Covenant Marriage: The Movement to Reclaim Tradition in America

Chapter 8: Conclusion

141 Chapter 8 Conclusion Y Is covenant marriage effective public policy for strengthening marriage? It may be tempting to conclude that the covenant marriage experiment in Louisiana was a failure. After all, there were very obvious problems with the implementation of the law, and there is no denying the very low rates of adoption of this form of marriage. But before jumping to such a conclusion, consider covenant marriage in a wider perspective. The task is not as simple as asking whether covenant marriage, per se, was a success. To understand what has happened in Louisiana we must ask this question about several relevant constituencies. We also must be systematic in how we think about covenant marriage. Obviously, individuals and couples approaching and experiencing their marriages are one target for the law. But public policy typically has larger objectives. Louisiana (like other states) is worried about the economic and social consequences of unwed births and divorce for adults and for children. These concerns are part of the debate about covenant marriage and most other marriage-movement initiatives . Therefore, the state, or collective, is also a relevant constituency to consider. More than either of these, this initiative sought to change the culture. It attempts to reinstitutionalize marriage at a time when so many forces appear aligned to do just the opposite. Covenant marriage includes a combination of elements. To answer whether covenant marriage was a success, therefore, includes asking whether premarital or marital counseling had any discernible effects, and whether divorces were less acrimonious. Although we cannot speculate about the consequences of the declaration of intent, it remains a potentially important element of the arrangement and should not be dismissed. Finally, it means asking what a covenant marriage symbolizes. 142 Covenant Marriage Stakeholders Couples Our assessment of covenant marriage for couples approaching marriage in Louisiana is mixed. Overall, we would assign a grade of B minus. The reason is that half of all couples had never heard about the option. For them, covenant marriage was essentially irrelevant. Even if they learned about it from the court clerk, and even if they thought it might be the right choice, there was probably too little time for them to do much about it. As we discovered, the marriage ceremonies of our couples were generally quite large and elaborate, with scores of guests. We learned that most couples obtain their marriage licenses only days before their planned weddings. Many would be unable to reschedule such an event to allow time to obtain the mandatory counseling required for a covenant marriage. Also, given that only one-half of all state residents had ever heard of covenant marriage (one and two years after it was passed), a large fraction of engaged couples would be in exactly this situation. There was little support for covenant marriage among the community of officials charged with offering and explaining it. Some couples who might have heard about covenant marriage at the court clerk’s office might have decided to choose such a marriage. But the results of our study suggest that the actual situation was often the opposite. Couples were frequently discouraged from covenant marriage. Or they were never told about it. Those who did know about covenant marriage often learned about it at church (where one in five covenant couples met their partners). This simple observation raises another important point. There is an obvious and important connection between covenant marriage as embodied in the law of Louisiana and covenant marriage as experienced by religious couples. This is important because one of the most innovative aspects of covenant marriage is the required premarital and marital counseling. As we discovered, the overwhelming majority of such counseling was provided by clergy in the state, and presumably by the leader of the couple’s congregation. We have no way of knowing whether religious couples would have obtained such counseling absent the legal requirements, but we suspect many would have. In short, for this select group of religious couples, who learned about covenant marriage (and may have met their partner) at church, the premarital (and marital) counseling requirements may have been superfluous. Not all couples, however, shared their desire for a covenant marriage . And not all who entered covenant marriages were equally religious. Conclusion 143 Therefore, a group of covenant couples—probably one in ten—included at least one partner who described him- or herself as being only moderately...