Covenant marriage is a legally distinct kind of marriage in three states of the United States (Arizona, Arkansas, and Louisiana), in which the marrying spouses agree to obtain pre-marital counseling and accept more limited grounds for later seeking divorce (the least strict of which being that the couple lives apart from each other for two years).
Louisiana became the first state to pass a covenant marriage law in 1997;[1][2] shortly afterwards, Arkansas[3] and Arizona[4] followed suit.
[18][19][20] Critics of covenant marriage have described it "as an example of religion harnessing state power"[21] and creating roadblocks to no-fault divorce that "could easily exacerbate" a bad family "situation and harm kids.
[22] Katherine Spaht, a founder of the Louisiana Family Forum and a proponent of Louisiana's covenant marriage law, stated that one "less obvious objective" is "inviting religion back 'into the public square'" to "revitalize and reinvigorate the 'community' known as the church".
This can be inferred, she said, from the rule about "who may perform the mandatory premarital counseling", namely, "a minister, priest, rabbi, or other clergyman of a religious sect".