Many states in America, depending on state-specific laws, allow “no-fault” divorces, in which either partner can end their marriage for any reason. But with a covenant marriage, there are stricter guidelines for ending a marriage. Revelations concerning Mike Johnson, the new speaker of the House, and his own covenant marriage have brought the unconventional commitment arrangement into the spotlight.

Covenant marriages are legally binding contracts or agreements between two people who have the intent to live together for the rest of their lives. Unlike traditional marriages, covenant marriages come with additional requirements, and ending one through divorce is more challenging. Currently, three states allow these types of marriages: Arizona, Arkansas and Louisiana.

Traditional marriage allows a couple to enter the union by filling out a marriage license (among other state requirements), but with a covenant marriage, which is often rooted in religious or moral convictions, the couple must complete premarital counseling with a clergyman or therapist ahead of time. State laws vary, but often one spouse must prove adultery (with photos, videos or witness testimony), physical or sexual abuse, abandonment for more than a year, or imprisonment in order to file for divorce.

“The reasoning behind it is that if you are going to stand in a church full of people and say you are going to stay married forever, why not sign this thing that makes it harder for you to get out of your obligation?” said Christopher Suba, a lawyer who has a private practice in family law in Louisiana and Texas. “With this, you can’t just decide you don’t want to be married anymore. It’s like you signed this agreement, and you are going to have to try a little harder than that.”

The idea is also to limit divorces. In 2021, the divorce rate, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, was at 6.9 divorces per 1,000 women. (That’s down from 9.7 divorces per 1,000 women in 2011.)

Why Are People Talking About Covenant Marriages?

As the country has become more familiar with Mr. Johnson, a conservative congressman from Louisiana, it has come to light that he and his wife, Kelly Johnson, have been in a covenant marriage since 1999. The couple, who have four children, talked about their decision on “Good Morning America” in 2001, and Mr. Johnson reposted the video on his Facebook page in May in honor of his wedding anniversary. “We can be emotional creatures, and we like to know for sure it will be for a lifetime,” Ms. Johnson said, referring to her marriage. “It gives me such peace and security, and that’s the reason we chose to opt into it.”

Kristen Pleasant, a lawyer who has a private practice in family law in Monroe, La., said she had noticed more buzz around the topic recently. “We are a conservative red state, so I think Mike Johnson’s position, by him talking about it, has put covenant marriages back into the media,” she said. “It could probably cause a bit of an uptick in these types of marriages for our conservative friends entering into new marriages. Or people can convert existing marriages into them.”

After 30 years of marriage, former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and his wife, Janet Huckabee, renewed their vows on Feb. 14, 2005, during the Arkansas Celebration of Marriage ceremony in Little Rock, Ark. During the event, they signed paperwork to convert their marriage to a covenant marriage. “I think people enter into covenant marriage not because they want a super marriage, but because they understand that marriage is fragile,” Mr. Huckabee said in an interview before the ceremony.

How Common Are Covenant Marriages?

“It’s almost like a unicorn, it’s very rare,” said Jessica Welch Williams, a family lawyer and Ms. Pleasant’s law partner in Monroe. “When I got my first one — probably about seven years ago — I asked more seasoned attorneys about what to do, and they were like, ‘Look, it’s rare for me, too.’”

“I had maybe five clients this year with covenant marriages,” said Melissa Benson, a family law lawyer with a private practice in Phoenix. “It is a very, very small percentage.”

In Maricopa County, the most populous county in Arizona, only 963 covenant marriage licenses have been recorded in the last five years out of 119,270 total licenses. And according to the Arkansas Department of Health, only 242 covenant marriages from the entire state have been registered in the last five years.

Why Get Into a Covenant Marriage?

“The only people I have ever seen get one were all tied to some very close, religious-based community, so I think it’s faith-driven,” said Mr. Suba, who estimates he worked on five covenant marriage cases this year out of a total of 100 clients. “I think people think it makes their marriage more serious. It shows you are just super, super committed to each other.”

Ms. Benson agreed, saying, “I think people wanted a way to say, ‘Our value is that this marriage is going to last forever, and we are only going to get divorced if these extreme things occur.’”

Covenant marriages can be especially tricky in situations where one partner wants a divorce for innocuous reasons, but the other doesn’t. “I recently had a client, this man whose wife wanted to divorce him, and he told me he wished he had a covenant marriage,” Ms. Welch Williams said. “He wasn’t religious or anything. He just really, really loved his wife, and he felt if he had this extra time and this counseling, it could save the marriage.”

Are There Pitfalls to a Covenant Marriage?

The biggest problem with a covenant marriage, Mr. Suba said, is that it’s very difficult to legally divorce. “This is an enforceable contract, and you have to do everything you can to preserve the marriage,” he said. “At the end of the day, if the judge decides you don’t satisfy all the requirements to dissolve the marriage, your petition for divorce would be declined.”

The law allows for a quick divorce if there is adultery, abuse or imprisonment. (Some couples have even moved to obtain divorces in other states.) But even those situations must be proven, and sometimes counseling is still required. “With adultery, for example, you almost have to catch them in the act,” Ms. Welch Williams said. “There was this one court case where a person admitted to having an affair, and the judge still said that wasn’t enough evidence.”

If a partner does not have proof, the couple must live apart for two years and go through counseling the entire time before a divorce will be granted. “You can’t do things like divide property or force the sale of the house during that time,” Ms. Welch Williams said.

Ms. Benson said she would never recommend a covenant marriage. “I’ve had people who had legitimate reasons under the covenant marriage to get divorced, but it’s their burden to prove why they want the divorce,” she said. “It makes it very difficult if you are in an adulterous situation or domestic violence to get yourself out.”

She also reminds couples that they don’t need the state to help them try harder to save their marriage: “If you have it in your heart that you don’t want to get a divorce, you can still impose those restrictions on yourself without getting the state involved.”