In Covenant Marriage, Forging Ties That Bind [NYT]

November 10, 2001

In Covenant Marriage, Forging Ties That Bind

By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — By the time Dewaldon and Rita Frazier found each other at Gloryland Baptist Church, they had both learned a thing or two about the heart's capacity to falter and rise again. He had left the Army in disgrace, living with a prostitute and mainlining heroin. She had had a daughter out of wedlock and divorced a faithless husband.

So before they married in September, their pastor, Cedric Hayes, urged covenant marriage, a form of matrimony that makes divorce harder. They did not have to think long.

"Covenant," Mrs. Frazier said at the couple's home here. "Just the word tells you it's serious."

Rooted in biblical teachings about the sanctity of marriage, covenant marriages bar divorce except under extreme circumstances like adultery, abandonment or, in the words of the Arkansas law, "cruel and barbarous treatment." Such unions require counseling before taking marital vows or breaking them through divorce. And for cases that would correspond to current no-fault divorces, they extend the waiting time to up to two and a half years.

In August, Arkansas became the third state to adopt a covenant marriage law, after Arizona in 1999 and Louisiana two years earlier. Fewer than 3 percent of couples who marry in Louisiana and Arizona take on the extra restrictions of marriage by covenant. But supporters believe that such marriages will take off in Arkansas, where Gov. Mike Huckabee, a former pastor and president of the state's chapter of the Southern Baptist Convention, has thrown the weight of his office behind the law.

James D. Wright, a sociologist at the University of Central Florida, contends that covenant marriage bills, which have been proposed in more than 20 states and are under consideration in the Michigan and Iowa Legislatures, reflect a shift away from individual liberties toward "a resurrection of traditional values: family, community and patriotism."

Steven Knock, author of "Marriage in Men's Lives" (1998), said interest in covenant marriage laws grew after federal welfare reform, which put a five-year limit on federal aid to poor families. States moved to tackle the two biggest determinants of poverty: divorce and births out of wedlock, Mr. Knock said.

Research has shown that 33 percent to 45 percent of couples on the brink of divorce may reconcile if they are legally prevented from divorcing within six months, said Dr. Knock, who — with Dr. Wright and another sociologist, Laura Sanchez — is conducting a five-year study comparing relationships in covenant and standard marriages.

States are also offering incentives for premarital counseling and marriage education courses in an effort to reduce divorce, which soared in the 1970's. In 1968, the year before California adopted the nation's first no-fault divorce law, there were 584,000 divorces in the country, a rate of 2.9 divorces per 1,000 Americans. By 1998, the number of divorces had reached 1,135,000, or 4.2 per 1,000. (The divorce rate is highest in Southern states — roughly 50 percent higher than in the rest of the country — and lowest in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.)

While the law's largely evangelical Christian supporters hoped that churches would require covenant marriage as a condition for performing wedding ceremonies, most religious leaders balked. The Roman Catholic Church, which represents the largest religious group in Louisiana, objected to discussions of divorce under any circumstances.

"Doesn't that tell you something about the advisability of this?" said Jeanne Carriere, a professor at Tulane Law School in New Orleans.

Professor Carriere said she doubted the ability of the courts to enforce covenant marriage vows, particularly inasmuch as the Supreme Court ruled more than half a century ago that the state of residence at the time of divorce, not marriage, determined which laws governed the divorce.

The states that have passed the laws have created little infrastructure to sustain or dissolve covenant marriages. While the law requires counseling to overcome discord, Louisiana's Legislature took no steps to provide low-cost counselors to the needy. The laws require counseling even in cases of abuse — an approach that alarms those running shelters for battered women.

So far, the Knock-Wright-Sanchez research has found that couples who choose covenant marriages have higher incomes and more education than other couples. They are deeply connected to their churches, and approached courtship and marriage very seriously.

These couples, the researchers say, also tend to bring fewer unresolved problems to the marriage: fewer bridegrooms are in debt, and the brides, at least, appear to be more skilled at communicating. Only a third of standard couples discussed children before they married; virtually all of the covenant couples did. And though the research is still early, so far, four times more standard couples in the study have divorced, Dr. Knock said.

One recently wed covenant couple — Christian Lesher, 27, and Samantha Myers, 24 — began seeing each other six years ago and were engaged for more than a year. They spent hours in counseling discussing their experiences, foibles and attitudes, but say they never allowed themselves physical intimacy.

Taking a break from decorating the First Baptist Church in Little Rock the day before their wedding, the couple said they liked the signal that covenant marriage sent.

"This was right for us, 100 percent," Ms. Myers said.

"This is insurance that we're not going to make a decision that we're going to regret because we hit a valley in our marriage," she said.

This is something I wish black leaders especially would endorse in poor communities.

As a certified FL teacher who taught in inner city public schools, I think the black leaders really fail to lead their communities out of poverty by not promoting marriage more often and by failing to get these kids started in a TWO-parent household. Everything, just everything, is so much harder on these kids when they have only one parent at home -- or, as is often the case, no parent caring for them, as they are shuffled from relative to relative because daddy is gone, mommy is in jail. It's a terrible start in life, and it adversely impact the child's academic learning because there is NO support at home for such learning.

This is something I wish black leaders especially would endorse in poor communities.

Why is it that black people in general see the solution to most issues involves more law, regulation, and or police presence?

If you are inferring that I am black, well, I am not. I just wish the black community leaders -- as in the black community where I taught school -- would do more to promote marriage, whatever that added effort involves.

James D. Wright, a sociologist at the University of Central Florida, contends that covenant marriage bills, which have been proposed in more than 20 states and are under consideration in the Michigan and Iowa Legislatures, reflect a shift away from individual liberties toward "a resurrection of traditional values: family, community and patriotism."

I wish people would stop formulating the matter this way. There is nothing anti-liberty about covenant marriage. In fact, the right to commit oneself on one's own terms, and the attendant responsibility for living up to one's commitments, are at the heart of the ideal of freedom. Without those things, no society, however structured or governed, could last for a single generation.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

The use of "impact" as a verb is just one more sign of the degeneration of the English language, IMHO.

FYI, in every dictionary I own, and I own several, the word "impact" is listed as both a noun and a verb.

Thanks for the fine post. Covenant marriage is a fine case of Americans acting on their own to restore our moral base. It will take time, but I believe it will bear fruit.

Richard F.

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