I think in this new proposed model (lease and contract)people could renew their marriage license or not, they could do the same now: stay married or get divorce.

Sure divorce is expensive. But renewal of license would probably come with legal fees, visits to attorneys to make sure renewal is done right, some couples would have an issue as one person would want to renew contract and the other don’t, some people would want to stop their contract before it’s due (break the lease).

People would have the same discussion about renewal of lisence as they have now about staying married or not and about potential deal breakers etc People who have trouble discussing their marriage with their partner now, would have the same issue discussing it in contract/lease model.

Some would never want to marry because they don’t want to sign contracts (same as some don’t marry now)

So we pretty much would face the same financial and legal and emotional issues with contract/lease concept as marriage/divorce model.

At the end it will be the same thing.

Some couple will stay together and some will not. There will always be unhappy marriages and happy ones. There will always be good relationships and will always bad. We will never change the way it is by creating different legal marital procedure.