Marriage Contracts

Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker wrote an article in Business Week titled "Cut the Divorce Rate with Marriage Contracts." He says, "In her book, The Marriage Contract, sociologist Lenore J. Weitzman discusses the advantages of a contract and what it should include.

PRENUPITAL CONTRACTS

"Some people object to marriage contracts because they may increase he likelihood of a breakup by requiring couples to consider explicitly the terms of a divorce agreement. But most of today's modern couples are well aware that divorce is possible. For example, several studies show that wives are more likely to remain in the labor force and to delay childbearing when there is a sizable chance that their marriage may break up. Contracts that increase the security of wives could even reduce the number of divorces by encouraging women who are not interested in pursuing a career to have children earlier and withdraw from the labor force longer while caring for young children."

"'Married in haste, we may repent at leisure,' is how the 17th century English playwright William Congreve summarized the wisdom of the ages. We can reduce the suffering that hasty marriages often inflict with contracts that treat marriage as a long-term private arrangement between consenting adults. Such contracts would take into account the unique circumstances of each marriage. They would indicate the obligations of both husbands and wives. They would function far better than judges to specify the financial and other terms of divorce."

PRE-MARITAL COUNSELING

In Unificationist communities, there will be courtship and when a couple decide to marry, there will be an intensive series of pre-marital counseling to make sure that both understand what roles each plays in their marriage. If they should divorce, the children are to remain with the man's family if they are more centered on True Parents and right values than the wife or her family. She is not to get an exorbitant alimony, if any. Pre-nuptials agreements should be detailed in what the duties and responsibilites each has and what the punishments are for violating them. People are to marry not only each other, but are to marry the idea of marriage. Both must have the same absolute values and both understand and agree to the consequences if they do not live up to them.

CONSTITUTION

Communities need a detailed constitution, statements of values and mission. They need to agree on every major belief and punishment. Good intentions are not good enough. Every person has a unique personality and expresses his or her uniqueness differently. And every person has a need to live in community with others and blend their personal likes with a common code of behavior of others who live nearby. Private and public must be harmonized. Before anyone joins a community they need a probationary time for everyone to see if their powerful personalites match. There are so many things that cause friction between people. God's ideal communities must have mature people who like each other and share basic values and lifestyles. A simple thing like dress code can cause people to feel uncomfortable living close to others. The Hutterites all dress the same in each community. But each Hutterite community varies a little on style.

If someone changes after they move in to a Unificationist community and change their mind about something that upsets everyone else, then that person should leave and go to a community that has the same view. For example, one community may not like men having long hair, earrings, and wearing casual clothes at Sunday Service. Another community may think those are the only way to go. Each believes in True Parents and many basic values, but there are different kinds of communities that appeal to different kinds of expressions of a Principled lifestyle. It is crucial that there be private property, so that a person can sell his home or condo and move to another.

John Winthrop, the first colonial governor of Massachusetts, wrote about the spirit of community on board the Arabella on the Atlantic Ocean in 1630 as the first group were travelling to the America. In a sermon titled"A Model of Christian Charity" he said, "We must delight in each other, make each other's conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work as members of the same body."

He said "Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck and to provide for our posterity is to follow the Counsel of Micah, to do Justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God, for this end, we must be knit together in this work as one man, we must entertain each other in brotherly Affection, we must be willing to abridge our selves of our superfluities, for the supply of others necessities, we must uphold a familiar Commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality, we must delight in each other, make others Conditions our own rejoice together, mourn together, labour and suffer together, always having before our eyes our Commission and Community in the work, our Community as members of the same body, so shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, the Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us, as his own people and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways, so that we shall see much more of his wisdom power goodness and truth then formerly we have been acquainted with, we shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when he shall make us a praise and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantations: the lord make it like that of New England: for we must Consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our god in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world, we shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of god and all professors for God's sake; we shall shame the faces of many of gods worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into Curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whether we are going: And to shut up this discourse with that exhortation of Moses that faithful servant of the Lord in his last farewell to Israel Deut."

They saw themselves as the chosen people, which they were. Unificationists are the new chosen people. They were supposed to build a "city on a hill." Sadly, they did not. They built socialist/feminist communes. Winthrop warns his followers that "if we shall deal falsely with our god in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us." UC leaders dealt "falsely" with "our god in this work" and God had to "withdraw his present help from us." God could not bless and still cannot bless the UC to be a dynamic movement of growth. The words of Winthrop above do not apply to the UC. Words like "knit together," "unity" and "community" have nothing much to do with the UC. The UC in America is basically a fulfillment of Matthew 23 that talks about making people worse off than they were before. The UC is an empty tomb because it embraced feminism.