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> ... that are able to move away freely from each other without feeling stuck in a contract.

I had that right. I freely, gladly, joyfully waived that right. I didn't (and don't) want the right to "move away freely". I wanted (and want) to be permanently committed to her.

27 years later, and it was a really good call...

> The current legal form of marriage formalizes love in a contract that doesn't take into account the fact that love can disappears one day for no reason...

There's love, and there's "love". "Love" is a feeling. Love is action - it's what you do. There have been days when I didn't feel loving toward my wife. I continue to act in ways that do her good, though. The "not feeling loving" doesn't last real long when both sides are committed to doing good to the other.

> The "not feeling loving" doesn't last real long when both sides are committed to doing good to the other.

This. This is the key that I think many people completely miss. Today it's so much about "me, me!" but happiness never comes when you put yourself first.

In this modern day you're not "stuck in a contract", you can get a divorce. If you have a prenup it may even be (almost) free. So all those things you ask for are there, it sounds to me like you want to reinvent the wheel.

In the end, whether married or not, a couple that separates can either do it amicably or not. You can ruin your partner's life without being married. Like wise, a divorce doesn't need to ruin anybody's life.

What you want is for any partner you get, to be happy to leave whenever you don't want them around anymore. That's is not a problem of marriage. That's a problem of human psychology.

> The current legal form of marriage formalizes love in a contract that doesn't take into account the fact that love can disappears one day for no reason

Maybe marriage takes more facts into account than your "reinvented marriage". I've been married for nearly a decade and a half and have had love disappear one day, only to reappear a couple of days later. If all it took was to pack my bags and leave I might had done it.

> What you want is for any partner you get, to be happy to leave whenever you don't want them around anymore.

Just to clarify, same for my partner, I would want them to feel they can leave anytime instead of sticking around. This topic may came across as a selfish point of view, which is not really my intention, it works both ways. I believe in long-term relationships, in fixing problems together, in building value between two people. All I am arguing is, you can do that today without a contract.

You are correct, a prenup may fix things - but too strong of a prenup effectively invalidates the marriage contract and the contractual incentives in the relationship. Thing is, at the end of the day it becomes a contractual negotiation, but heck, I just wanted to care about my partner and be happy until the end of time, instead it becomes "If you love me, initials here and signature there".

The termination costs can in fact be quite high.

Mind: there are aggreeable divorces. There are also disagreeable ones.

A particular hazard of the contract is that if your co-party is inclined to rake you over the coals, they can attempt to do so with a fairly high probability of success. This isn't a win-lose game so much as a lose-lose one. Unfortunately, other players (in particular a certain class of barrister) may well encourage that type of behaviour.

That's not to say that alternative contract structures might not face similar issues. Human relations are ideosyncratic, messy, and hard to predict. But the current popular form has some fairly notorious failure modes.

I have not been through a divorce, but if you can settle things amicably, I fail to see why a divorce should be expensive.

What's difficult is splitting things up. Not just the things but also children and the place you live. You have to work out a solution with someone you'll probably have a mixed bag of feelings for and against.

You can argue that people would be better off in the split without having signed a contract with a set of rules to follow if they can't agree. But I'm not sure you'd be right.

Another thing is that I understand you're providing an argument, but I think the idea that love is the only thing keeping people together in a relationship is incorrect, it's much, much more complicated than that.

The main issue is children.

Divorces, when childless and penniless, are typically very quick and comparatively easy.

When there is a lot of money and a poorly written pre-nup or no pre-nup at all, things get very messy very quickly and can drag out for years. However, that is still just a bunch of squabbling over dollars, guest bedrooms, and pink-slips. Judges and society really do not care about that stuff all too much and the laws are somewhat straightforward, though time consuming.

However, when there are children involved, the Judges don't really give a damn about the parents, usually. It is all about the kids, because they are (rightfully to me at least) the core issue. There are many ways to look at this, but I think the 'evolutionary' approach is the most useful one. Societies that put the next generation above all others tend to be the ones that survive, it seems. Sometimes this is at the cost of the parents' happiness. Sometimes, this results in a particular child being less happy, or downright suicidal, in the end. But if you look at the society to be in competition with other societies, you can see why this tactic is 'best'. Is this the right or wrong way for individual people? In an evolutionary approach, who cares? That said, the environment in which societies are 'living' in is in drastic change currently and we should expect to see some drastic changes to societies, including how children are treated and how the next generation propagates in the society space.

But when children are involved, does it really matter whether it's called a divorce or just a break-up? From the child's perspective, their safe, loving world with two parents living together is now drastically ripped apart. Their pain doesn't decrease just because mom and dad only broke up.