'Til Death Do Us Part: A Tale of Two Lockets

Sloan Evans drummed her fingers anxiously on the armrest of her office chair. She had painstakingly assisted countless clients on completing the questionnaire she now faced herself. Sloan and Edgar had yet to set a wedding date, but nothing could move forward until they submitted the pre-nuptial forms now mandated by the federal government.

Sloan knew how to soothe her clients’ nerves and guide them through the most important decisions of their lives. She inadvertently glanced down at her custom Neil Lane engagement ring and wondered silently if her fiancé was struggling as well. Edgar was proud of their success and splurged on her to make a point. The wedding band alone was more than most couples could afford after fifty years of marriage. But being young, successful professionals had its perks.

Marriage has always been a big commitment. However, since the Family Law Revision Act of 2022 was passed, the stakes of being “legally bound” to someone in holy matrimony could not be higher. Sloan graduated early from law school in 2020 amidst the Coronavirus lockdown. At that time, the divorce rate in the United States was a staggering fifty percent and climbing. She specialized in family law and knew the stats forwards and backwards – 14.9 divorces per 1,000 marriages used to be the norm. The costs in dollars, time, court proceedings, custody battles, and broken families led to a legislative revolution.

Sloan and Edgar were both children of divorce. They lived entitled, but problematic childhoods in the Dallas suburbs. Sloan and Ed, as she now called him affectionately, knew each other in high school but ran with different crowds. They both stayed in Texas for college but were hundreds of miles apart. Sloan assumed Edgar was not ambitious enough for grad school and he thought she would end up far away from the Lonestar State. When they noticed each other in the same 1L Civil Procedure class, they were pleasantly surprised.

“Lawyers make the worst lovers.” They playfully lobbed that phrase at each other during their courtship. They already knew all the lawyer jokes they would be subjected to over the years. It was obvious to anyone casually observing them laughing over coffee that they were destined to be more than study partners. They had a sense of humor about their chosen profession and were already something of a power couple before they even graduated. When Sloan and Edgar dressed up as a pair of sharks for a Halloween party hosted by 2Ls, their legend grew exponentially. “Sledgar” were inseparable throughout their days at SMU. Sloan knew she loved him deeply and the feelings were amply reciprocated on Ed’s end.

They both went into family law after interning at the same firm the summer before their third year. They were surrounded by newly betrothed couples thriving in the family-oriented suburb of Frisco, Texas. They realized that what had been a fun and breezy relationship would have to change if they too wanted to start a family south of turning 30. They promised each other they would always find ways to laugh together. Sloan’s emerald eyes turned an even darker shade of green when she was making a point.

Despite his playboy past, Edgar’s heart beat true for only her. Edgar’s father dismissed his son’s request to use one of the heirlooms to propose. So, Ed doubled down and bought the fanciest rock he could afford as the most popular junior partner in his office. The energy he used to expend on flirting before he got together with Sloan was now channeled into providing for his future family. He worked hard and had the bonuses to prove it. Edgar was determined to start his own legacy that would eclipse anything the O’Neal men who came before him achieved. The privileged prince was now an impressive man worthy of the love of an equally impressive woman.

They relished domestic life made possible by the passage of the Family Law Revision Act of 2022 (or the FLRA as it was commonly referred to by most). The methods were harsh and unorthodox, but there was no arguing with the results three years later. The nearly non-existent divorces (abuse or insanity were the acceptable reasons for separating now), children only allowed to grow up in two-parent households, no more drawn-out custody battles, no alternating weekends juggling children between separate households…it seemed too good to be true to those adults who had been required to go to four different Christmases as kids.

Sloan let her mind wander away from the queries before her and thought about Edgar’s proposal. It was still customary to give one’s intended an engagement ring. However, the true token of domestic bliss shifted to the mandatory heart-shaped lockets each spouse was required to always wear. The wedding bands stayed secured inside the lockets. Upon closer inspection, the lockets were intricate machines buzzing with biometrical data and other hidden features. They operated like a FitBit or an Apple Watch that could track all essential life functions 24/7. Ironically, hidden within the lockets was a vial of potassium chloride capable of stopping life in an instant. The days of battling out differences in court were long gone. Now, everything was decided ahead of time, and no one went into a marriage blindly or impulsively.

Sloan knew even though she and Ed had been together officially for over five years, deciding to get married was a completely different ballgame. She also knew that even though they were filling out their questionnaires separately, their answers had to be in alignment, or the marriage license would be automatically denied. Fidelity, stability, and commitment were of the utmost importance to them. They refused to repeat their parents’ mistakes.

Neither Sloan nor Edgar had any desire to take the open marriage route some couples agreed on out of fear they could not follow through with their vows. Each couple had to determine prior to tying the knot what would be acceptable within the bounds of their marriage and which vows were unbreakable. There was no limit to how long a couple could be engaged (except for out-of-wedlock pregnancies), but once committed, there was no buyer’s remorse period.

The U.S. government allowed for affairs if both parties had the same understanding; any children produced outside of a state-sanctioned marriage would be confiscated and reassigned to an approved family unit. From the onset of puberty, both young men and women had to be on birth control. The powers-that-be watched enough episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale to not want a Gilead. It was understood that pre-marital sex happens and so does infidelity. However, only within the marriage bed were children officially conceived. Some unmarried couples who ended up with accidental pregnancies despite all the precautions were indifferent to the babies becoming wards of the state. Abortions were illegal except for a few notable exceptions in the case of rape, incest, and/or if the health of the mother was compromised. For unwed couples who did want to keep their unplanned offspring, they had to be married within six months from the time the baby was born.

Sloan and Edgar knew the price to pay for the privilege of marriage. As lawyers, they helped newly engaged couples navigate setting parameters every day. Sloan knew the risks and rewards of becoming Mrs. Edgar Wesley O’Neal. Likewise, Ed knew he dare not take a second look at any of the co-eds interning at their law firm. It was too big of a risk, and he needed as much practice as possible before his wandering eye could cost him his life. The heart-shaped lockets precisely measured to fit over their own hearts guaranteed the enforcement of the pledges made on their wedding day. The flurry of planning their nuptials overshadowed the reality that the lockets were specifically engineered to monitor and punish transgressions.

Sloan took a deep breath and forged ahead with the questions before her. She answered the first and moved on to the next. Ed’s baby blue eyes flashed before her. She could not fathom asking anything of him that she was not willing to give herself. Her chest tightened as she moved through the forms. She was aware there was already a pair of heart-shaped lockets on hold for the future Mr. and Mrs. O’Neal as soon as they officially announced their engagement in the Dallas Morning News and their local Frisco Enterprise.

Sloan and Edgar knew formalizing their love was a risk worth taking. They were each prepared to be together for the rest of their lives. Or until an ominous click in the back of the locket said their lives would be over sooner than later. Either way, the FLRA guaranteed all couples the fulfillment of the sacred oath, “‘til death do us part.”