Opinions Wanted: What Do You Think About States Giving Incentives To Couples Who Agree To Take A Marriage Education Class?
The Texas House of Representatives sent a new bill to Gov. Rick Perry Tuesday that would encourage all couples to take marriage education classes. Couples would enroll in eight hour, pre-marital counseling sessions with clergy and faith and community based organizations to learn skills such as, conflict management, communication skills and keys to a successful marriage, but not parenting or financing skills.
The $30 marriage license fee would be waived for couples volunteering to take the classes. Those who don’t would pay double the normal fee. In addition, those couples who took the class would be able to obtain a no-fault divorce in 60 days should the marriage end. Those couples that don’t take the class would have a two year waiting period before being able to divorce.
Critics of the bill are concerned that couples who choose not to take the marriage education class would not be able to afford the $60 marriage license. Some are concerned with the fact that financing skills will not be taught since money problems seems to be high on the list of reasons couples divorce. Others say that the last thing we need is government meddling in our private lives.
Proponents of the bill say the classes will mean healthier marriages, which in turn will mean a decrease in the rate of divorces in Texas and the United States. Rep. Warren Chisum urged the House to adopt the Senate's version of his bill to strengthen marriages and families, noting $40 billion a year is paid in child support across the country. Decreasing the divorce rate would mean less money paid in child support and more children raised in two parent homes.
Personally, I’m in favor of states offering marriage education classes. I will go as far as saying; I think marriage education classes should be required. Any class designed to encourage engaged couples to discuss important emotional and practical issues surrounding the commitment you make when you marry is a positive. People divorce for many reasons, I happen to believe if couples had better conflict resolution and communication skills they would be better equipped to solve problems that lead to divorce.
I don’t, however believe the incentive should be monetary. If a couple is willing to take the class and put extra effort into having a “healthy marriage,” the only incentive should be the no-fault, 60-day waiting period should the marriage fail. Whether or not to take the class should be voluntary…a choice the couples make and no one should be punished monetarily for not making that choice.
The argument that marriage education classes should not be offered because financing skills would not be taught does not hold water with me. If couples are taught conflict management and communication skills they will be able to use those skills to find solutions to financial issues that come up.
The idea that this bill would mean government intruding into our lives is ludicrous. Just ask anyone who has ever been through divorce and had to deal with the Family Court System about government intrusion into his/her private life. If marriage education classes actually worked and decreased the divorce rate, it would mean less government intrusion into our lives. In my opinion, that is a good thing!
I’m very interested in your thoughts and opinions on this issue. Just click the “comment” link below and let me know how you feel.
Texas, "Healthy Marriage" Bill
I understand what they WANT this to do, but I think that charging those who DON’T take the class is a little like the old SS dodge where they ask for your number, tell you you don’t HAVE to give it, and then tell you that if you DON’T give it, they won’t be able to help you.
It’s just a way for the Texas Govt to say that they are pro marriage…..iow, pure cow poop.
If you haven’t learned all those skills before you get married then people shouldn’t get married. I don’t think taking those classes will help save marriages.
It is just hoops people will have to go through for nothing. A bunch of bunk.
Deb, I agree the monetary insentive smacks of a dirty trick to me. Like telling someone they don’t have to do it but, they will pay now AND later if they don’t.
Jay,very few people learn the skills needed to maintain a marriage before they marry. In my opinion, marriage is one of those situations where you learn as you go…if you ar lucky. Why not educate yourself before taking the most important step you will ever take in life?
My opinion is that there is more need for Parenting Classes.
I don’t believe that the government should get involved here, but do think that marriage and parenting education classes are a good idea. If you are young when you first get married, you are not thinking about funding a retirement plan, getting laid off, or trying to work and juggle daycare. You are thinking about being in love. These classes are a good idea and should be offered in the community, perhaps strongly encouraged by whoever is performing the ceremony.
Many churches and states already require classes prior to marriage. Many of those individuals are newly in love and don’t think those bad things can happen to them. After spending a day in family court watching divorce after divorce, I think a day in family court would be a better requirement. Maybe seeing all of those people in pain would make some people work a lot harder at their marriages.
Sounds good to me. There should be parenting and financial classes also. It should be as difficult to get married as it is easy to get divorced now days. Government has had a role in easy divorce so why not get involved with the front end of the deal. There is way to much divorce today due to the easy ways of getting married and divorced. Pop into the Magistrates office and a few minutes later your married quicker than getting customer service help on the phone. The institution of marriage I am afraid is not going well in these United States. And, I agree government is involved already. These classes should be mandatory and be of a duration that most relevant topics can be taught. This hopefully would cut short a lot of quickie marriages,but more importantly to educate. I don’t understand why parenting and financial classes wouldn’t be some -if not the primary subjects -to be taught. All this may be to late. I am not sure that the institution of marriage is valued much anymore. Maybe laws like this would start the road to recovery. I don’t know though, society is so transient today-is marriage going the way of local communities and family togetherness? Oh, well enough already.
I went through marriage classes at my church. I am now divorced with two children to raise. My ex-spouse was abusive and an adulterer. the classes didn’t offer anything on either topic. I think classes are a good idea as long as they cover not only conflict resolution ideas but also such subjects as those.
I’ve been divorced for a few weeks, so everything is still fresh in my brain. Conflict resolution is where we failed. During the failure, finances became paramount (she’s profligate, I’m penurious), so we could have benefitted from financial counseling. If we’d had conflict resolution, we’d not have gotten to the profligate/penurious stage. One other useful class topic would be the divorce process- what it takes to get to disolution, and all about custody. The last two topics might not make sense for people going into a marriage, but they sure are necessary for people getting into a divorce.
I like the incentive part, but my libertarian streak frowns on anything personal becoming compulsory.
Might also be a good topic for people contemplating issues- boyfriend/girlfriend stuff- even in high school. The conflict resolution is good, even if the relationship is a youthful, scholastic one.
I agree that marraige counselling before marraige is a great idea. And I also agree that conflict resolution should be taught. That being said, I also don’t think it should be something you have to pay for, nor do I forsee the efficacy of this in the big picture. I am in the process of a divorce now and my soon to be ex never learned how to debate anything. All he knows is to fight or “turtle” (ignore the issue/refuse to talk about it and it will go away). I’m not sure he would have learned even if we had attended classes before hand. In the blush of new love we all feel invincible and “the problems others have in marraige will never apply to our perfect marraiges so why listen in class when we can stare at each other and make kissey faces”. I guess maturity isn’t always the test of marraige-ability. My state does force divorce classes so I guess pre-marraige classes might be in the future. A wise idea, I am just unsure if it would work in practice as well as it works in theory.
I believe that all couples who are planning on getting married should take these classes. The reason that I say this is because you have so many divorces and it is because of the no-fault divorce law. People take marriage very lightly now a days and marriage is a sacred vow under God and it shouldn’t be as easy as it is to get a divorce unless it a very necessary.
We did a questionnaire thru the Diocese. The classes, with lay couples and priests were utterly useless, BUT the survey was dead on. When we went back to discuss the areas in which we differed on the survey with the priest, EVERY SINGLE DIFFERENCE eventually became a huge marital problem. He said he did not think in laws would interfere. I KNEW his mother would and she did and did immeasurable damage to the marriage, as did his siblings. He was the eldest and favorite and no one wanted to let him go (his father was dead).
I was concerned that since he was nine years older he may be too set in his ways, that he took Valium daily (and still does after 30 years) and until 10 years into our marriage still drank 5 beers every night and let me go to bed alone EVERY NIGHT. I made him quit drinking by saying I would take the kids but he still won’t come to bed, so definitely there was a difference the priest noted, esp. my concerns about alcohol since my parents were drunks. The way it was handled was very respectful and passive. The priest would just NOTE the areas of difference and ask that we go home and discuss worst case scenarios and how we could handle them and maintain our intimacy.
I thought that was very helpful and to this day, as my marriage is crumbling around me because of interference from his family and because he drank like that for ten years until I made him stop, and he STILL does not come to bed at night because he can’t handle physical and emotional intimacy, I wish I had paid more attention. Because of his habits we have often gone years at a time without sex, without going to dinner or a movie, and he would yell when I would bring it up and ridicule me. He was VERY set in his ways, in his 30s when we wed. I am not religious and do not believe God would want someone to live in this kind of pain, but I do think some sort of pre-marital counseling should be available. Churches have a little leverage by saying “You use my church, you take my class,” and then do the survey and turn it over to marital counselors. But beyond that I am VERY uncomfortable with the state stepping into a matter so private and dictating this. We MUST keep a separation of church and state so we do not have a theocracy (to which we are moving DANGEROUSLY close). But perhaps ministers and maybe even judges could make referrals for these classes, as an option to prevent problems down the line. I am a strong believer in voluntary pre-marital counseling, especially for the very young, but look at my case: age did NOT mean wisdom.
I am here still only because I have two teens left at home. When they go to college, I go.
What is meaningful and makes marriage worth doing cannot be taught. Without it, any other lessons learned are hollow. The idea that the government will tell us the “keys to successful marriage” is absolutely appalling. I would never get married under the conditions required by this bill.