When it comes to brains and wit, there is no one superior to A.R. When it comes to love and marriage - not so much. The "and they lived happily ever after" is "aconsumation devoutly to be wished" but it is no longer often the case.Just as there are not two humans exactly alike, there are not two humans who will like or dislike all the same things.In reality, so long as there is love and an agreement on the major philosophical items, there is a chance of success. However there are two basic issues that stand out in my experience when it comes to divorce and it's causes. The first is the ability to weather the storm, and the second is sexual infidelity.

The first of the two problems comes about because the philosophic connection is not strong enough, and as a result small problems loom large and large problems become insurmountable. That is why a courting period should last for a long enough time for the couple to truly know one another. When sex is involved, it should take up to less nor more importance than the couple has agreed upon. Yes, I know that sex can promote powerful feelings and that rationality should not be governing it. WRONG! Once again, agreed upon compatibility will make many problems disappear.Sex can be an expression of love where one party offers the other their greatest gift -- themselves. Or, it can merely be a bodily function. Which one is best? I needn't tell you.Infidelity is not negotiable. Unlike Rand's personal life, there is no way to participate in it without psychologically damaging the partner. If a new love overshadows the current partnership, then take it out of the lies and shadows and deal with it honestly. There is still pain, but at least deception is not a part of it.

Excellent question which leads me to wonder:
What happens to anyone who becomes an invalid without adequate financial resources saved up for long term care? Let face it, many people (young and old alike) become invalids requiring 100% care through no fault of their own i.e. accidents, disease or simple old age....

I see this all the time, the lopsided divorce decrees from the judges. They, the judges, pander to the voters but the result is you have many men who cannot pay the judge's rulings and end up being "dead beat dads'.

"Any society which views with dispassion the method of its very perpetuation will wonder why it collapsed even in the midst of the rubble" Bravo !!
Commitment required by both partners. Responsibility for your actions. Flexible and openness to change. Build a strong foundation for when the winds of changes shift. Divorce is a traumatic event for all children involved, and sometimes it is just the best solution. I think the grass is always greener folks maybe weren't committed from the start.

The nuclear family no longer exists as a legally enforced institution, and is only socially enforced among upper middle class white people and a few weird religious groups. Either party to a marriage may leave at any time for any or no reason, and may break the marriage vows without penalty.

Since women have the unique biological role of bearing children, and since they are not permitted to divest themselves of their "reproductive rights" by marriage or otherwise, they have total, unilateral authority over all family formation decisions, irrespective of their partners' wishes, whether married or not. A woman can marry you, abort all your kids against your wishes, fuck other guys, have the other guy's kid, tell you it's yours, threaten to abort it to manipulate you into whatever she wants that day, put the kid into state custody over your objection, admit that she did all of that, and that she did it because she thought it would be funny, and it will not affect her parental rights or her rights to equitable division or support and maintenance.

The result of this is that now, about a fifth of all human fetuses in this country are aborted, and about two fifths of those who are born are born to unmarried women (of course, some of the married women's children are not the offspring of the men they are married to, but it's hard to get numbers on something that would produce no legal consequences anyway). Even when children are born to a married couple, the parents divorce before the children are grown a large fraction of the time. The nuclear family was destroyed long ago, to the point that when gay marriage became an issue, you didn't even have a fucking clue that marriage had anything to do with children. Gay marriage wasn't the beginning, it signaled the end, for all time.

The only role for the government is to maintain a secure file cabinet to keep a copy of the original contract --0 an optional component if you want to register your contract. If the marriage has a set period (5 year renewable for instance) and has specified how the assets will be divide before hand, then most of the issues inherent to divorce are managed. If you cant figure out how to divide things up before you are married -- while you presumably like each other -- you won't when you no longer do (and all you will do is make some boat payments for your lawyer). At end minus one year you can start negotiating the next time period (if it has worked well, you can might want to go 10 years the next time) I'm thinking if we knew the reality of the end, we might treat our marriages and our partners better. We might also be less troubled by it as we could plan for it.

The relationship of a marriage can be a very complex arrangement. To enter into a contract is to try to be specific about something that may be transitional despite efforts to manage it. Would you enter a contractual friendship? The idea of renewal or just a simple if you do this then we won't be clause. Children greatly complicate the contract. I would rather not see the government involved in this agreement and certainly not under the auspice of providing tax breaks and other incentives for providing new slaves for the state.

The Rand books feature “cheating” (as described in this thread) and in real life Rand "cheated." Which demands the question: Does the Coolidge effect apply to Objectivists?

Today, here in the US, marriage is more about benefits and rights then religion. For many years married people got a tax break, but then it changed and there is a marriage penalty tax wise for some at least. Health and/or auto insurance can also influence whether you get married or not. Not saying these are reasons directly, but it might happen that you are happily living with someone and then a law changes things and you both benefit by having that paper saying you are married. Conversely, you might be married, but both benefit by a divorce, even if you continue to live together. As with most things when the gov'm't gets involved it complicates things.

It all depends on your basis for marriage in the first place. If it's all about convenience, it can be dissolved by that same convenience. If it's about something more, then there's that. Really what your question strikes at, however, are the repercussions of breaking that contract - both to the individuals and to those affected (especially children) - and who is responsible for managing the breakup.

To be quite frank and honest, any society which treats marriage and family creation as just another "contract" will collapse in upon itself. If marriage is nothing more than two people wanting to have sex, that becomes the foundation of what the children learn and that becomes the society we have today - no respect or care for how others are affected by our choices. Rome fell as much because of its moral leanings as its flawed tribute-state model. So have many others. And those who suffer the most from divorce are children.

My wife's parents got divorced only a few years after we got married and that was a hard couple of years for us as well as them. My father-in-law openly admitted that he had contemplated suicide afterward - and that was about as amicable a divorce as one is going to find. My brother-in-law divorced his wife when she went off the deep end and abandoned him and their three children. Their children have been a wreck ever since because of the conflicting values between biological mom and biological dad. Then there's some of my kids friends just down the street where their father and mother divorced because the father wanted to go shack up with other women. Guy was a moocher extraordinaire and I could tell stories about him worthy of anything out of an AR novel. But those poor kids - good kids just trying to get past it - are conflicted as a result. Then there are my next door neighbors: a grandmother who runs a daycare in her home because she's stuck taking care of her twin granddaughters born to a drug-addicted mother and dead-beat father. These two can barely read despite being nine years old.

I've seen way too much divorce and its products to treat it with any kind of cavalier attitude. To me, it goes to the very heart of civilization and philosophy. Any society which views with dispassion the method of its very perpetuation will wonder why it collapsed even in the midst of the rubble.

That's how I see it, too. Marriage is a contract, either a kind of employment contract or related to it. Thus I would certainly give either party the right to quit, but the potential of owing damages. I would also like to see freedom of contract in general extended farther than it is now. Why shouldn't the partners be allowed to insert (for instance) a cause setting a large penalty for adultery?

You still have have assets, co-signed contracts (credit card debt, mortgages, etc), Children, that must be equitably divided.
Have to De-mingle, the co-mingled property. Don't use the term "marriage", use civil union, now the discussion is just a legal dissolution of a contract.
Reduced to that, love has no part of it.

Voluntary enslavement... hahaha! I hypothesize that you are either (A) unmarried, or (B) soon to be divorced.... hahahaha! Brilliant!

There are many non-religious reasons to get married and divorced. Divorce isn't moot if you have children I can assure you. Divorce is simply a way to structure the breaking of a contract. Definitely necessary with kids and with divvying up assets.

In principal I agree with your position. However, there are 2 sides to every story and there is a reasonable argument. That the reason 1 party is no longer in love with the other party is that the other party has not lived up to their promises. Even when evidence is not producible it is still possible. Example denial of affection or other attention. In cases such as this it is likely that the 2nd party would be the one receiving the damages award when honestly the opposite would be justified.

I can't agree with you more. My situation is your exception you mention of "assuming no significant hurt has been done".

My situation involved my ex-wife of 13 years having affairs. After giving her opportunities to stop, she chose not to, so I filed for divorce. She did not want the divorce (wanted her cake and eat it too). In my state we have No Fault laws, so not only did I not have the opportunity to recover any damages, but I had to give her half of my life savings, buy her out of my business, and pay her alimony. We split custody of our children 50/50, however I pay for 100% of their expenses (private school, healthcare/insurance, etc), AND I have to pay her child support.

Bottom line, I am the one who ultimately pushed for the divorce. She fought tooth and nail to not let me divorce her. It ended up setting my retirement age back 10 years.

The good news is that my current wife of 7 years is fantastic!

Recall that Henry Rearden famously divorced his wife after she pulled one snide stunt too many, i.e., laid information with James Taggart about Rearden's affair with Dagny. And he likely could have made a very good case that she didn't live up to the terms of the marriage contract herself.

Divorce likely did not happen in the Gulch because membership in it was by invitation only. So everyone was on the same page.

This is a GREAT issue for Objectivists -libertarians! Forget the religious connection, because I believe government issues licenses to be able to be able to track legal connections for contracts and other matters [rights of children etc.] One of the MAJOR failings I se in U.S. society is the basic 'no fault' or easy out to a marriage, WITH the person pushing the divorce carrying no penalty! Now if I contract with you to servie my car, or mow my lawn or for a business tp sell me certain products at a certain price and time, AND you do not live up to the contract, courts will issue damage claims. A divorce will have two sides, BUT if one person STILL has the emotional connection [love] and the other has lost it, then, assuming no significant hurt has been done by the person wanting to keep the marriage, He/she IS OWED DAMAGES, and probably damages GREATER than a commercial transaction would involve! Just as penalties might encourage a business NOT to renig on a contract, so too might penalties on a marriage contract - a much more significant document! Mostly however, damages are due where damage is caused

So two people marry in the Gultch, they create a contract with the responsibilities of each party to the other specified. Maybe it has a time limit, with options to renew. Before you start you agree to how it will end at the term. Renegotiation is possible. As is the contractual end. If the original marriage contract did not specify an end period or a method for ending under certain circumstances, then negotiations to end could be initiated. If necessary the parties could hire an arbitrator if/as necessary.

You want a divorce? This is so sudden. What did we do? I would assume it is basically the cancelation of a contract and would be allowed.

Until one of the geniuses in the Gulch created Gulch Robotic Services, Inc., with Flexible Frank on call 24/7. (See Door Into Summer by Robert Heinlein;^)

+1 AJ.

If she was a homemaker she knows how to clean, cook, raise kids, budget etc. Those are marketable skills. Remember Dagny paid her debt cooking and cleaning for Galt.

With rational people yes it is.

You never met my finally-ex-sister-in-law ewv.