I have often said that when you think marriage is arbitrary and can be defined any way a society chooses to define it, then marriage can mean and be anything.  I have even predicted that if marriage can be redefined to include same-sex couples, then marriage could be redefined to be a temporary institution.  I must be a prophet, because this is exactly what Mexico City is proposing (and it is important to note that Mexico City also legalized same-sex marriage in 2009).

If you don’t want marriage to be until death do you part, Mexico City will allow you to enter into a two-year marriage.  At the end of the two years the marriage will expire, and each of you can go your separate ways without any hassle of divorce paperwork if you choose not to renew the contract.  How convenient!  The article notes how half of the marriages in Mexico City end in divorce after two years.  So how exactly will this help?  It will not curtail marital dissolutions; it will simply not call them “divorces.”  It will make marital dissolution even easier, which always spells “bad news” for the children involved.  Shame on Mexico City.

Once you abandon the notion that marriage is a natural institution that is recognized, not defined, by the state, marriage can become anything, and ceases to be something.