Let marriages expire after seven years, urges politician

BAVARIA’S most glamorous politician, a flame-haired motorcyclist who helped bring down state premier Edmund Stoiber, has shocked the Catholic state by suggesting marriage should last just seven years.

Gabriele Pauli, who poses on her web site in motorcycle leathers, is standing for the leadership of Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU), sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats, next week.

She told reporters at the launch of her campaign manifesto on Wednesday she wanted marriage to expire after seven years and accused the CSU, which promotes traditional family values, of nurturing ideals of marriage which are wide of the mark.

“The basic approach is wrong. Many marriages last just because people believe they are safe,” she told reporters. “My suggestion is that marriages expire after seven years.”

After that time, couples should either agree to extend their marriage or it should be automatically dissolved, she said.

Fifty-year-old Pauli, twice divorced, is a maverick intent on shaking up her male-dominated and mainly Catholic party, which has dominated Bavarian politics since World War II.

Peter Ramsauer, head of the CSU in Germany’s parliament, compared Pauli’s ideas to “the dirt under your fingernails”.