When traditional marriages first started appearing in the Middle Ages, the average life expectancy was 25-30 years. It’s now 84.4 and 80.5 for women and men respectively. That gives a whole new meaning to 'till death do us part.'
Marriages in the Middle Ages were usually arranged to ensure that treaties between royal families, nobles and tribes were upheld. They were often strategic moves rather than anything involving love or romance – unless you were a peasant, in which case you had a little more say over whom you married.
Around this time it was decided that all marriages had to be held in a church so that records could be kept, and it had to be done in front of two witnesses (best man and maid-of-honour). This was to stop people running off later and dodging their responsibilities.
'When traditional marriages first started appearing in the Middle Ages, the average life expectancy was 25-30 years.'
A survey last year in the UK revealed a frightening statistic that 70% of marriages will deal with infidelity of some kind. That same survey also claimed that a third of people believed they had married the wrong person.
In Australia in 2014 there were 121,197 marriages and 46,498 divorces (nearly 40%). Now with the rise of cheating websites like Ashley Madison and whole sites dedicated to helping you have an affair, maybe like other Middle Ages traditions of burning 'witches' at the stake and believing the world is flat, it’s time we dropped "till death do us part".
After all marriage was invented by man and no other animal on the planet has weddings or gift registries. I'm not talking about monogamy or relationships in general. If you really love someone and you both agree to be monogamous then do it. I believe anyone in a relationship should be as good as their word and that mutual monogamy is showing the ultimate respect for your partner.
If you don't think you can be loyal or monogamous, get out now and join Tinder. What I'm talking about is marriage as a lifelong commitment.
Maybe we should look at marriage more like a lease on an apartment, you sign up for six months and if you like it, sign up for another 12 months. If it’s still going well, why not sign a 10-year-lease? If after a while you want out and there's no damage, you get your bond back.
Look at it like renewing a licence or a passport or renting a washer/dryer from Mr. Rentals.
'Maybe we should look at marriage more like a lease on an apartment, you sign up for 6 months, and if you like it, sign up for another 12 months. '
Unlike the Middle Ages when men had to provide for their women and the wives had to cook, clean and breed, women can now vote, work and provide for a whole family without a man, so why do we need that little piece of paper?
According to research by Illicit Encounters, 59% of married people feel the current marriage system is outdated and 50% said they would support a marriage licence that had an expiry date. From one of the UK's leading infidelity websites, that's probably not much of a surprise.
The average length of marriage in Australia is now 12 years according to the Australian Institute of Family Studies, down from 12.6 years in 2005.
I know this all sound negative and unromantic, but there could be positives to taking out a lease on your marriage, you could include clauses that if either partner is unfaithful, violent or abusive the marriage is then null and void and in breach of contract.
If marriages just expired or were voided, divorce rates and lawyers’ costs would plummet. Wouldn't it also keep both partners on their toes knowing that the expiry date was coming and that they should make more of an effort?
Would partners cheat if they knew their marriage expired at the end of the year? I often laugh when I hear Christian politicians like Fred Nile and Corey Bernardi trying to protect the sanctity of marriage, because high divorce rates, TV shows like Married at First Sight and websites like Ashley Maddison haven't destroyed that sanctity at all.
So if you’re working on your marriage vows maybe think about changing "till death do us part", to "till July 2030".
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