Marriage expiration

Six years is a long time for a bad president, Fidel Ramos famously said. What’s a long time for a bad spouse?

A party-list group suggests that 10 years is long enough to endure the “worse” part in marriage vows, and wants the enactment of a law that will put an expiry date on marriage.

The 1-Ako Babaeng Astig Aasenso, or 1-ABAA, said the expiration date would spare couples trapped in a marriage gone sour from lengthy and costly proceedings to annul their union.

The proposed legislation has even less chance of passage than the divorce bill. But the fact that it was proposed publicly at all, and by a women’s group, rekindles the debate over the role of religious beliefs in modern life.

Though members of the group later clarified that they were devout Catholics and were not “waging war” on the Church, the marriage vow of staying together till parted by death is in the religious rite, not the civil contract.

It was interesting to listen to the debate in the newsroom and comments outside the office regarding the proposal.

Though laughter was the common initial reaction, men and woman alike thought it was a sound idea, considering the realities of modern marriage life.

Some thought 10 years was even too long, noting that there were individuals who changed into radically different persons soon after the romance of the wedding had worn off.

These days the romance could wear off even before the wedding, as soon as the girl tells the boy that she is pregnant. Over the years I’ve known many young women, especially from poor families, who were abandoned by their boyfriends as soon as their pregnancy started showing. Marriage was never in the cards.

Recently, a young woman from a poor family told me she was asked by her cousin for tips on getting an abortion. The woman, who has two children but is separated from her husband, isn’t sure if the cousin is pregnant.

For many of the poor, getting married can be too costly, and getting out of a legal and religious union too much of a hassle. Couples simply live together, and when the marriage doesn’t work, they split.

An expiration date on marriage could ease the fears of those who worry that they could end up stuck forever with a lemon, with no way out except death, unless you’re a Kennedy with the means to obtain a so-called Catholic divorce directly from the Vatican.

An expiry date could also encourage a regular review of the state of the marriage, which could go both ways; the commitment could be strengthened and reaffirmed with a renewal of the vows.

Someone in the newsroom said a regular renewal of marriage vows could even be a way of boosting government revenue and sagging Church earnings. An industry could develop around the planning of renewal weddings.

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The Church, as expected, is not amused. Divorce, in various forms, is allowed around the world except in Malta and the Philippines, and the Church isn’t going to lose the battle in this predominantly Catholic country without a strong fight.

A bishop reminded the faithful that marriage is for keeps, and marriage vows must not be taken lightly.

As in the stand of the Vatican on other issues such as contraception, the Church wants the faithful to follow the teachings of their faith instead of making the teachings bend to the whims of the faithful.

There are still many couples that take seriously their Church vows to stay together for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness or health, till death to they part. They make their vows with the knowledge that most marriages are not made in Heaven.

Children in particular typically want their parents to stay together, even for poorer and for worse, and especially in sickness.

But the situation has also led to a lot of hypocrisy in this country, with one parent – typically the father – philandering and even maintaining several families.

In countries such as the United States, a romantic dalliance could doom a candidate or end a political career.

In our country, as long as the father provides for all the women and goes home to the number one family, society has learned to tolerate such set-ups. We even elected one such man to the presidency, and by the largest margin ever.

But increasingly, Filipino women are asserting their independence and getting out of a bad marriage, legally or not. This is especially true of battered women, or those who have found out that theirs is not the only family maintained by the husband.

Both the law and the Catholic Church, in promoting family togetherness, have made it exceptionally difficult to end a marriage.

Over the years that difficulty achieved its objective, preserving marriages, with all their flaws, till death.

But in recent years, as Filipinos see couples around the world divorcing with relative ease, the absence of divorce and the difficulty of obtaining an annulment have discouraged couples from getting married at all.

Early yesterday, an overseas Filipino worker who returned recently from Canada shot her husband dead in his sleep, then committed suicide. Police said she had found out that her husband had started another family during her years as an OFW. This is a crime of passion, and no one can say if the tragedy could have been prevented if the OFW had an easy option to end a bad marriage.

Women’s groups are the biggest proponents of the divorce law, and it’s not surprising that women are also proposing the expiry date on marriage.

The nation is not ready to take this proposal seriously, but it is significant that the proposal has been made at all. –Ana Marie Pamintuan (The Philippine Star)