Extreme Thinking

Warning to all overly sensitive people: The following entry contains thoughts outside the norm. If you are easily offended concerning marriage you may wish to read a different entry.

I have noticed a lot of people going through divorces lately. I think I am getting close to knowing more divorced people then married people. Some of those married people are not very happy either. A thought occurred to me. Would marriages work out better if instead of death the vow was until 10 years do we part?

So many people strive for the one, but nature tells us we are not suppose to be with one person forever. Most people could probably commit to 10 years with out much trouble. If they were still in love at the end of that term they could renew for another term. Marriage is a legal contract after all and you can put time frames on contracts so why not a marriage?

Ten years sounded like a good number until I started thinking about children. Change can be very harmful to children. So in the event the couple has children perhaps the agreement should be amended to 18 years from the birth of the youngest child. At 18 the child would be an adult.

Pre-nuptials agreements would definitely have more of a reason for existence.

Would people be happier knowing they might not always be tied to the person they married? If they were unhappy, in time they would be out of their contract without a sticky divorce to go through.

Brides who marry several times would get to plan all sorts of different types of weddings. Hey, if you paid $5,000 for a dress you just might get to wear it more than once in your lifetime!

Then again, would people take marriage less serious if they knew it would be over in so many years? Perhaps people would go around collecting spouses. Marry for money the first time, for fun the second time, to add your roommate to your insurance policy or benefits package the third time, for love the forth, and so on. If a marriage ended on a Friday and was not renewed until the following Wednesday would it be cheating if one of the couple slept with someone else in between those days?

So many hypothetical things to consider.

Still I would like to be married once and have it last until I die.