so many broken homes.
Partners can walk away from the slightest inconvenience, at any time, with court
assistance. They don't ever have to conciliate, or swallow their pride and say
they are sorry, or try to please anyone but themselves.
When divorce was
made into a guaranteed certainty, it became an easy way out of hard times.
Partners knew they would no longer be pressed by embarrassing questions about
covenants and faithfulness, as they moved on to their next cohabitation. Nor
could they be stopped.
The fundamental attribute, the unique
defining characteristic, the
earmark, that always distinguished true marriage from cohabitation, is legal
security--protection by law--protection by divorce law.
Today, that
protection is gone. Genuine proof of true cause was always required for divorce,
and anything else--but that--should have changed in an overhaul of divorce
law.
It is one thing to let spouses decide, without intrusion, for their
own private reasons, whether to live together, or to live apart indefinitely.
But it is another thing altogether, for government not to question the cause,
when government has already intervened, when government is asked to destroy a
marriage, totally and permanently.
The legal security of true marriage
cannot be a chain. But neither can it be a thread. It must be a sturdy fabric, a
flexible but tough canvas, to weather the gales of life.
That's why true
marriage is so secure and stable for mates. When spouses cannot easily shake off
their yoke, they soften it by mutual accommodation. In other words:
spouses don't stay together because they get along; they
get along because they stay together.
And that's why
true marriage is so secure and stable for children. True marriage is
underwritten by law. Children can rest assured that no passing storm will carry
either of their parents away. They know that the whole force of government
stands as a benevolent guard to protect their homes and both of their
providers.
We are not in the midst of a divorce crisis. It is a marriage
crisis.
No one is married, and no one can marry. The right to marry was taken away.
The happy voices
of the bride and the bridegroom are gone from our land.
Copyright
2000
Ed Truncellito, JD
Phone: 713-661-3657
Fax: 713-661-3670