I love you, will you marry me for seven years?

A pragmatic seven year marriage proposal

Dearest, instead of till death do us part, let’s try till 7 years from now?

Will you marry me, until 2024?

Darling, you know I’m cynical about a lifelong commitment…

My personal cynicism is deeply rooted. My own (wonderful) parents divorced when I was just a young girl. They had been married for quite a few years, but then, things changed. They decided they did not want to be married to each other anymore.

Over the years I’ve been to many a “perfect” wedding of a “perfect” couple. I’ve heard them say vows promising forever. I toasted to their lifetime together, only to find out a few years down the track they went their separate ways. Things changed.

I’ve commiserated (0r celebrated) with my divorced friends. I’ve dated divorcees. The stories of divorce are common, and those stories all have common threads. Things changed. The marriages didn’t last forever.

Sweetheart, instead of forever, will you marry me for seven years?

A traditional marriage is for a lifetime — till death do us part. I know you might have imagined such a marriage for yourself, but babe, I’m filled with evidence-based cynicism. I don’t think it would be smart for us to have a traditional marriage and commit to a lifetime straight up.

This doesn’t mean I want to eschew marriage entirely. I do want to marry you, but I want to marry you in a sincere way, which might seem a bit unconventional. I want to marry you for a boldly pragmatic fixed term, sweetheart; will you marry me for seven years?

If you accept my seven year proposal, I think we’ll have a wonderful seven years ahead. We will experience wedded bliss. We’ll enjoy structure around our commitment. This structure will be especially useful given we might want to raise a family together.

I guess you’re wondering what will happen after the seven years. Darling things don’t necessarily have to end then. We can renew our fixed term marriage at the end of the period if we both want to. And seven years after that, we can renew again!

Lover, let me tell you the three main reasons why I think that seven years is a better marriage commitment. Firstly, it’s frankly just more realistic. Secondly, we will both be better incentivized. Thirdly it gives us some triggers for reflection. I’ll explain more.

1. Lover, let’s be pragmatic and realistic

We both know enough anecdotal evidence and statistical evidence to realize that seven years is a challenge in itself. Let’s lower the stakes down from forever, and be pragmatic and realistic. I know your parents might say that my ideas and our generation are morally bankrupt, and they may be right. And I know seven years might seem somewhat arbitrary. There’s some tenuous rationale, such as Dr. Helen Fisher’s suggestion that seven years “may represent the remains of an ancestral reproductive strategy to stay bonded at least long enough to raise a child through infancy and early toddlerhood”. And of course, while it’s hard to get clear on the statistics, I’ve seen that seven years is the median marriage length. You also know the seven year itch cultural meme — the idea that a married person gets the urge to leave or cheat after seven years.

Whatever is the truth, these stories and stats point to seven years being a reasonably realistic goal.

2. Sugar, let’s get incentives in the right place

We both know enough behavioral psychology and economics to know the power of incentives. A beautiful thing about the seven years is that at the end of the period, we can decide if we want to renew.

It’s clear a marriage for a lifetime doesn’t really manage incentives very well. People get lazy. I love you and I imagine after the seven years I’ll want to stay with you, so a marriage with an end date incentivizes me to continue to work to make you happy — so when seven years is up, you’ll want to renew with me! You’ll have the same incentives too. Things might change. But I hope we’ll build a romantic number sequence together — 7, 14, 21, 28 years and so on… maybe a lifetime of seven year wedded bliss increments!

3. Honey, let’s have a trigger so that we take time for reflection

We both know enough about behavior design to know that it’s easy to go through life without stopping to reflect. We know that triggers are crucial. When we get close to seven years, I expect it will trigger a time of reflection for us on what we’ve achieved together and what we want to do next. Things might change, but I hope that in seven years time we will be reflecting and then renewing our commitment.

Dearest, will you marry me - for 7 years?

Note to readers: this is a creative piece driven by my musings around how to improve on modern marriage. It’s not written to anyone in particular, nor intended to to be taken entirely literally, but hopefully it triggers some thoughts about how we make marriage work best in the modern world.