IN FRONT of more than 1,000 cheering couples in a huge sports arena, the Governor of Arkansas and his wife renewed their wedding vows on Monday night in a mass “covenant marriage” ceremony — the latest effort by some US states to lower their soaring divorce rate.

Mike Huckabee and his wife, Janet, converted their 30-year union to a covenant marriage, a legally binding contract available only in Arkansas, Arizona and Louisiana. Once filed at the county courthouse, the new document is meant to upgrade marriages into a deeper commitment and make divorce much harder to obtain.

Mr Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister turned Republican politician, took the lead on Valentine’s night because he wants the divorce rate in Arkansas, the second-highest in the US, halved in ten years.

The Huckabees and the thousand other couples who strengthened their vows in a ceremony filled with speeches from religious leaders, and gospel and country music, are now obliged to receive counselling before seeking divorce, and to undergo a two-year “cooling-off” period before a divorce becomes final.

Under the law, which Arkansas passed in 2001 but which has had little impact since, couples wanting to wed must also get pre-marital counselling. The only exceptions to the “contract” are in cases of adultery, abuse or abandonment, when judicial separation can be immediate, although it still takes two years to finalise the divorce. Arkansas’s marriage rate is nearly double the national average — 15.1 per 1,000 population compared with the national rate of 8.3. But the state’s divorce rate is the second highest in the nation, at 6.5 per 1,000 population, according to the governor’s office. The national average is 4.2. Only Nevada, with its “quicky” divorce industry, has a higher rate.

Mr Huckabee said that America faced a crisis. “That crisis is divorce,” he said. “It is easier to get out of a marriage than a contract to buy a used car.”

Arkansas followed the lead of Louisiana, the first state to enact covenant marriages in 1997, and Arizona, which passed legislation in 1998. But in three years fewer than 800 Arkansas couples have chosen a covenant marriage licence. In the same period 112,000 couples were married in the state.

Since Arkansas enacted its law in 2001, two dozen states have considered the idea, but declined to adopt it. But since Mr Bush’s election victory, in which he championed family values and a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, proponents of covenant marriages sense an opportunity to reinvigorate the idea.

Mr Huckabee also emphasised the financial cost of divorce, including additional child support and welfare payments. Opponents argue against the government becoming involved in a religious ritual and question whether provisions would trap abandoned or abused spouses in a marriage without state support.

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