Should Marriage Have a Best Before Date?

Minister: Do you, Walter Goodman, take this woman to be your lawfully dreaded wife, to love and to cherish, to wear down and grate on her nerves, to drag her into your own private hell, in sickness and in health, before and after sex, with or without a purpose, for as long as you both shall deem it profitable to hang on to the house before you make a killing on the resale market?
Walt: Sure, why not.
Minister: And do you, Sybill Robinson, agree to take this man for everything he's worth?
Sybill: Oh I hope to! I mean, I do! I do!

--Tim Burns, Brian Moffatt, "Six Days that Shook The Walt"

I've been expecting to see this in real life for about ten years, ever since I first ran across the idea in the works of Robert A. Heinlein.
A German politician has floated the idea that marriages should be automatically dissolved after seven years unless both spouses elect to renew. Because so many marriages have shattered by this time, she argues, it's outmoded and increasingly silly to expect any given marriage to last any longer. "The basic approach is wrong ... many marriages last just because people believe they are safe," she says.

(An aside: Hey, what's so wrong with 'safe', huh?)

You won't see this policy enacted in Germany in the immediate future--the woman advocating it is a fringe candidate at best--but I predict you will see term marriages, probably first in Europe, within ten to twenty years.
I'm not overly keen on the idea, myself, even though I know it's inevitable.
First off, it's based on a myth. It's beastly hard to track reliable stats down, but some sites suggest the average length of a marriage is 7.2 years, thus the origin of the phrase "seven year itch". But that average is skewed upward by the many couples married for twenty, thirty, forty or more years.
We were told in our premarital class that there are three stress points in time for any marriage. The first is, predictably, the first year. Many couples are surprised to discover that every day isn't a honeymoon, and they bail.
The second stress point is after four years. This is backed up by evolutionary theory: anthropologist Helen Fisher, in her book Why We Love, suggests the standard period of birth spacing for humans is supposed to be four years. "We were built to have our children four years apart and I think that this drive to pair up and stay together at least four years evolved millions of years ago so that a man and a woman would be drawn together and stay together, tolerate each other, at least long enough to rear a single child through infancy," she says. After four years, too, the levels of oxytocin (the "love hormone") have fallen off. The flames have died down. Unless you've got a solid bed of coals (otherwise known as a close friendship) built, chances are good your relationship with snuff itself out.
The third spike in divorces occurs after twenty years. This, too, makes sense in the context of real life. By this time, many couples have invested so much energy into raising children that they have ceased to see their partner in any other light. When the children leave home, it's quite common to discover you've been living with a stranger for years.
So there are "itches", but not at the seven-year mark, at least not usually. It's probably wise to acknowledge that fact, to recognize that both you and your spouse will probably be tempted to stray at some point.
But is a temptation any reason to automatically dissolve a marriage? I think not.

I freely admit I've been tempted to stray on occasion. Never seriously tempted, but the thought does cross my mind every once in a blue moon, just as I'm sure it's crossed my wife's mind. I can't imagine a circumstance where either of us actually would cheat on the other. I've noticed that the things that attract me to other women (a sense of humour, compassion, intelligence) are invariably things my wife has in spades...so what's the point? Especially since I know that my wife would find out I cheated at some point. Probably by way of my mistress: it's incredible how many men never think that through. And the price of cheating would be (in order) a great marriage, a few good hard boots to the crotch, and a perpetual drain on my wallet. Aphrodite herself ain't worth it, you know? No, I'll never cheat...not without permission, anyway, and that, unlikely as it is, makes it not cheating.

I've written before, while discussing same-sex marriage, that marriage has nothing to do with children. I still believe this: the standard wedding vow makes no mention of kids at all.
But I speak as a child of divorce when I say, for those who do choose to have children, divorce should not be an easy, let alone an automatic, process. (Nor, however, should it be impossible. My parents divorced when I was five, after...hmm...seven years of marriage. Hindsight suggests they never should have married in the first place. Better a divorce than a messy, loveless marriage, is my view.)
But I certainly don't think divorce should be inflicted on kids (or parents, for that matter) by default. And I can easily see that becoming quite common. Picture it: you get home after a really crappy day at work and your six-year-old's screaming his head off and the house is a sty and damnit, your husband left the lights on again and there's nothing for dinner and fuck, your head's gonna split and there's a quick way out of this mess in just three weeks...

I started to write that term marriages are the last nail in the coffin for those who do believe marriage is all about children. But that need not be true, at least in theory. As I said, I first encountered this concept while reading the works of Robert A. Heinlein. He had some very unusual views on marriage, let me tell you. His novels are replete with term marriages, open marriages, group marriages...but the one constant in all his heroines is a burning desire to pump out babies by the score. These babies are raised in a loving household (that might consist of two, four, or ten "parents") and paternal responsibility for offspring is repeatedly stressed.

Would that work in the real world? I'd like to say "yes", but I doubt it. Having fooled around with the idea of polyamory in my younger years, I can safely say I'm not up to it...and I don't believe many mere humans are either. It's kind of like communism: the concept is wonderful, the execution fiendishly difficult. I still love more than one person--I find the idea that love is only meant for one "soulmate" patently ridiculous--but there are limits to how I'll express "other" love.

I've wandered from term marriage to group marriage without really meaning to. But in my mind, there's not much of a difference, really, because given the framework of a seven-year marriage term, well, most people don't just chop off relationships and start up new ones instantly. There's overlap...sometimes many years' worth. Juggling two (or more) relationships, if it's to be done at all, should be done openly, not "on the sly", meaning at least an open marriage, if not full polyamory.

I'm willing to accept the idea of term marriages for some people...with two huge conditions. First, anyone signing a term marriage contract must be sterilized. Such sterilization would be reversible upon the expiration of the marriage term. This would prevent kids from going through divorce virtually by default.

(I also believe that no one, but no one, should be allowed to bear children, in or out of wedlock, without both parents passing a comprehensive child-rearing course...)

Second, for those choosing traditional marriages, divorce would be made considerably more difficult to obtain.
This would steer many couples towards term marriages, I think, but the option of traditional marriage would still be there for couples who wish it. Moreover, the sorts of people who have been complaining for decades about the "erosion" of marriage could have some semblance of their ideal again.

Marriage is an intensely personal decision, and each marriage is different. I know a married couple that lives apart. How that works is utterly beyond me: it's also none of my business. I was once netfriends with someone in a triadic relationship: a woman with two husbands. A quick Google search shows this woman, now Canadian, is still 'married' to both men, and with a successful academic career to boot. Her triad has lasted at least seventeen years: a respectable length for any marriage.
I know couples who fight incessantly, but who are utterly devoted to each other. I once knew a couple who admitted to me they married strictly for convenience. For all I know that one's still going strong, though I wonder how the two kids got there.

My marriage is something I take seriously. I'm glad I waited as long as I did to get married. I was engaged once before, and the thought I might have actually married that woman fills me with about four hundred distinct species of dread. Whereas not a day goes by without me thanking my lucky stars I found the woman I did. I'm approaching that seven-year anniversary, and there's no trace of an itch here. Term marriage? You go ahead. Not for me, thank you.

My heaven
Is the very worst day
That I spent with you
When you were so mad
But I still knew
Nobody would leave
'Cause that don't happen
In my heaven

--Trace Adkins, "My Heaven"