Committed

Hey LF tribe 🔥

This week is all about commitment - specifically the commitment one makes in marriage. Let’s take a look at what this truly means and imagine ways of shaping commitment for the benefit of modern love.

In countries around the globe, marriage begins not with an Instagram-worthy proposal, but with a formal request to a governing authority, in essence, obtaining Permission to enter into a legally binding contract.

In the United States, marriage unfolds in three key steps:

1. Permission (Marriage License): The couple applies for and receives a marriage license authorizing them to hold a legal commitment ceremony.

2. Certification (Signatures): After the ceremony, the license must be signed by both spouses and generally the officiant and witnesses.

3. Contract (Marriage Certificate + Legal Framework): Once the signed license is filed with the county clerk or registrar, it becomes a marriage certificate—the official proof that the marriage contract has been enacted. It governs property rights, inheritance, taxes, medical decision-making, and spousal duties

The “contract” itself is actually a default framework of rights, responsibilities, and obligations that automatically comes into effect once the marriage is legally recognized.

In essence, couples sign a lifelong contract they’ve never even seen much less read. Part of this contract includes “spousal duties”:

Common Spousal Duties in Law

1. Duty of Support

   Spouses are legally obligated to provide financial support for one another, which may include food, shelter, healthcare, and other basic needs.

2. Duty of Fidelity (Faithfulness)

   Marriage traditionally carries an expectation of sexual exclusivity. While some jurisdictions no longer enforce fidelity legally, infidelity can still be considered in divorce proceedings.

3. Duty of Cohabitation

   Spouses are generally expected to live together and maintain a shared household.

4. Duty of Care / Consortium

   Marriage includes the duty to provide companionship, affection, intimacy, and mutual partnership.

5. Duty of Good Faith and Fair Dealing

   As marriage is a legal contract, spouses owe one another honesty, fairness, and transparency—especially with respect to financial matters.

Couples have the option of working with private attorneys to create prenuptial or postnuptial agreements, outlining and clarifying specific financial matters—such as property ownership, asset division, inheritance rights, spousal support—in ways that go beyond the default terms of the marriage contract.

As a love futurist exploring this process, I find myself with more questions than answers:

Who wrote these laws? Who updates them? Who decides what love “should” look like on paper?

And if we’re serious about shaping the future of love, then maybe it’s time we ask: What needs to be added? Removed? What do we want to design—and redesign—so that marriage reflects the way we actually live and love today?

When I reached out on social media about commitment, I received a full spectrum of stories—many shaped by hard-won experience, even divorce—but what moved me most was how overwhelmingly positive, hopeful, and tender people are about commitment in marriage.

How deeply we long, and even pray, for the success of a lifelong promise to honor, cherish, and love another person.

I’m closing this week not with solutions yet, but with a commitment of my own: to keep asking the questions—so that together we imagine new possibilities for how love and partnership can and will flourish in the future.