"Covenant" Marriage-Good or Bad?

[BuelahWitch]

The front page of my paper featured a kook senator from the KS legislature who stated after they get their amendmend banning gay marriage that they're going to provide "covenant" marriage to the state.
Covenant marriage would only be dissolved in cases of spouse or child abuse, abandonment of more than one year, adultery or if one of the spouses were convicted of a felony.Sen. Huelskamp stated that it wouldn't be mandatory and that those who wanted to get into a covenant marriage would have "premarital counseling" and would not be able to get a divorce even in the above cases until the end of a two year separation period.

Perhaps it's a moot point since it won't be mandatory (at least not yet), but this scares the hell out of me. On the one hand you might say it will prevent "frivolous" marriages if people know they just can't end the marriage on a whim. On the other, would it prevent spouses who are victims of extreme mental cruelty from getting out of the marriage? I remember my mother telling me that the only way she was granted a divorce from her first husband in 1961 was when someone testified to seeing the ex play "russian roulette" with her head and a gun. Are we to go back to those days now?