Resolved: The United States should offer Temporary Marriages

I would also like to acknowledge that my opponent has responded to all of my arguments without leaving out ones that might be inconvenient for him. I thank him for this as well. I would now like to begin my portion of round 2 by doing a short recap of round one. In the first round I answered my opponents proposal with a variety of arguments but put a lot of emphasis on several in particular. To be specific these were that temporary marriage would not prevent divorce, that most emotional and financial distress comes from the bad relationship itself rather than the act of divorce, and that prenuptial agreements are a more viable solution in the small amount of cases were temporary marriage actually gives an advantage. In round 2 pro actually reaffirmed my claims by saying "I will again restate my caveats that temporary marriages will not eliminate divorce or the problems associated with divorce. They will not eliminate the tolls of ending a relationship. They will not prevent people getting in bad relationships. " So what then is the advantage of temporary marriage? What benefits does it provide over traditional marriage? In my opponents own words it all boils down to that temporary marriage will ". .. provide couples with an easier out then getting a divorce. An out that would save people time, peace of mind, and money. "Although on the surface Pro's assertion seems reasonable, it is not completely thought out. The basis for most of his claims comes from the assumption (and I emphasize assumption) that temporary marriage would somehow alleviates the difficulties that couples going through divorce face. However he didn't say how this would happen. So far the only way in which my opponents version of marriage is different from the tradition kind is the pre set end date. He says that the preset end date would reduce the amount of disputes regarding things such as finances and property ownership. How? Just because the date is set, the terms are not. Pro has not explained exactly how this end date would prevent arguments over everything from who gets the kids to who gets the couch. Whether the separation comes about spontaneously or based on a set date has absolutely no bearing on the conflicts that are created by the dissolution of marriage. Clearly temporary marriage, as presented by Pro, would not provide all the benefits he claims. He even said so himself ". .. don't have statistical evidence to demonstrate its efficiacy. .. ". While i agree with his statement about innovative ideas, the lack of detail in his presentation doesn't really show temporary marriage as an innovative idea, just a different one. That being said, even if the pros assumptions on the benefits of temporary marriage were somehow proved to be correct, I still believe prenuptial agreements would have the same benefits if not more. My opponent disagreed citing several reasons which I will now examine. "My opponent cites a minimum of $250 for a prenuptual agreement, which is almost four times as expensive as the most expensive cited price for a divorce kit. Now, I mentioned divorce kits by way of comparison, not to say that a temporary marriage would operate identically in all ways. But it stands to reason that, if you can get a cheap divorce kit to dissolve a marriage where there is nothing to dispute, then a temporary marriage that ends automatically where there is nothing to dispute should operate similarily. "My opponent contends that even the cheapest prenuptial would still be more expensive than his option. This simply isnt true. Pro says that a temporary marriage would operate similarly to a divorce kit, but as he himself stated this is only true when "there is nothing to dispute". So what happens when there is dispute. Separation, planned or not, is caused by dispute in the first place. This means that the majority of the time there would still be litigation, problems etc. Pro says that ". .. since the dissolution of the marriage is factored into the original marriage license, then, all things being equal, we should expect it to operate more smoothly and more cheaply. " However this is the exact reason why prenuptials cost money. They take in to consideration all factors and outline all possibilities. Like what exactly does "all things being equal" mean. It costs money because lawyers take time drafting these documents. The same would still have to be done for the temporary marriage contract. Lawyers would still have to outline the terms of the dissolution. This means that the cost of a prenuptial would be similar to the cost of the temporary marriage contract, rendering my opponent's expense argument moot. ". .. prenuptual agreements are generally for specific cases, where there are already substantual assets to be concerned about. "This statement is completely false. Assets can be just a small part of a prenuptial. A prenuptial agreement can cover everything from how many kids the couple will have to what responsibilities each spouse has(2). Prenuptials aren't just for the rich (1). "Only 3% of spouses have prenuptual agreements (1), so whatever benefit they may offer is mitigated by the fact that they are hardly used as an option. "This is simply an ad populum fallacy. Just because the majority of people don't use them, doesn't mean they are any less effective. The number of people who use prenuptials has no bearing over its superiority to the proposed temporary marriage plan. It should now be clear that temporary marriage is unnecessary and all its up sides can be achieved with a prenuptial agreement. Nothing temporary marriages offer can't already be achieved. In fact temporary marriage would not only be unnecessary but actually detrimental as well. First off, as I have stated previously, temporary marriage would actually increase the number of hasty marriages and therefore the number of divorces. My opponent agreed with this saying: "I will concede that there is a probable chance that the number of frivolous marriages may increase" However he then basically states that this point is moot because frivolous marriages already happen. While i agree with his first statement i disagree with the second. The argument that it already happens is severley lacking. Car crashes happen, does this mean we can make the roads less safe just because there is already the possibilty of an accident? Furthermore temporary marriage would just make it easier for people to abuse a system thats already being violated. For example, tax fraud. Cant pay all your taxes this year, or just wanna catch a break? Get a temporary marriage license for one year, problem solved. Don't have medical insurance but you're hurt? No problem marry your neighbor for a year and use her company insurance. Want citizenship? Marry any eligible bachelor with a temporary marriage contract and you're in. Obviously this is all possible with the current system in place but temporary marriage would just make it that much easier. After all of this is taken into consideration I believe the right decision is obvious. There is absolutely no need for temporary marriage because anything it can provide has already been provided and the negative repercussions far outweigh any possible positive ones. Undoubtedly implementing temporary marriage would be like opening a new can of worms without closing the old one. [1]. http://www.cnweeklynews.com...[2]http://www.sphinxlegal.com...