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Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot  The same would apply to civil unions.
The same would apply to civil unions.
The same would apply to civil unions.
Sure. Here are some ideas from my jurisdiction.
1. Essentially, the legal costs for divorce are high, because the costs of lawyers and judges are high. So one way to lower the costs is to require the couples to go through mandatory counselling. Some couples then resolve their differences and therefore no legal costs are incurred.
2. The rest of the couples then go through a process of mediation. Again lawyers and judges are kept out of the picture, so no legal costs are incurred. Through the mediation, a trained mediator (who is not a lawyer) helps the couple to isolate and identify their issues. So for instance the couple mutually agree what they want to do with the family dog; the car; the house; the joint current account and so on. And let's say that after mediation, the only thing they cannot agree on is the custody of children.
3. Only at this point, do they enter the formal court process. Here the legal proceedings become shorter and much cheaper, because the couple have no further arguments/issues about the family dog; the car; the house; the joint current account. They only have an argument/issue about the children. The lawyers and the judge solve that one last matter, quickly and cheaply, and everyone moves on.
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By the way, the court system in my country is regularly ranked World No. 1 in international surveys. One big reason is its speed and efficiency and low cost. And the reason for its speed, efficiency and low cost is that the civil servants who work in this system are constantly focused on ideas on how to make it speedier, more efficient and cheaper.
This applies not just to divorce cases, but to commercial and civil cases in general. |
You keep mentioning civil unions.... I'm not proposing civil unions to be managed by the gov't. I said initially you could call them civil unions or whatever but then people said "yea but we still want to be married" As I said the term "marriage" is loaded. You'd still have to tell the masses that they could still be "Married" because they won't accept any other term obviously.
OK, now on to your recommendations....
Very good, that you are proposing alternatives
Of course what you are proposing would be an easier sell than what I propose.
But I still don't see what we forfeit by the gov't NOT managing our marriages, OR forcing counseling.
The only reason to force couseling is to reduce the cost of divorces that the gov't then needs to pay for. What I am recommending nips the problem in the bud. Its like having something thats not needed which causes problems and then you put a band aid on that problem but the core solutions isn't solved.
Imagine if some churches created unique contracts that reduced divorce rates. There could be a cultural revolution that would decrease divorces.
Also, how many couples get married for tax benefits only to divorce because they don't get along? I know that studies show that many military people have gotten married due to pay raises. By creating a flat tax it would take the wrong incentives out of marriages.