• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.13-21
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to examine the Marriage Preparation and Preservation Act adopted in Florida which require premarital counseling and covenant marriage laws of Louisiana and Arizona among many kinds of family policy which recently are designed to prevent divorce in the United States of America. Most of states in the U.S. require the marriage license prior to having a marriage ceremony. Covenant marriage legislation has admirable motives to strengthen marriage and cure the defects of the no-fault system. In that legislation, the imposition of waiting period for the no-fault ground of divorce, proof of fault requirements, consent requirements, and mandatory course or counseling attendance will likely serve as deterrents to those seeking divorce as a first resort. To sum up, by offering preventive measures in the form of premarital counseling and waiting period before marriage, covenant marriage will force couples entering marriage to carefully consider their actions before they act and prevent broken marriages in the first place. In response to rising divorce rates, the Koreas family policy has put its emphasis of fixing social problems accompanied with family dissolution. Rather, this study suggests that attention in Korea also should be shifted from broken marriages to preventing them.