Temporary Marriage Licenses

This morning I read this article below at this link.

Mexico City legislators propose temporary marriage licenses

Reuters Sep 30, 2011 – 8:46 AM ET

MEXICO CITY — Mexico City lawmakers want to help newlyweds avoid the hassle of divorce by giving them an easy exit strategy: temporary marriage licenses.

Leftists in the city’s assembly — who have already riled conservatives by legalizing gay marriage — proposed a reform to the civil code this week that would allow couples to decide on the length of their commitment, opting out of a lifetime.

The minimum marriage contract would be for two years and could be renewed if the couple stays happy. The contracts would include provisions on how children and property would be handled if the couple splits.

“The proposal is, when the two-year period is up, if the relationship is not stable or harmonious, the contract simply ends,” said Leonel Luna, the Mexico City assemblyman who co-authored the bill.

“You wouldn’t have to go through the tortuous process of divorce,” said Luna, from the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, which has the most seats in the 66-member chamber.

Luna says the proposed law is gaining support and he expects a vote by the end of this year.  Around half of Mexico City marriages end in divorce, usually in the first two years.  The bustling capital, one of the world’s largest cities, is much more liberal than the rest of the country, where the divorce rate is significantly lower although on the rise.

Abortion is legal in Mexico City, while the Supreme Court ruled this week to uphold state laws in Baja California that say life begins at conception.

Leftist Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, who angered the Catholic Church when he made Mexico City the first Latin American city to legalize gay marriage in late 2009, announced this month he would soon step down to run for president.  The church criticized the proposed change.  “This reform is absurd. It contradicts the nature of marriage,” said Hugo Valdemar, spokesman for the Mexican archdiocese. “It’s another one of these electoral theatrics the assembly tends to do that are irresponsible and immoral.”  The Church holds considerable sway in the country with the world’s second largest Catholic population after Brazil.

© Thomson Reuters 2011

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When I started reading the article, my first thought was a rather humorous one, "I can't even remember to renew the car tags on time!"  I would sure hate the thought of needing to renew my marriage license, but I wondered if it could be done at the DMV office...some marriages might end just over the long wait to renew!  Then my thoughts became suspicious of how much revenue these temporary license would create.

However, the real issue here is what a sad condition "unconditional love" has fallen into in our "modern society".  We have become a happiness seeking society of grazers and samplers.  We'll try a bit of this and then some of that and finally choose what is the "best" at the time.  Marketers depend on these behaviors and are always offering new and improved to our lives...from dish soap to hair styles to fashion it is not all bad...it's possibly just innovation, but society has let sampling into relationships.  Our world is about the product, the situation and now the person who pleases us most, who makes us happiest.  We dream of "happily ever after", but we live for the pleasure of the moments and our society disregards the "ever after". 

In these modern times, it is rarely about the person who will care for us enough to be loyal through a lifetime of changes and adjustments.  Even more RARE, is our own willingness to love someone else through a lifetime of ups and downs, of I love you and I don't feel love for you right now.  Over and over the message is sent,  mainly through Christian based media, that love is a verb (an action) and not an adjective (description).  Yet so many Christian people are looking for some short cut to happiness.  Seeking wisdom and choosing sacrifice are not the "modern way".  People are "trying out" pre-martial sex, affairs, living together and a whole multitude of "stuff" to make sure they will be happy or (even more disastrous) that the other person will make them happy.    

"Unconditional love" is not measured in happiness.  Unconditional love is measured in security, patience, peace, understanding and being treasured, and it includes the long lost values of loyalty and forgiveness.  Unfortunately, in the last year, I played matchmaker thinking that I was offering a young man an opportunity for a peaceful, secure home life with a young woman who would forgive him, love him and be a great match for his strengths and weaknesses.   As the evening went on, I watch as the young man involved ignored the amazing woman that I had placed in his presence and I soon realized that he was a "sampler".  He was dismissing a woman with unconditional love because she wasn't offering samples of "happiness".  Too bad he missed that she was offering a lifetime of true love. 

Mr. Workman & I celebrated our 13th Wedding Anniversary on Monday...I'm sure glad that we don't ever have to "decide" if we WANT to renew our marriage license OR for that matter REMEMBER that we NEED to renew our marriage license. 

I sure hope that by the time our kids are getting married, we don't have to ask, which marriage license they plan to get....a real one or a fake one?

For the love of money is the root of all evil:

which while some coveted after,

they have erred from the faith, and

pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and

follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love,

 patience, meekness. ~~I Timothy 6:10-11