Jacqueline – she's back!
Actually, the lay-preacher of the correspondence columns in The Times and The Sunday Times has never really left us. There was just a bit of a lull while she cast around for a suitable religious subject on which to hector the nation. No doubt, she’s thrilled with all this talk about divorce, because it’s given her a good excuse to bring out her typewriter again.
Tuesday, 2nd September 2008
Divorce will harm society as a whole
Jacqueline Calleja, Balzan
In the United States owning a gun could become a matter of life or death when one’s life or that of a loved one is threatened by someone with criminal intent. In American homes there are millions of arms and this has, in some cases, been a veritable blessing in saving lives.However, the disadvantages for society as a whole that this gun culture has produced far outweigh the advantages of gun ownership. The temptation to use a gun not just for self-defence purposes but to satisfy a whim or some perverse goal is proof of this. The Columbine and Virginia Tech school massacres, among others, are a case in point.
In the current debate about divorce, the latter, as in the gun culture in America, will have far more negative effects on society as a whole than positive ones. In some individual cases divorce can certainly solve seemingly intractable problems. The effect on society as a whole is, however, disastrous. It completely abolishes the commitment upon which a marriage is necessarily built.
A brief look at how, since its introduction over 30 years ago, it has affected the family and society in nearby Italy with which we share both mentality and culture, is enough proof of this. One can naturally scoff at this and delude oneself that this will not happen and that here divorce will not have the multiplier effect that it has had there.
The argument that we should legislate for divorce because Malta is one of the few remaining countries without it denotes an inferiority complex leading one to compulsively ape other countries simply because they are bigger and more populous. Since when does one legislate, especially on such delicate matters as divorce, just because other countries have done so?
Lessons from history have taught us that the will of the majority of states is not always the right one in certain cases. In ancient times, in nearly all nations and especially in Rome, there were laws which gave fathers the right to reject their infant children if they so willed and have them exposed to the elements and left to die. The Jews, a tiny nation on the fringe of the Roman Empire, would have none of this and refused to expose their babies even though everybody else did. Today, 2,000 years later, we know who was right after all and we admire those few who refused to conform to what was common in the society of those times. The sole criterion, therefore, for the passing of legislation on such important matters as divorce is the interest of society as a whole. Divorce certainly does not fulfil this criterion.
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If divorce is not possible, what is supposed to become of those “individual cases where divorce can certainly solve seemingly intractable problems”?
Ms. Calleja’s disjointed and confused hotch-potch enmeshing gun culture, ancient Roman rituals, Jewish defiance and divorce defies belief.
Ms. Calleja fails to realize that Malta is not “apeing” other countries in seeking to introduce divorce. At long last, the island has awoken from the insular cultural-religious torpor which had engulfed it, undergone a reality check and sheepishly initiated a divorce discussion ON ITS OWN MERITS. One augurs that the company is mature enough to realise this over-elaborate, hyped, pseudo-religious, show-fest, aka Marraige, is like all other human relationships,dissoluble after all. Not acknowledging this is utter denial.
I would also like to defuse the rather bewildering argument often flagged by the anti-divorce lobby – and basically that divorce provides a capricious escape route from marital commitments.
There is no denying that marital breakup is traumatic (emotionally and financially). Because of the financial repurcussions, no person in the right frame of mind would have a divorce without giving it serious thought.
However, what the anti-divorce lobby fails to realise is that the obligations of maintenance, division of the community of assets of assets etc; is *IDENTICAL* both with regard to divorce and in separation.
On top of that however, persons audacious (or foolhardy enough) to remarry have a legal obligation not only to support their current spouse (and any children from this second marriage), but also to provide maintenance to their previous spouses (unless the latter has enough means for his/her subsistance or the latter remarries) and children, if any. Crucially, no such legal obligation exists when you are co-habiting with your “habib” or “habiba”.
Now how is divorce an easier option?
It’s an unfortunate parallel that Jacqueline Calleja draws, anyway. She argues that guns should not be allowed on the basis that people with whims and perverse goals might use them. In the case of divorce, she needn’t worry. It’s the spouses of those with whimsical and perverse goals who’d reach for their metaphorical gun first.
“Today, 2,000 years later, we know who was right after all and we admire those few who refused to conform to what was common in the society of those times…” Okay, point taken, but who’s to say that in 2000 years time Jacqueline was right and everyone else was wrong? Could easily work out the other way, no?
Considering the financial burden that both parties go through (especially the wage earner) it seems to me that a divorce process cannot be taken too lightly. Although men are famously known for having their brains in their trousers, this fact (an expensive divorce)should swiftly scotch any thought for a quick release from the marital bond. To my mind, anyone thinking of divorce is really in desperate straits and should be helped to start anew.
@Corinne
Simple my dear – just get a church anulment, if (1) you can ‘prove’ the marriage was never consummated (even if you have 4 grown-up children (!) (2) you have lots of spare cash and the right ‘religious’ connections (3) you are prepared to wait until you are old and wrinkled….
When I read Jacqueline Calleja’s logic I come to the conclusion that the Maltese are truly a race of geniuses in the noble art of thought. Not only have they invented lateral thinking (“side” thinking) but now even retro-thinking — for some evidently think with their rear end. The comparison between the constitutional right to bear arms in the US with the denied right to divorce in Malta is the ultimate in stretched sophistry. But anything will do in this crusade of the nose-pokers in everybody’s private life. The confraternity of those who aim at gaining paradise by interfering in our lives will stop at nothing. I can already picture them organising candle-light vigils outside Parliament should the ever-increasing improbability of a divorce bill materialize and come to the vote in the highest institution of the land. The meddlers in our lives will pray the Holy Ghost to inspire the MP’s just like it does the cardinals in a conclave.
If this is the “debate” which is supposed to trigger off the perilous process to divorce, I hate to think when, if ever, this country is going to have what all others already enjoy. For the no-divorce crusaders, the rest of the 6000,000,000 inhabitants of this planet are wrong and they are right. This league of interfering busy-bodies declares that it alone knows what’s right and all the others are wrong — if this is not arrogance in the extreme, I don’t know what is. They will not tell us that they oppose divorce because their religion forbids it (this would be too easily rebutted by a simple declaration of apostacy on our part) but they argue on the basis of what they proclaim to be the common good as if they are the sole custodians of some arcane cosmic truth in which they alone are the initiated.
Dear apostles of indissolubility, please live your own lives and let us try to fight our battle. The odds are already heavily tilted against us. Already there is too much talk and no action, no results, no visible prospects. Molto fumo e poco arrosto. We are being taken for a ride.. there never was an intention to do what it takes and present a divorce bill before parliament…
What nobody (to my knowledge) has mentioned is that there are different degrees (as in everything else in this world) to how the divorce laws can be put in practice. Should we go down the route of American divorce laws, where if one spouse wants a divorce, it’s granted automatically.
Should there be valid grounds (eg. abuse, infidelity) set for divorce to be given? Is it culpable, non-culpable? Should reconciliation be attempted? Should there be a cooling off period? If there’s a cooling off period to buy a griglioso minn ta’ Nancy, I think divorce should get it as well :)
As in everything in life, few things are black or white.
[Daphne – Every other country in the democratic west has been through these arguments already. There’s no need for us to go through them again. There’s no wheel we can reinvent here. We should look at it positively instead: there are no learning curves left for us to go through. All the mistakes have been made already by everyone else. The state-of-the art divorce legislation is there for the picking. All we have to do is….pick it.]
I`m of the generation when even separations were almost unheard of let alone divorce.
However, nowadays separations have become so common that I honestly think divorce will solve more problems than it will create.
All in all, I feel divorce is less harmful to children than an annulment. Imagine finding out that your parents were never really married at all.
From what I am hearing, a `popular` reason for applying for an annulment is stating that you did not really understand what marriage meant and what you were letting yourself in for. Also you did not realize what marriage life entailed and went into marriage with many doubts and mistaken believes.
How can anyone prove whether those statements are true or untrue ?
Is there anyone who did not find a few surprises after getting married and honestly realized how hard you have to work to keep a marriage going ? Most people I know surely didn`t.
I`ve just seen this in Daphne`s next report.
The Oedipus Complex manifests itself in little children. A married man who still shows signs of this complex, which is not impossible, should never have married in the first place. This would constitute an invalid marriage.
Another popular reason for annulment. Just prove that your husband is still too attached to his mother ! Very easy to do in many cases.
Daphne has put it very well. All the drafters need to do is copy the best legislation by which I mean the most liberal. Why should anybody have to show “fault”? If both spouses agree, then it should be easy. In some countries, if both parties agree and there are no minor children, they go to an office, sign a form and hey presto! it’s done. If there are minor children, then the court will make sure they are provided for (in the judgment, at least).
I very much fear that, if ever a bill is brought before the House (and I doubt it will any time soon), it would be a sop to Cerberus — making it difficult for divorce to be obtained and containing some conditions such as that the couple must have been legally separated for five years or more to start proceedings.
I think it will take much more than this so-called debate in the press for any positive action to be taken towards legislation. Povru poplu Malti, kif ghadek soggogat!
@ freethinker : What does “soggogat” mean , is it an Italianised Maltese word?