The Seven Year Which???

Romney this weekend:

"It seems that Europe leads Americans in this way of thinking," Romney told the crowd of more than 5,000. "In France, for instance, I'm told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past."

And how gullible and provincial from presidential candidates of the past. But didn't Romney go to France for his mission? Think some sweet gamine [fixed the spelling error. I took Spanish, ok?] spun this whole "seven year hitch" fable as an elaborate practical joke? Getting us back for, I dunno, Jerry Lewis? And they say the French have no sense of humor...

Via The Plank, where they note that the whole seven-year-contract with option to renew is, in fact, a plot point in a novel by fellow Mormon Orson Scott Card.*

UPDATE: I have spoken to an actual former citizen of France, who tells me that he has no idea what Mitt is referring to here. "It's the former length of the presidential term," he guessed, "and there's a thing like a civil union..." That lasts seven years? "No."

I'd also like to note how truly bizarre it is that the WP printed this quote completely uncritically and without comment, as if seven-year marriages in France were something we all had heard of and accepted as true.

*UPDATE: Card's book with the seven-year marriage contracts? It's called "The Memory of Earth," and it is a fictionalization of the Book of Mormon set in outer space. Of course, Romney could believe the French are aliens. And, yes, Romney laid down this thunderous helping of nuttitude at Regent's University, Monica Goodling's alma mater.