Covenant Marriage

Can the government reduce marrying couples' chances of divorce with a law or policy? The designers of covenant marriage think so. This entry explains the history of covenant marriage and its implementation, describes the first couples to marry under the law, and finally answers whether covenant marriage does, in fact, reduce divorce. Covenant marriage is a law first passed in August 1997 in Louisiana. This legal innovation marked the first time in U.S. history that heterosexual marrying couples could choose between two sets of laws to govern the terms of their marriage. Katherine Shaw Spaht, the Jules F. and Frances L. Landry Professor of Law at Louisiana State University, and then-freshman legislator Tony Perkins drafted and introduced the covenant marriage bill. Spaht writes extensively about the legal implications and social benefits of covenant marriage. Perkins served two terms in the Louisiana state legislature and is a strong proponent of covenant marriage. As of this writing, he now serves as president of the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council.

As part of rising public concern about the stability of the American family, covenant marriage grew directly out of U.S. state and federal debates about welfare reform, marriage and healthy relationship promotion, and Defense of Marriage Acts. The majority of state legislatures have considered versions of covenant marriage bills, but only three states have currently enacted this option: Louisiana, Arkansas, and Arizona. Many states have implemented features of the covenant marriage law by enacting forms of premarital counseling requirements and expanding state-sponsored opportunities for marital and relationship counseling.

The intended policy-relevant purposes of covenant marriage are largely threefold. First and foremost, covenant marriage's primary legal purpose is to improve marital stability and reduce divorce. Second, covenant marriage's more controversial social purpose is to act as a beacon against the presumed ill effects of a culture that weakens norms about the traditional meaning of marriage and encourages divorce as a permissible easy out. Third, covenant marriage serves a symbolic [Page 364]purpose by allowing covenant marrying spouses to signal to each other their trust in the permanence of their union and to their children that they too will find reliable, faithful spouses for lifetime permanent marriage. Research clearly documents that couples find great meaning in the public and private symbolic purposes of covenant marriage.

The covenant marriage laws themselves stand as a retrenchment against no-fault divorce laws. Covenant marriage provisions require that couples undergo premarital counseling by a state-approved counselor or religious officiator, sign a notarized affidavit that they have disclosed their personal and sexual histories fully to each other, and submit a declaration of intent acknowledging that covenant marriage is a lifetime permanent relationship. The divorce provisions in the Louisiana covenant marriage law are fault based. A divorce may be granted for the traditional marital faults of infidelity, physical or sexual abuse of a spouse or child, abandonment of at least 1 year, or a lifetime or death-penalty conviction. Covenant marriage does not permit unilateral divorce nor consider general incompatibility as a criterion for termination. Covenant couples who want to divorce must undertake required marital counseling. In Louisiana, the waiting period for divorce is 2 years for a covenant as compared to 6 months for a standard marriage. There is some confusion about whether covenant married couples who prove fault must undertake marital counseling. For instance, some interpret the law to mean that even couples in violent relationships must make good faith efforts at counseling to preserve their marriage, while some judges grant instant divorces, with waiting periods even shorter than for standard marriages.

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