>

This is an excellent and simple answer.
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^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >

Think of it this way OP.  It is WAY easier to tangle up earbuds (in the days before airpods), than it is to untangle them. >

You know what? I can't argue with that. 
!delta 
I can understand when kids are involved or you're business owner or whatever. But if you're an average citizen with no kids and no real assets (let's face it, the majority of millennial and gen z have next to nothing compared to generations before) >


But if you're an average citizen with no kids and no real assets (let's face it, the majority of millennial and gen z have next to nothing compared to generations before)

Things can be easy, but things get harder when feelings are hurt.  For example, if my wife cheats on me, why should I let her have the dog?  Or why should she get any money from me.  Emotions get in the way of rational thought for dividing property. >

That I can 100% agree with. I understand feelings and emotions gets super wrapped up in the divorce process. I just don't like the idea that people who don't really know each other but love each other getting married easily and then having, potentially, a multi-year long divorce process when it might not have happened if they had a harder time getting married to begin with >


a multi-year long divorce process 

Those long divorces are usually the result of the divorcees fighting each other. They could do it quickly, but they are too wrapped up in going to war with each other. >

Not to mention the fact that court systems can get or be clogged/shut down. My girlfriend's dad just went through an almost 3 year long divorce with gfs ex stepmom, which was caused by her threatening to murder him in his sleep. 
Why? They couldn't get a court date. 
Also, he didn't press charges for some stupid reason and she dragged out the process by refusing to accept anything that wasn't her getting everything. Though that only accounts for like 6 months of mediation and actual hearings. >

Do you want to get married? Yes/No. 
Do you want to get divorced? Yes/No. 
How do you want to split assets, how do you want to split any children, how do you want to split property, how do you want to split liabilities, etc.
One question is much easier to agree than multiple questions. However if the partners are aligned, it's very easy to get divorced. >

Split children horizontally, of course. >

I see that you are a fan of the king Solomon option.
I’m not sure how many modern jurisdictions would be okay with that.
Hence the complications of divorce. >


Split children horizontally

I’m not sure how many modern jurisdictions would be okay with that


Diagonally is the way to go in the modern world. >

Diagonal is certainly easier on the eye. >


you should be made to wait as long as an average divorce takes

I'm going to disagree with you on the timing here.
At worst it should be the same amount of time as the average divorce in which both people want to get divorced.
There's a key difference between marriage and divorce. Marriage requires both people wanting to do it. But it's possible to divorce when only one person wants to divorce. Because of that, it can be inherently more contentious. >

The length of the average divorce is greatly increased by that fact that the divorce is not amicable. Neither party agrees on the nature of the divorce, causing a fight in the courts.
An amicable divorce is typically a much swifter affair.
So, do you want to increase the time for people who agree they want to be married, based on the time of people who don't agree on how to divorce? >

I would say it would be easier for a government to make it just as hard to get married as it would be for a childless couple with no real assets to get divorced to keep it fair >

Traditionally, the government wasn't involved in marriage at all. It was a religious institution. All the government was doing was giving you a certificate saying that they recognized your marriage, and your marriage didn't violate any laws about who could marry who (when we had them). 
Getting married in certain churches is a big pain in the ass. Catholics make you take a whole class before they let you do it. >

Yep. I’m Catholic and a lot of priests will make you do at least a year of marriage prep. Some do more than that. >


Why can people get married so quickly compared to the divorce process?

If depends on where you live. If you are married, but have sperate finances and no large shared assets, and you don't have kids, then an uncontested, no-fault divorce is pretty simple. The reason divorces can be so time consuming is that it is way more difficult to untangle things if you have kids, or a shared house, or shared investments, and so on, which most married people do. It is kind of the point of getting married; to become a team. >

I've been with my SO for 6 years, are you saying I should have to wait another several years after I propose to get married?
Or, idk, why not just simplify the divorce process? Why are divorce rates inherently bad? >

If there was a 2 year period after the law was passed before it came into effect, then everyone would have enough time to know about the law and act accordingly.  Most married people I know knew that the two of them wanted be married for over a year before the wedding even took place.  
I don't agree with OP's main argument but I don't think a waiting period would have to  be a significant inconvenience unless you didn't know about the law. >


Now I know I'm a hypocrite cuz I married my husband after knowing him for 5 months and we've been together 7 years now and it's going great! But I know I'm an anomaly and 99% of people who get married as quickly as I did end in divorce.

The divorce rate for couples getting married that quickly is definitely a lot less than 99%. And even if these couples do have a higher divorce rate than couples who get married later, they'll also have a much lower chance of breaking up than they would if they hadn't gotten married. Even if early marriage reduces marriage stability, it increases relationship stability.
Call me old fashioned, but I think if you're going to strip people of their rights - and taking away the ability of a consenting couple to get married is definitely stripping their rights - you need to have a really good reason. >

!delta
I didn't think of it as stripping rights. More so of "have you been together for at least a year?" Not "you're an adult who can't make your own choices" >

What about someone who is dying but still wants to get married to someone they recently met? Who does that hurt? Why a year, why not two years, why not 6 months? >

Just make divorce easier. It doesn't need to be so difficult. Where I live we have express divorce online if there are no children or community property. Whatever you go into the marriage with is yours, whatever was accumulated during the marriage is split 50/50 >

!delta
Making divorce easier would solve a lot of problems. Now is every divorce going to be easy, especially if people are bitter and out for revenge? No. But divorce should be easier for people to get if they both just want out quickly and quietly >

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Cerda_Sunyer (2∆).
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It took me a while to separate my personal feelings  about how I think things should be with how I think society should operate. I think of most social issues this way. Obviously, violent crimes and murder don’t fit into this view. 
Personally, I’m against divorce in most cases. Barring abuse or infidelity, I think couples should stay together and work it out. When you marry someone, you take vows in front of your family, friends and whatever higher power you believe (or don’t) believe in. I take my vows seriously, and I think others should do the same. HOWEVER, I don’t have the right or the desire to force my views on divorce onto anyone else. If a couple decides they don’t like each other anymore, I don’t think that they should be forced to stay together. I think divorce should be easier. 
Marriage, for me, is a lifetime commitment (again, barring certain circumstances). Personally, I don’t agree with impulsive marriages. I think people who have married and divorced several times aren’t taking it seriously, and should probably reconsider marrying again. I don’t think the institution of marriage is taken seriously enough. HOWEVER, I would not make it any more difficult to marry. It doesn’t make any difference in my life if my neighbor has been married 2, 3 or 4 times. I have no right to force that person to wait for a year to marry the person they want to. We’ve had enough laws that inhibit the rights of people to get married, I don’t think we need to add any more. >


It doesn’t make any difference in my life if my neighbor has been married 2, 3 or 4 times. I have no right to force that person to wait for a year to marry the person they want to. We’ve had enough laws that inhibit the rights of people to get married, I don’t think we need to add any more. 

If restrictions on marriage had undeniable tangible benefits to society (less money spent on divorces, fewer married people trapped in bad relationships, etc.) would your view change? >

Is there really that much people who get married when they've known each other less than a year? Don't people usually date at least few years before getting married? I'm only referring to countries that have a high divorce rates. >


Is there really that much people who get married when they've known each other less than a year?

I know a couple people who did that. >

I'm asking for statistics. >

Do you know why divorce take a while?  Because it's complicated to untangle assets, figure out fair distributions plus things like alimony, child support, visitation rights, custody, etc.
Yes, some places require a wait for a divorce.  They shouldn't.  But the process is hard, because it's harder to seperate two people's finances than combine them.  But in terms of waiting, look at some states.  Some, already have longer waiting periods than you are required to wait before marrying.  Oregon has no waiting period for divorce, but you have to wait 3 days after getting a liscense to get married.

Some states make people wait for 1 to 2 years to get a divorce

No state makes you wait 2 years.  The longest wait is 1 year.  Unless you are counting the time where it takes to actually sort things out when things are contested between two people who don't like each other anymore.  Then, yeah, that can be drawn out, because they won't let you be divorced until they figure out how to divide up property. >

I've got the mainstream academic economics take on it, which you might find funny :).
What's the point of marriage in most (edit: that I've seen) economic models looking at marriage questions? Sure, there's the love component - that is the error term. The explicit benefit of marriage is income insurance.
You might lose your job and your partner might lose theirs. Without marriage, you lose everything and either eat through your savings or starve. With marriage, it's less likely for both of you to lose your jobs at the same time. It's more likely that you only lose half your income until you find a new job, which is more manageable.
That only works if divorce is costly. If divorce is easy, there would be no reason to subsidize a partner who lost their job at the cost of half your income, especially if you can't count on them to do so for you because divorce is cheap.
Now, this is obviously very simplistic. Academic economic models aren't theories of everything and instead are tailored to answer specific questions. If you're trying to convince someone they should have a salad for dinner, you don't start from the beginning of the universe. Economic models are just logical arguments translated into math, and they are similarly focused. Economic models of marriage can help explain some findings around marriage, but (I'm not super familiar with this field of research) I'd imagine many models include other components of benefits of marriage as needed (like maybe child care). 
But, this insight is probably applicable to other benefits of marriage as well. A lot of the benefits of marriage come from becoming a team that will commit to working through challenges rather than quitting as soon as the going gets tough. This can be especially important for raising children. The costs of divorce help reinforce that.
ETA: As for why it shouldn't be harder to get married, overall, there are many benefits to being able to credibly commit to doing something. Making commitment harder can make the world worse off. We usually allow people to enter contracts that bind them to do something easily, but afterwards, they have to commit to doing it and can't back out easily. 
See Elon buying Twitter, for example. Twitter had already been affected by his agreement to buy it and had paused recruitment and such. If he could just back out easily, that would have hurt Twitter greatly. A required long process before committing could have helped this situation, but may have left Twitter in limbo for a long time, also hurting them. It would also affect other deals which were entered into more diligently that would benefit from speed.
If you are interested in reading more about this, I recommend this Journal of Economic Perspectives article, which is targeted at a sophisticated but not graduate-level audience. It starts with a bunch of statistics but goes into economic models of marriage at the bottom of page 11 (PDF page 9). You'll see many of the models explore the problems of limited commitment in marriage, which a higher cost of divorce helps with. >

Marrying is easier than divorcing because splitting assets is harder than merging them. It's all about who gets what and such. And because it's so complicated and usually involves other people dealing with your mess, it sometimes pay to make sure you really want to before letting you go through the divorce process. >

Or maybe the divorce process should be improve to not take years rather than forcing people in love to have to wait years to be married. Adults should be allowed to make decisions for their life, good or potentially bad, as long as they aren't hurting anyone. The government has no right to tell you how long you have to think about committing to another person. And what about couples that have already thought long and hard about marriage? Why does the government get to decide when they're ready? Why should the government be interfering with people's relationships in an effort to keep statistics low when adults should be managing their own relationships? >


Why should the government be interfering with people's relationships in an effort to keep statistics low when adults should be managing their own relationships? 

I don't necessarily agree with the idea of more requirements for marriage, but it's pretty reasonable for the government to make changes to society in order to help people.  Marriage has a huge effect on our society and divorces are often very costly.  If a waiting period led to people spending less on divorces and having more stable marriages then it might be a good idea for the government to change marriage laws. >

Depends on the changes being mad. Sure, simple changes to encourage people to wait until they're sure there ready would benefit society. But OP's idea of forcing people to wait years because divorces take too long is obsurd. Age based limits make sense because oldee people are generally wiser but placing a time frame on when people can get married is impractical. I just don't see why pushing for more government intervention in relationships between consenting adults would be preferable over other things that may reduce unhappy marriages and divorce rates. >

Plenty of conversation here already but I haven't seen these points yet -
-Practicality. You put a burden of proof that they have "known each other" for a period of time long enough to justify their right to marry. How do you prove you know someone? Pictures? Calls? Interviews with the couple and their families? Who's paying for someone to clear every single couple who needs to get married - and is that really the best use of that money? How do we stop bias against vulnerable groups when any government worker could slow down a perfectly lawful marriage by saying "no, I don't believe you've really been in a relationship that long"? 
-Why? What's really the problem with people divorcing? Who do they hurt other than themselves? Really, the only people outside of the couple who end up hurt are the kids, if they exist, and nothing stops a couple from just having kids outside of marriage. >

Wait, why would anyone bother getting married officially then? Wouldn't they just do the celebration with friends/family, buy rings, and act married?
You know, many of the benefits of marriage can be conveyed through other legal structures. (Think: wills, living wills, domestic partnerships, shared financial accounts, legal name changes.) I think there'd be law firms and tech startups popping up offering to offer to file and walk you through all that for a fee. And then why would you get married if you already have all the benefits? And in event of divorce, won't disentangling yourself from all these individual legal structures be more complicated than a normal divorce?
Another thing the institution of marriage is that it helps children through tax breaks for the parents and the kids. If you make it more difficult, young families will children will benefit the least when they so often need help the most.
Also, again in situations where a couple has children, there will still be messy court battles about custody and child support whether they are married or not. >

My mom said to me “You’re 28 years old, you had better get married.”
I told her “Why should I have to get married, I didn’t do anything wrong.” >

A neat take you have presented here. 
My initial objection would be since marriage is a huge marketable venture now, legal policy over marriage probably wouldn’t be a proponent for it.
It’s sad that marriage has become this whole “put on a show” type of event, but I suppose you could argue it’s created businesses and jobs for some folks too? 
Thinking again in terms of legal policy, governments probably like the idea of them being easy to conduct because that would encourage more people to have them which results in more consumer spending which results in economic stimulation. If you think about it, many of us consume a lot of really useless or no value added goods and services. 
I’m not sure where I’d stand on your view. I can see some pros and some cons. Most marriages fail as it seems, but I don’t know if making it more difficult to get married would solve that. I think better educaron, personal responsibility and a sense of self and partner dignity would provide a better solution. But that requires work and people ( at least nowadays ) seem to be heavily opposed to that and taking personal accountability. >

!delta 
I didn't take into consideration that getting married helps stimulate the economy. That makes a lot of sense as to why governments want everyone to get married super easily but then have divorce a long drawn out process >

I thought you post was well crafted and organized. Thanks for an interesting read. >

I don't really see what the amount of time it takes to get married and the amount of time it takes to get a divorce have to do with each other. Why are those related? Getting a divorce takes a long time because you need to untangle combined lives, whereas the combination of lives can occur while the couple is married. >


Some states make people wait for 1 to 2 years to get a divorce when it took 5 seconds to sign a piece of paper.

Often the states with the harsher rules for divorce also have harsher rules for marriage, but you can go someplace else if your state is nuts, same as for marriage. You don't have to do either in your state of residence. >

Divorce isn't necessarily that hard. 
When my ex and I decided to divorce, we agreed on what to do with our children, money, and possessions, signed and filed some papers, and we were done. The change of legal martial status took a few months to become official, but all the practical steps — establishing separate homes and bank accounts — were done within a few weeks.
Granted, it would have been harder had we not been on the same page about what we both wanted, but the same would be true of marriage. >

I actually think it should be easy to get married and much, much harder to get divorced than it currently is.  You make a commitment, you’ve made a commitment; live with it. >

To what end though? Who does it help to keep people married who don't want to be married? 
Realistically we don't and can't keep people locked into other types of contractual commitments either. >

In order to maintain some form of integrity when two people commit to each other.  Just don’t get married if you’re not in it for the long haul.  No one’s forcing it. >

First, I guess I would question why it particularly matters if the institution of marriage has integrity or not. 
Second, I still don't see the argument here for why you would make it harder to get divorced. If you commit to a job, you can still leave the job. There might be consequences, but you can quit and walk away. If you commit to a 30-year mortgage, you can still move out of that house. You have to pay off the mortgage, but you can leave. That doesn't necessarily undercut the seriousness of those agreements. >

It is. The assets are what complicate it. That’s why if you have a pre nup or don’t even own any assets you just kinda get divorced and that’s it >

I don't know. My wedding involved organising a party for ~100 people on the other side of the planet while getting the right paperwork stamped by the right bureaucrat and the year prep time was almost not enough. To be fair this was due to our different nationalities. Still, my point is, getting married isn't typically that easy nor cheap. >

Having a wedding isn't mandatory in America. All you have to do is make an appointment, sign a paper, and pay a nominal fee. Everything else isn't necessary so it's not relevant to my CMV. >

I see you're applying a US perspective, I don't know too much about the rules there. If you don't do the ceremony in many other places you can sign a contract instead of getting married, these are pretty much equivalent to marriage except for a couple of details like how easy they are to break up again. >

I feel like getting married is hard for most. You have to find the person and get to know them, and that’s a damn near Herculean task for a lot of us. >

Honestly, that's true. Finding the right person is just based on pure luck a lot of the time >

If you get married through a church there are hoops to jump through vs just going to the courthouse. When I got married through a church I didn't go to I had to attend regularly, pay the decan a "donation" and attend couples classes. I don't remember how long the classes were but we met once a week with a married couple and went through a work book. Most people don't want to do that. >

I think it should take shorter to get a divorce >

I agree with this.
I believe all the Divorce questions (how to split property, kids, etc etc) should be a part of the "marriage agreement", that way people have thought through all of this as a part of marriage. >

Are you essentially saying everyone should be required to get a prenup? I don't think it's in any way possible to anticipate "all the divorce questions." Unless you are advocating for years of painstaking paperwork for every couple before marriage, it simply isn't reasonable or even possible to do. 
How should we split the retirement accounts if Spouse 1 makes more money than Spouse 2 for the first 3 years of the marriage, but then the balance shifts? What if there are multiple types of retirement accounts? What if there's a pension? What if one Spouse's employer contributes more to the accounts? What about when one of the Spouses changes jobs and the retirement account, contribution, etc. change? 
What if they have one child? What if they have two children? What if they have three children? What if they have no children? What if they have a child with serious medical conditions that need to be cared for? What if they have a child that is disabled and will need some degree of financial or medical support continuing into adulthood?
Only 4 years ago or so, I doubt that even the most thorough parenting agreements for divorces had any information on what to do in the case of a global pandemic. Should the kids be vaccinated? When? Who gets to decide? What if the parents disagree? If one parent isn't being sufficiently protective of the children's health, does the other parent have any recourse? Now these are heavily litigated questions. >

I think at least some of the most basic prenup questions could be required to be filled out.  Most prenups don't cover every situation so there is no reason why a required prenup would have to do that either. >

As a fun fact, prenups (at least in many jurisdictions) cannot cover hypothetical children that do not exist. That would still leave a lot of ground uncovered. >

Hopefully this should change your mind-
Who the hell is the govt to put up obstacles on how you get married? >

Every government everywhere? I think it's very rare for a country to have a government acknowledge marriages with zero laws in place for it >

While I support a waiting period - the government might as well have a legal engagement if it has legal marriage - I still disagree. Survival and reproduction are equally important evolutionary rights hence Maslow's Hierarchy, and women and even men have a ticking clock. Also, many people are in relationships long before even making the decision to get married let alone setting a date, so they often really want it. Also, the divorce rate is less than the 50% that it used to be, and is still not as great it as it currently seems. There is the divorce rate of all total marriages, but 32% of marriages when it is both spouses' first end in divorce, 45% when it is ones first and the other's second end in divorce, and 65% when it is both spouse's second or ones first and ones third end in divorce. They could perhaps encourage prenups to prevent this, but there are more child matters and assets to divide once being separated and divorced, and it is not always known in advance what to address on a prenup, hence there are can also be postnups (during marriage, but still in case of a divorce). >


99% of people who get married as quickly as I did end in divorce.

Can you link to the source you found that statistic from? >

I can't see that statistic possibly being true since a large portion of those people are probably highly religious or conservative so they would be opposed to getting a divorce unless their partner did something incredibly awful. >

Yeah there's almost zero chance that statistic is accurate. >

Consider this analog:
Giving away my possessions to someone else should be just as hard as it is for me to take other people's possessions away. 
To the government, marriage is about property. They don't care about your emotional connection to the person you are marrying. There are comparable mechanisms for handling all of the child-based parts outside of the context of marriage. Marriage is about property - how you own property, how you are taxed on your property, and how your property is distributed when you die (unless your will states otherwise). 
You can give someone else the right to share your property, co-own property with you, and inherit your property when you die pretty easily. You own all of those things. You can give them freely without needing anyone else to weigh in on the matter. Once you have given those property rights to someone else, and now they have some ownership interest in your house, your car, your joint accounts, your retirement accounts, your pension, your life insurance policy, etc. you don't just get to take away those property interests without them having some say in the matter. It's harder, and it takes longer. 
Also, just generally, two people deciding to get married are generally getting along with each other and cooperating. Two people getting divorced are frequently not on great terms with each other. They do not have the same goals. They often do things just to make it more difficult for the other person. It's inherently slower because of the friction. >

Agree. My ex and I had nothing together, wanted nothing from one another took forever. 😑 >

A lot of the questions relating to divorce (assets, house, children) are also discussed while a couple is dating, we just don't count that as part of a timeline.
Immediate marriages like we see in Hollywood or read about on social media are really rare. Most people date for a year to get to know one another.
You should assume the decision to get married is a snap decision and nothing major was discussed before then.
The difference with divorce is those conversations take place on the clock with a lawyer and people are angry so they often talk shit about the ex-spouse. So it "feels* like it's gaking longer than the decision to get married.
To add, many people don't have kids when they get married. They maybe just got out of college and are renting so no house. Usually little in retirement accounts. Certainly no business ownership to deal with. All of those things often come while married so you need to discuss how to dispose of them. If you wanted people to discuss all of that before getting married it would be impossible because you can't plan for literally every possible scenata couple might be in. >

Maybe instead of making it harder to get married, it should be easier to get a divorce? >

Getting a divorce should be just as easy as getting married. >

In what world do you think that dividing assets will be as simple as combining assets? >

Some of the thought is that you already took that time while meeting, dating, and even your engagement. Yeah, some people have different timelines but I’ve seen impulsive relationships last forever and relationships built on up to a decade crumble. I am related to both of those couples. 
Think of it like a K1 Visa, they expect that you have already cultivated a legitimate relationship with that person over your time with them. The 90 days you’re given are supposed to be for you to sort out your paperwork, wedding planning, and housing. Not build a partnership. 
It’s on good faith that you already put that time into getting married, yeah some don’t. But hey, some divorces happen quick and easy (I assume,, my parents took nearly a decade but that’s because one of them didn’t want the divorce and slid down a real slippery slope) >

When divorces are mutually agreed to as readily as marriages they tend to take as long as marriages to finalize. >

Why do you spend so much getting married??
Then spend so much more getting a divorce? >

Its all due to christian conservatives.  Everyone should get married, have a ton of babies and etc.  Then when you want to get divorced, its a major hassle.  Part of it is separating finances, but the religious lobby should not be underestimated.  
By the way, Religion is like a penis.  Keep it in your pants and you should be jailed for waiving it in public.
In the middle of a divorce.  At least its friendly. >

I’m not sure  about other countries, but here the two processes are roughly similar. There is a bunch of meetings to have with the celebrant and I believe the celebrant has to be satisfied that the marriage is valid before they can perform the ceremony. In my case this  took a few months and there are also fees to pay for the application and registration. 
Getting divorced was also easy. Yes there was a minimum waiting period of 1 year, but getting divorced was a simple as lodging a form and paying the fee. Probably less difficult than getting married from that perspective. 
Note, that both of these processes are completely seperate to planning the wedding and the separation of property. Those processes were much harder and took longer because of the arguing. 
Additionally, here it doesn’t matter legally if you are married or not. If you are in a de-facto relationship, the process of breaking up and separation of assets is exactly the same as if you are divorcing. >

Marriage is a contract. At the end of the day the government isn't going to be paternalistic to the point of limiting your ability to enter contracts, and it's your responsibility to understand what you're signing. 
Although, marriage is uniquely problematic among contracts. In that the terms of the contract are not outlined in the contract itself but rather defined by the government and subject to change at the government's whim. >

I mean... in many ways a marriage is a contract. Signing a contract is generally an extremely simple thing that almost never has the legal system even involved in it. 
Breaking a contract when the parties don't agree is always going to be complicated and difficult. 
Marriage is different from normal contracts, though, in that there are so many social aspects to it, and such an intimate relationship, where power dynamics frequently result in people being manipulated into things they don't want. 
The legal system needs to unravel all this. It needs to determine if both parties are agreeing to it with sound mind and no coercion. And then it needs to determine whether terms of the contract were broken, and even if not how things like property and children are disposed after the divorce. 
For marriage, that's relatively simple. There is a license you have to get, often medical tests that are required, and since there are legally required witnesses, the participants are seen to be agreeing by people who can assess their willingness and intentions. 
Divorce is just intrinsically more complicated than marriage, in the same way that signing a contract is a simpler process than breaking it. >

Back up like 10 steps:
Why do you need a permission slip from the government to get married or divorced? >

No one’s gonna change your view on this man >

So, if I were to look at this from the position of the government.
Having people quickly entangle themselves financially is a good thing.  Less chance they end up using social programs, such as welfare.
Upon divorce, ensuring the higher earning spouse pays the often lesser earning spouse support afterwards, ensuring that that they still don't use social programs.
Seems like a win win, from a legislative sense. >

There's already very little reason to get married.  We all know that marriage began as a way to trade cattle in exchange for child rape.  Since we no longer tolerate child rape outside of a few remaining Bible Belt states, the US government has had to come up with different incentives for people to keep up the tradition (tax breaks, hospital visitation rights, etc) or else people will likely cease to engage in it.  Trends already indicate a shift towards cohabitation rather than marriage.  
Making it more difficult to get married will only exacerbate those trends (which, on the bright side, will also reduce divorces).  And history shows that previous efforts to increase the difficulty to getting married have failed (Loving v. Virginia, Obergefell v. Hodges). >

Have you tried not being such a little bitch? >

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Think of it this way OP.  It is WAY easier to tangle up earbuds (in the days before airpods), than it is to untangle them. >

You know what? I can't argue with that. 
!delta 
I can understand when kids are involved or you're business owner or whatever. But if you're an average citizen with no kids and no real assets (let's face it, the majority of millennial and gen z have next to nothing compared to generations before) >


But if you're an average citizen with no kids and no real assets (let's face it, the majority of millennial and gen z have next to nothing compared to generations before)

Things can be easy, but things get harder when feelings are hurt.  For example, if my wife cheats on me, why should I let her have the dog?  Or why should she get any money from me.  Emotions get in the way of rational thought for dividing property. >

That I can 100% agree with. I understand feelings and emotions gets super wrapped up in the divorce process. I just don't like the idea that people who don't really know each other but love each other getting married easily and then having, potentially, a multi-year long divorce process when it might not have happened if they had a harder time getting married to begin with >


a multi-year long divorce process 

Those long divorces are usually the result of the divorcees fighting each other. They could do it quickly, but they are too wrapped up in going to war with each other. >

Not to mention the fact that court systems can get or be clogged/shut down. My girlfriend's dad just went through an almost 3 year long divorce with gfs ex stepmom, which was caused by her threatening to murder him in his sleep. 
Why? They couldn't get a court date. 
Also, he didn't press charges for some stupid reason and she dragged out the process by refusing to accept anything that wasn't her getting everything. Though that only accounts for like 6 months of mediation and actual hearings. >

Do you want to get married? Yes/No. 
Do you want to get divorced? Yes/No. 
How do you want to split assets, how do you want to split any children, how do you want to split property, how do you want to split liabilities, etc.
One question is much easier to agree than multiple questions. However if the partners are aligned, it's very easy to get divorced. >

Except divorce is still hard when no other questions apply.
You still have to wait, pay money, file a stack of forms, take several trips to court.
I think you shouldn't. Both parties want out? You've agreed on property and dependent related stuff(or don't have any)? Cool. You're divorced.
My parents split up nearly two decades ago and are still technically married because the laws would fuck then both over if they did the paperwork. Which is ridiculous. >

It really shouldn't. It sounds like you live in an area with very conservative laws. As long as you all agree, you can get a lawyer to do it with one 30 mins meeting. >

California... You have to file papers three separate times, pay a few hundred dollars, then wait six months. And that's with no kids or property. I just did this last year. Completely amicable, we're still friendly, and both just wanted it done.
Getting married took 20 minutes, for the legal side. >

Bad lawyer probably. My grandparents were amicably divorced in California 2 years ago and it was a single meeting of their two lawyers, about 2 hours, and a reasonable fee. Had to wait for a court date but neither needed to go, their attorneys attended for them. >

Yeah, you can pay thousands of dollars to have someone do all the stuff for you. Still have to wait 6 months though. >

I mean if your goal is to marry in under 6 months I guess there's a waiting period. But effectively you can be divorced immediately >

Have you never heard of eloping? You're acting like it's a foreign and unheard of concept that very few people would ever have an interest in.
What actual effective change is made by filing the paperwork? My understanding is that your legal status as married doesn't change until the waiting period is up. >


you should be made to wait as long as an average divorce takes

I'm going to disagree with you on the timing here.
At worst it should be the same amount of time as the average divorce in which both people want to get divorced.
There's a key difference between marriage and divorce. Marriage requires both people wanting to do it. But it's possible to divorce when only one person wants to divorce. Because of that, it can be inherently more contentious.