[Vision2020] And Greg replied, "Well Doug said it was O.K."

[Brandon Steele]

"Guilty Marriages," a work by Gregory Dickison

As this is a bridal issue, it seemed good to write about the civil 
government's role in marriage. That's why this article is on divorce. No 
bridal issue would be complete without an article on divorce. Even in our 
day, there is no more solemn covenant entered among men than marriage. Yet 
the civil government has made it the easiest covenant to break.

Prior to 1969, the law took a fairly biblical view of marriage. It was a 
covenant between a man and a woman to take each other as husband and wife 
(the biblical definition of marriage was assumed by the statutes), which 
could be solemnized by a judge, a magistrate, the governor, a mayor, or a 
"priest or minister of the gospel of any denomination."[1] In other words, a 
minister of God. Annulments (making the marriage void ab initio) could only 
generally be granted if one of the spouses was already married, was 
incapable of giving consent, or if consent was obtained by fraud.[2] Married 
couples could only be divorced for reasons that were considered to be 
violations of the covenant: adultery, extreme physical or mental cruelty, 
wilful desertion, the husband's negligent failure to provide for his wife, 
or habitual intemperance which prevents the spouse from attending to 
business or causes great mental anguish.[3] These causes could not simply be 
asserted by a spouse. In order to obtain a divorce, the conduct had to be 
proven. The biblical roots of these statutes are evident. There is an 
amazing affinity between pre-1969 divorce laws and Chapter 24 of the 
Westminster Confession of Faith.

The modern concept of "no-fault" divorce has been with us less than 30 
years.[4] In 1969, then-governor of California Ronald Reagan (the great 
savior of the family) signed the first law taking the concept of covenant 
breaking out of divorce. Forty-five states followed suit within the next 
five years, and all 50 states currently have some type of no-fault divorce 
statute.[5] While most state codes still contain the "old" causes of action, 
they have been rendered dead letters by the no-fault provisions.

Typically, these laws use the phrase "irreconcilable differences." 
Irreconcilable differences are "those grounds which are determined by the 
court to be substantial reasons for not continuing the marriage and which 
make it appear that the marriage should be dissolved."[6] Obviously, this 
can mean anything, and that was exactly the intent of the law. Unlike the 
old system, a spouse need not offer any specific proof as to what the 
irreconcilable differences are. They simply need to be asserted, and the 
divorce will be granted. Even over the protestations of the other spouse.
With the advent of no-fault divorce, the marriage contract became the 
easiest legal contract to break. No other agreement between men could be 
broken with less formality or fewer legal consequences. The expressed design 
of no-fault divorce law was "to promote harmony and reduce fighting,"[7] 
particularly where children were involved (as if harmony can be increased in 
a process that is, by definition, inharmonious). But critics of the no-fault 
system counter that the actual result was an increase in the divorce rate 
and a casual and irresponsible attitude toward marriage and divorce. A move 
is currently underway in several states to repeal the no-fault statutes and 
return the concept of culpability to divorce.

Both sides of the debate are stacking up pragmatic arguments and waving the 
family values flag. The "no-faulters" claim that the statistical correlation 
between the divorce rate and no-fault statutes is negligible if not tenuous, 
that laws can't force people to stay together, that the costs of divorce 
will rise as spouse's spend more time litigating blame, that children will 
be caught in the middle of open war, and that if divorce is not readily 
available then people will opt to live together without matrimony rather 
than make a binding commitment. The "faulters" respond that no-fault laws 
have caused the divorce rate to skyrocket, that repealing them will 
encourage a greater sense of responsibility and commitment, that couples 
will have more incentive to work their problems out, and that the war over 
children rages on just as much now when deciding custody matters, and is no 
harder on them than the ultimate consequences of the divorce. Engaging these 
battles on pragmatic grounds have caused the real point of the war to be 
missed.

Marriage is ordained by God, not man, and we are not free to tinker with its 
creation or dissolution in an effort to modify it to fit our arbitrary 
standards of what a marriage should be. It is not primarily a loving, caring 
and nurturing relationship which can be had by pairings other than husband 
and wife, nor is it a haven for family values. It is fundamentally a picture 
of Christ's relationship to and interaction with His Church (Eph. 5:22-32). 
While that marriage can never be dissolved because its head is perfect, 
divorce is allowed among men because of our hardness of heart (Mark 10:2-9).
Of course no-fault divorce laws should be repealed and repented of. When the 
marriage covenant is broken, it is a recognition that one of the spouses has 
committed grievous sin. Someone really incurs moral blame. The civil 
magistrate, as God's minister, has a duty to require that people honor the 
marriage covenant as God ordained it.

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