By Barry Hale

"When the love is gone in a marriage -- all that remains is the money and possessions."

This bleak yet fitting description of marriage/divorce appears on page 65 of Todd I. Stephenson's Eternity Commitment: The 21st Century Alternative to Marriage, which proposes a kind of legal "firewall" between the personal bond of marriage and the financial assets of the partners in order to avoid the more painful consequences of divorce. I'm using the term "marriage/divorce" to emphasize Stephenson's best point: our culture is now saddled with a two-headed beast of a social arrangement that badly needs to be overhauled. I recommend Eternity Commitment for its useful factual information and valuable techniques. However, readers should be prepared to labor through these 142 pages, which I mentally divided into two parts: "The Reign of Terror" followed by "The Fine Print."

Summarizing the first six chapters of Stephenson's work--"The Reign of Terror"--was remarkably difficult. After a brief two-chapter warm up, the book launches into an intense, episodic, buffet of statistics, commentary, and anecdotes, painting a devastating portrait of a deeply troubled marriage/divorce system that I found a bit too effective. Just seven pages into the third chapter I felt that I was being assaulted by the intensity of the writing. For example, after relating the advice of a business professor that business partnerships should be avoided whenever possible and making a pretty decent analogy with marriage, Stephenson then feels compelled to add (pg. 27) "Ask yourself again, why is a business/financial partnership necessary for a marriage? The answer is--IT IS NOT NECESSARY! In fact it is detrimental," to which I mentally responded "OK, OK, I get it!"

After working through two chapters of this, the concise, elegant quote beginning this review stood out vividly, immediately prompting the question "Where did the love go?" Knowing that the odds for marital success are slightly worse than the outcome of coin flips, the question "Why is the commitment 'eternal'?" occurred, followed almost immediately by the question "Where did the love come from?"

I think that a nice initial exploration of my questions is given by the excerpt "The Radical Idea of Marrying for Love" from the book Marriage, A History, by Stephanie Coontz of Evergreen State College (http://www.stephaniecoontz.com/books/marriage/chapter1.htm). Professor Coontz begins by quoting George Bernard Shaw's description of marriage as

"...an institution that brings together two people 'under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions. They are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.'"

Coontz ends her chapter by observing

"About two centuries ago Western Europe and North America developed a whole set of new values about the way to organize marriage and sexuality ... Individuals want marriage to meet most of their needs for intimacy and affection and all their needs for sex.

"Never before in history had societies thought that such a set of high expectations about marriage was either realistic or desirable. Although many Europeans and Americans found tremendous joy in building their relationships around these values, the adoption of these unprecedented goals for marriage had unanticipated and revolutionary consequences that have since come to threaten the stability of the entire institution."

Stephenson almost does too good a job painting a despairing picture of marriage/divorce, making the system seem so hopeless that no solution can help. I think he might have made a better case for Eternity Commitments with a more considered examination of marriage. As they stand, the first six chapters are a double-barreled rhetorical shotgun fired point blank into the mind of the reader for the purpose of ... well ... selling Eternity Commitments.

Which brings us to the last three chapters of the book that I call "The Fine Print," that outline the details of the Eternity Commitment concept and sounds good initially but then cautions (pp. 88, 90)

"The steps to having an Eternity Commitment are remarkably similar to those of marriage with a few notable exceptions ... Do not use the word 'married' or 'marriage' in any descriptions of the relationship or ceremony. … After the Eternity ceremony and reception it remains important that you do not portray your relationship as 'marriage.' Use the term 'engaged!'"

making me think "Uh-oh …" A more alarming prospect is that the safeguards of the Eternity Commitment plan could be undone by its being seen as a common law marriage. Page 94 advises "All fifty states are different and an attorney will advise you of the specific actions you must take to avoid the pitfalls of common law marriage or palimony." Let the buyer of Eternity Commitments beware (please see htttp://unmarried.org/common.html for AtMP's fact sheet on common law marriage).

A more telling commentary came from a recently divorced friend who I asked to take a look at the Eternity Commitment Web site (http://www.eternitycommitment.com). Her response was "It seems like a nice idea, but what's the point?" because the concept doesn't address methods for strengthening or sustaining the commitment in order to avoid breakups.

Despite of all the perceived shortcomings of this scheme, I was shocked to find myself recommending this book! In his drive to make his case Stephenson does an excellent job of providing loads of useful factual information, especially his citation (pg. 19) of the CDC's very detailed divorce study ("First Marriage Dissolution, Divorce, and Remarriage: United States", Matthew D. Bramlett, Ph.D., et al; CDC Advance Data; No. 323, May 31, 2001) and the use of Joint Tenants with Rights of Survivorship agreements to share home ownership (pg. 95). I particularly appreciate his heavy use of online citations that can be checked quickly. By taking the advice in Eternity Commitments with a very large grain of salt, readers may find valuable techniques for softening the blow of--in the words of the CDC study--"marriage disruption."