Diane Sollee (Smart Marriages) commented in her newsletter about this article in the Press-Enterprise.
Auuuugh. Here it is again. Another example (article below) of adding fees to marriage license applications to fund domestic violence shelters. Grrrr. This is being done in jurisdictions across the country and is well-intentioned but extremely unfortunate and misguided. Married couples experience lower rates of domestic violence than cohabiting couples so it is counter-productive and gives the wrong message to raise the marriage license fees to fund shelters.
If anything, we should combat domestic violence through encouraging marriage and use any increase in marriage license fees to make MARRIAGE EDUCATION communication and conflict management classes free. This policy sends a completely inaccurate message by implying
that increased numbers of marriages increases the need for shelters! It would be much more logical to raise the taxes on beer and alcohol to fund domestic violence shelters and offer a discount on marriage license fees to all couples that take a marriage education class (as us done in several states).Or, raise the marriage license fee but use the money to subsidize the marriage education classes (as is done in other states.) When this type of legislation (adding a fee to marriage license applications to fund shelters) was last proposed in Maryland in 2006, a state legislator pointed out that less than 50% of the women served in the state’s Domestic Violence shelters are married. Most are cohabiting…. “so financing the shelters should not fall on people seeking marriage licenses.” It was defeated.
To review: 1)More domestic violence occurs between cohabiting couples than married couples.
2) Taxing marriage licenses to support domestic violence shelters sends the wrong message by a) indirectly blaming marriage for domestic violence and b) creating an incentive to cohabit rather than marry.
3) Taxing alcohol to support shelters makes much more sense.
4) If we are going to add extra fees to marriage licenses, using that money to cover the expense of marital communication and problem solving programs might actually be more to the point.
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Bowden,
Your post makes a great deal of sense. It does certainly seem counter-intuitive to punish couples seeking a marriage license with an extra tax to fund domestic violence shelters. Our church helps support such a center locally (Hope House) in a variety of ways–donations of food, youth cleaning up their grounds, etc.
While “martial communication” (item 4) actually makes sense in the context of your post, I think that it was probably a Freudian slip.
Kevin,
Freudian slip or just poor typing… either way I’ve corrected it. Thanks.
I really do not have a problem with a higher marriage license fee. However, I think the fee should then be lower for couples that complete 4 to 6 hours of premarital therapy. The pastor who married my wife and I (at Disney) cut his fees in half if we completed a premarital course/therapy.