Rather than dipping into the state’s rainy day fund, some of our legislative friends in Des Moines have been keeping themselves occupied with the covenant marriage bill, a bill designed to allow the betrothed to designate their union as “covenant” or “non-covenant.” The covenant designation would give the affianced a discount on their marriage license and a chance to do 12 hours of counseling with a member of the clergy or a marriage therapist to underscore the importance of marriage as a lifelong commitment and to learn important skills, such as communication.

The covenant marriage bill, while emphasizing the gravity of choosing to marry, also makes marriage difficult to get out of, unless one of the spouses has committed adultery, felony or physical or sexual abuse of the partner or a child. Hopefully, when people marry they feel absolutely certain their mate will not become a felon, an adulterer or an abuser. The bill makes it very difficult for those in a covenant marriage to dissolve their marriage if a spouse becomes emotionally abusive or a substance abuser. If one spouse is extremely emotionally abusive to the other, the covenant marriage would not allow the abused spouse the recourse to force the other party to counseling or put a divorce in motion.

Don’t get me wrong; I am whole-heartedly supportive of marriage as a lifelong endeavor and even for learning communication skills. That the state should establish parameters for the level of commitment one has made to his or her spouse and even go so far as to make public that level seems to be contrary to the idea of marriage as a personal and private commitment solemnized.

To ask couples to designate their marriage as “covenant” or “non-covenant” means that every engaged couple will have to look at one another over heaps of gauzy decorations and discuss whether or not they want a state of Iowa designation of commitment on their marriage.

While commitment to marriage seems to be a good idea, state sanctions on the sacred are not. That state officials open the intentions two people bring to marriage to public scrutiny seems to denigrate the personal nature of the marriage itself.

After my husband completed his engineering degree, he was preparing to come to the United States for our wedding. In order to obtain a visa to come to the United States for marriage, we underwent an extreme amount of scrutiny by the U.S. State Department. After I signed an affidavit attesting to the little amount of money I had in the bank, my husband had to produce photographs and correspondence to demonstrate evidence of a relationship and intention to wed.

Some lucky individual in the U.S. embassy got to read over the giant stack of cards and letters we sent to one another over the course of two years to determine whether or not it seemed legitimate that we would intend to marry. Now that we live in the United States, the immigration service will require us to periodically check in with them so that they can interview us and ascertain that we are still together and committed to our marriage.

While these immigration regulations are to protect American citizens, the invasion of privacy we experienced as the government probed our commitment to one another is not one I would wish on anyone. Covenant marriage legislation opens the door for even more examination of personal relationships before granting a state marriage license, an exercise that is not only voyeuristic but also a waste of state funds.

If the covenant marriage bill becomes law, maybe bills requiring a certain length of engagement will follow. Maybe people will be more and more pressed to meet state regulations for the ideal committed marriage. The language in the covenant marriage bill also alienates and trivializes the commitments made by partners in the gay and lesbian communities and probably takes us further away from recognizing those partnerships.

The bottom line on commitment is that people are either in or they are out. We have all seen elaborate productions with the requisite ice sculptures, only for the unions to fail. We have also seen devotion between people who have seen one another through illness and tragedy.

The state cannot legislate commitment. It is a policy only the people in the partnership can make.

Rachel Faber Machacha is a graduate student in international development studies from Emmetsburg.