This article caught my eye—a movement to change no-fault divorce laws. We began tinkering with traditional marriage decades ago, and some of the force behind the case for same-sex marriage is drawn from ideas introduced to make divorce easier in the 60s. One of the key ideas: Marriage is about love. So when spouses fall out of love, they should be able to end their covenant easily, rather than show a sufficient reason for the instability to the individuals and society divorce causes. It was a fad 40 years ago for marriage vows to end with “as long as we both shall love.” And now the argument is made that the government shouldn’t prevent people who love each other from getting married.
Of course, marriage wasn’t about love. It was, in part, about making stable families to raise the next generation.
I wrote about this nine years ago quoting Al Mohler. And it’s more true now.
There were some legitimate reasons for no-fault divorce—abused women who couldn’t show proof for just cause for a divorce. But it was much more about the feminist movement, freeing women from the “bonds” of a patriarchal institution. And a generation that naively believed love was all that mattered. There were no doubt marriages with cause for divorce, but the effects of no-fault divorce has had far-reaching consequences that now mean overturning an institution that provided stable families that helped create stable societies across millennia, across civilizations, across religions.
And for a culture who cries that the government has no business in our bedrooms, isn’t it odd that we want to say that they do have business in our most intimate feelings—love?
We’ll see if the damage can be repaired.