What Does the Law Owe the Spouse Who Keeps the Vow—and the Children Who Depend on Both Parents?
When Marriage Becomes a Promise One Person Can Cancel
Marriage has traditionally been understood as more than a private arrangement between two adults. It establishes a family, creates enduring responsibilities, and provides a foundation upon which children depend for stability, security, and the continuing care of their parents.
For Catholics, marriage is also a sacred covenant ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children. Fidelity and permanence are essential characteristics of that commitment.
Yet under unilateral no-fault divorce, one spouse may obtain a civil dissolution without proving misconduct by the other spouse or obtaining that spouse’s consent. What happens when the law permits one spouse to withdraw while the other remains committed to preserving the marriage—and children depend upon both parents? The answer cannot be measured by divorce statistics alone.
What Economic Research Tells Us About Children
Economist Jonathan Gruber’s 2004 research examined long-term consequences of unilateral divorce laws. It reported less favorable average adult outcomes in several areas among people exposed to these laws during childhood. The research also raised questions about bargaining power within marriage: the ability to exit without consent changes the position of a spouse seeking to preserve the relationship.
Subsequent research by Hayduk and Kleinjans examined possible lasting effects of childhood exposure to unilateral divorce laws on conscientiousness, a trait associated with responsibility and self-discipline.
These population-level findings do not establish that every divorce harms children, nor that every troubled marriage should continue. They do challenge the assumption that changing the legal terms of dissolution has no consequences for the next generation. Children have interests in family stability extending beyond either parent’s preferences.
The Photograph That Captured Joy—and Concealed Heartbreak
On March 17, 1973, Associated Press photographer Sal Veder captured fifteen-year-old Lorrie Stirm running toward her father, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Stirm, after his return from captivity in North Vietnam. The photograph, “Burst of Joy,” won a Pulitzer Prize.
Stirm had been imprisoned for 1,966 days. Shortly before his homecoming, he received a letter from his wife expressing that their marriage could not continue. They divorced the following year.
The photograph captured a daughter’s joy but not the uncertainty surrounding her parents’ marriage. Captivity and involuntary separation raise questions conventional descriptions of marital discord may fail to address. An absent spouse does not necessarily abandon the marriage or cause its deterioration. The Stirm divorce occurred under California law, not Texas law; it illustrates a question rather than establishes a Texas legal rule.
What Texas Law Actually Requires
Texas Family Code § 6.001 authorizes divorce “without regard to fault” if the marriage has become insupportable because of discord or conflict of personalities that destroys the legitimate ends of the marital relationship and prevents any reasonable expectation of reconciliation.
The provision uses “may” and identifies connected conditions: insupportability; discord or conflict of personalities; destruction of legitimate marital ends; and no reasonable expectation of reconciliation.
The Texas Catholic Marriage Project asks whether a spouse’s wish to end a marriage should be distinguished from the proof required to establish these statutory conditions.
Texas courts generally interpret insupportability broadly, and one spouse’s testimony may suffice. TCMP’s proposed reading is an argument for closer statutory examination, not a statement of controlling judicial doctrine.
The Forgotten Question: What Are the Legitimate Ends of Marriage?
Does “the legitimate ends of the marital relationship” refer only to the spouses’ emotional satisfaction? Does it include the family home, children’s security, mutual responsibilities, and lawful religious or moral commitments?
A civil court cannot decide the theological validity of a Catholic sacrament. It can recognize lawful purposes spouses brought to marriage as facts. For families with children, these may include stability, parental care, education, and religious formation.
Texas Family Code § 1.101 recognizes marital stability and children’s security in its policy concerning the validity of marriage. That provision is not an automatic defense to divorce; it is relevant context for examining how the Legislature treats family stability.
When the Spouse Who Broke the Vow Seeks Divorce
Texas Family Code § 6.008 abolishes the defenses of recrimination and adultery. Historically, recrimination could prevent divorce where the petitioner also committed misconduct; its abolition addressed situations in which fault-based defenses kept marriages legally intact despite serious breakdown.
But when one spouse remains faithful and the other engages in adultery or abandonment, the petitioner’s conduct does not automatically defeat insupportability. Relevant misconduct may still be considered in appropriate property-division disputes.
The moral distinction between a spouse who causes marital injury and a spouse who resists dissolution is real, but it does not itself create a legal veto over divorce. Whether that distinction should receive greater legal weight is a legitimate legislative question.
Three Separate Questions: Marriage, Parents, and Children
FIRST—MARITAL DISSOLUTION. What conditions authorize a court to dissolve a marriage over one spouse’s objection? A petition is a request for relief, not a substitute for whatever proof the statute requires.
SECOND—PARENTAL AUTHORITY. Texas Family Code § 6.406 generally requires joinder of a suit affecting the parent-child relationship with divorce when applicable. The legal ground for divorce is not itself a finding that either parent is unfit. Conservatorship and decision-making orders require analysis under the governing child-related standards, including the child’s best interests.
THIRD—CHILDREN’S INTERESTS. Children ordinarily are not parties to their parents’ divorce, yet orders may change their residence, education, and relationships with parents. Their welfare and safety must be independently considered. A child-centered approach respects both parents’ legal interests without treating either parent’s preference as automatically decisive.
What About the Spouse Who Cannot Come Home?
Section 6.006 permits divorce where spouses have lived apart without cohabitation for at least three years. Its text does not expressly distinguish voluntary separation from involuntary absence.
A prisoner of war cannot choose to return home. Military captivity is not synonymous with marital abandonment. Whether and how the law should distinguish such circumstances deserves careful judicial and legislative consideration; the statute should not be represented as already containing an express prisoner-of-war exception.
Marriage, Religious Liberty, and Parental Responsibility
Catholic teaching understands marriage as a covenant of fidelity and permanence, ordered toward the spouses’ good and their children’s upbringing. It also recognizes circumstances in which separation is justified to protect people from grave harm.
Civil courts need not adopt religious doctrine as civil law. Yet court orders altering parental authority can affect a parent’s practical ability to fulfill sincere religious duties toward a child. Such effects warrant examination under applicable constitutional and statutory protections.
Religious freedom does not guarantee that a civil marriage remains intact against the other spouse’s wishes. Neither should the religious responsibilities of parents be dismissed where the law calls for their consideration.
Reform Requires More Than a Slogan
Texas has considered proposals to repeal insupportability, but repeal is not the only potential reform. Lawmakers can examine clearer statutory standards; meaningful consideration of misconduct in contested cases; child-sensitive procedures; voluntary covenant-marriage options; and independent justification for changes to parental authority.
Any counseling, waiting-period, or covenant-marriage scheme must include practical protections for abuse survivors and others facing danger or coercive control. Protection of children cannot be achieved by placing them or their parents in unsafe circumstances.
What Is a Marriage Vow Worth?
The law cannot manufacture affection, compel reconciliation, or guarantee that every marriage will survive. But it can distinguish a request for dissolution from proof of its legal grounds. It can recognize that the spouse who remains committed has interests worthy of consideration, and that children are not merely bystanders.
A marriage vow creates responsibilities. A child has interests in those responsibilities. And the law should not treat either as meaningless.
What You Can Do: Help Put Children at the Center of Marriage Law
The Texas Catholic Marriage Project invites parents, grandparents, clergy, attorneys, educators, and concerned citizens into a serious public conversation about marital commitments, parental responsibilities, and children’s interests.
UNDERSTAND THE LAW. Read Texas Family Code §§ 1.101, 6.001, 6.008, and 6.406 and consider the distinct legal questions they raise.
ASK QUESTIONS OF ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES. Ask how Texas law evaluates contested marital dissolution, parental authority, and children’s welfare.
PARTICIPATE IN PUBLIC DISCUSSION. Attend hearings and forums, share experiences, and listen to families facing different circumstances.
SUPPORT FAMILIES IN DIFFICULTY. Encourage appropriate counseling, pastoral care, legal information, and safety services where abuse or danger is present.
ADVANCE CHILD-CENTERED SCHOLARSHIP. Support careful examination of the effects of marriage law on children, parental responsibilities, and religious liberty.
Three questions every Texan should ask: What should a court establish before dissolving a contested marriage? What findings justify changes to fit parents’ authority? How should children’s interests be independently considered?
Read the law. Ask the questions. Make children’s interests part of the public conversation.
Because marriage law does not affect spouses alone. It shapes the lives of children—and the responsibilities we owe them.
TCMP — Texas Catholic Marriage Project | TexasCatholicMarriageProject.org