I’ve always been a romantic.
Even as a young child I would daydream about the boys I thought were cute. We’d fall in love, even at the tender age of 13, stay in love — naturally — and get married once we were grown-ups. Every time we looked into each other’s eyes for the rest of our lives, sparks would fly. I was 100% sure of it.
When you’re young and love is new, the prospect of one’s feelings changing toward someone you’re infatuated with feels downright absurd. “Me? Not love him? That is literally impossible.”
The new feelings of romantic love are intoxicating; they absolutely bewitch us. No one but our beloved is as lovely, as interesting, as deep, and we basically become addicted to them. Such are our feelings of connection that we’ve invented the concept of the “soul mate,” which, if you think about for more than 10 seconds, is a mathematical probability so low that it might as well be an impossibility (I guess I’m a little less romantic now than I was.)
This is not by accident, but is, rather, a biological fact. Nature is trying to get enough of us to fall in love with each other to keep the species going. Human babies need more care for more time than any other baby creature on earth, after all. So nature doesn’t just have to get us to have sex with each other; it’s got to get us to cooperate enough to raise live children through adulthood. No wonder our brains get so pumped full of dopamine. “Nature’s shrooms,” I call it.
Anyway. Here we are, a bunch of lovey-dovey dopes who can’t predict future feelings or commitment. Even bad, sometimes horrible experiences aren’t enough to discourage us. Freddy Mercury said it best: “I’ve fallen in love for the first time / This time I know it’s for real.”
All this lead-up is to bring me to the surprising subject at hand: Jalisco’s proposal for temporary marriage contract.
Why the proposal?
Well, apparently their family courts are 90% stuffed with divorce proceedings. Yikes.
As someone who has been married and divorced in Mexico, I can attest to the difficulty of getting it done here, besides the regular run-of-the-mill difficulty already inherent in the process. It’s long, it’s expensive, it’s dramatic in the most unpleasant ways possible. I mean, you literally have to sue the other party if you don’t go through some sort of “alternative justice” mediation.
Could there possibly be a less pleasant way to kick things off?
That’s why I read about Jalisco’s proposal with excitement. Of course! Temporary marriage contracts. Brilliant.
While I know some conservative groups are against this — and there are certainly things to be said about how seriously we take marriage — I’m all for it. It’s a clear-eyed view of the on-the-ground reality of modern relationships. It proposes real solutions. And also, honestly, I’d love to simply be married without going through all the stress of an expensive wedding. Spending all my savings on one day where I have to be both the star and the host? Well, when you put it that way…
This is a proposal that recognizes the way people really live.
Most modern humans, for the most part, are what we call in sociology “serially monogamous.” We pair off, and we stay in those pairs for a while. We do our best to love and support each other, in good times and bad. Most of the relationships in our lifetimes simply don’t last…a lifetime.
This fact, to me, does not make them any less special. Is my friendship with my fifth-grade bestie less special because we don’t keep in touch? Of course not.
Romantic relationships, of course, are in a slightly more fraught category. They have to be, because the emotions are so much more intense.
But as any psychologist will tell you, those feelings of infatuation have a shelf life. And once they’ve faded back into the comfort of the everyday, you’ve got to actually like being constantly around who you’re with as a person. Marrying your best friend? Befriend your lover, I say.
So back to the proposal. Just because something isn’t forever doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be official. Contracts, as un-romantic as they sound, I’d argue are one of the most loving things you can draw up with another person. And a temporary marriage contract is extra romantic.
Why?
Because you’re actively looking out for a person who, in the future, you might not like very much.
People grow, people change. People fall out of love. Very unfortunately, being married and even in love doesn’t stop our eyes from wandering, and, well… some people have more self-control than others.
Whatever the reason, some relationships just aren’t meant to go the distance.
So when the tears are flowing and the emotions are all over the place, a contract is something that can save you. It’s a time machine from your former, in-love selves: they, the people who love each other, have already made the tough decisions for you.
First, the most important: what will happen to any children from the relationship?
What will happen to property you acquired together?
How will you relate to each other and set boundaries after the breakup?
And after the number of years you’ve established in the contract are up, how will you decide whether or not you want to continue or go your separate ways?
It’s had me wondering how things might have been different had my ex-husband and I had such a contract. If we had decided on all the “what-if”s when we were deeply in love. Chances are, a legal “check-in” every few years with a set, pre-established checklist might have even strengthened the relationship. At this point, there’s no way to know.
So good for Jalisco. I hope it passes because, ironically, I think getting people to sit down and really think about their future selves is a great way to set them up for marital success. Maybe even a lifetime of it.
Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sarahedevries.substack.com.
