Bill to Toughen Terms of Marriage Contract Dies

SACRAMENTO — Legislation proposing a new form of marriage that would have been harder to escape died Tuesday in a Senate committee.

The bill, by state Sen. Richard Mountjoy (R-Arcadia), would have given couples the option of entering a “covenant marriage” or choosing the traditional marital contract, which can be dissolved unilaterally for any reason.

The legislation was modeled after a law passed last year in Louisiana. In a covenant marriage, couples agree to undergo counseling before they marry and when problems in the relationship arise.

They also commit to a pre-divorce waiting period of at least a year. If one party objects to divorce, the other can only end the marriage by proving “fault”--including adultery, physical abuse or mental illness--on the part of the recalcitrant spouse.

Mountjoy called covenant marriage a worthy idea in an era when experts predict one in two married couples will ultimately divorce.

“This was an effort to give Californians a choice, a choice to think a little harder before they just walk away from their marriages,” he said.

But his bill, (SB1377), attracted only two votes in the Senate Judiciary Committee. State Sen. John Burton (D-San Francisco), the committee’s chairman, said couples do not need a new law to help them save their marriage when times get tough.

“People can do this--sign a covenant with each other--voluntarily,” Burton said. “We don’t need the government setting up some deal where people have to stay married whether they want to or not.”