Bravo @CunningLinguist! You said a few things I wanted to say.
Let me emphasize that the marriage vows you are talking about are Christian vows. They are not universal. Many people write their own vows, and don’t include the “until death do us part” part.
I also think your focus on the money spent on a marriage ceremony going down the drain if you get a divorce shows a lack of understanding about the relationship between a ceremony and how people live. A ceremony is designed to provide people with a sense of importance about what is happening. It is designed to get you a little bit out of your mind. This is why so many people will cry during a ceremony. They are connected to the ur-story instead of just watching this event.
Wedding ceremonies, in particular, are designed to get people to support the couple. They bring together two extended families and friends, generally for the first time. People get to meet each other and learn that they all have a stake in this marriage.
But people make mistakes and people change, and love does not always lead to optimal results. When people divorce, that does not make the ceremony a waste. Not at all! That was then, and it served its purpose. It’s gone now.
Why get married in the first place? Financial planning. There are thousands of benefits to being married. From filing taxes jointly to being automatically included as a beneficiary on thousands of financial products, marriage makes it simple. All you have to do is say you’re married, and poof! It is so! You don’t even have to show a license. Just claim you’re married and you are. I don’t think anyone ever looks it up.
No. I don’t think divorce should be harder to achieve. I think it should be easier to achieve. If we want to preserve marriages, we should be teaching people how to communicate and solve problems. That’s the advice I give here all the time, and it is totally appropriate here, as well. If you want to fix your marriage, you got to talk and you got to listen and you got to know how to find an agreeable solution to your problems.