Malta is now ‘other countries’
People used to speak in scandalised and superior tones about how “50% of marriages end in divorce in other countries”, as though Malta was some kind of privileged bubble where this would never happen.
But it was just that we were late to the party, as usual.
The Sunday Times reports today that there is an average of 2,550 marriages every year…and 1,000 separations. So we are edging ever closer to that 50%.
Last year, 1,211 married couples filed for separation. The story does not give the number of divorces over and above that figure – but in any case, those divorces will have been registered as separations in earlier years. People are not allowed to divorce under Maltese legislation unless they have lived apart or been separated by contract or court judgement for four years.
More people filed for separation last year than in any other previous year, yet fewer were willing to reach an amicable settlement, which means separating without going to court to fight it out.
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M’hemmx fejn wiehed jiehu pjacir u gost jara familji godda jitkissru wara ftit snin ghax l-aspettattivi tal-partijiet huma jew debboli jew inkella oxxeni.
Ma niskantax li wasalna sa hawn ghax bil-libertinagg li hawn mas-saqajn illum kollox huwa possibbli.
Jizzewgu ghax ghandhom il-flus, jizzewgu ghax hekk jaqblilhom, jizzewgu ghax-ser idahhlu xi haga iktar milli ghandhom, jizzewgu ghax it-tfajla hija faqa’.
Dawn huma ftit mill-kummenti li hadt meta staqsejt f’ricerka li ghamilt ghal studju simili. Mill-bqija iz-zghazagh tal-lum ma jafux assolutament xi tfisser meta tghid li ser tizzewweg, jew xi tfisser familja soda.
Mohhom f’kemm ser ingawdu, f’kemm ser immorru parties tal-genn, ecc. Mohhom maghluqin fil-computers, mobiles u Twitter u Facebook u sustanza XEJN.
Kif tridhom ma jinfirdux b’hajja mohlija bhal din. Meta jikbru jkunu jafu x’tilfu. Illum mohh ir-rih.
[Daphne – It’s actually older couples who are breaking up, Ryan, and not young people. Young people are barely bothering to get married.]
It is not correct to equate the 1000 separations with the 2550 marriages and obtain a near 50% figure. The 1000 figure should be relative to all current valid marriages.
Am I to deduce that you believe people should get married to people they don’t find attractive? Or that you should get married when you’re broke? Or that marriage is a vale of tears?
There’s plenty of pleasure in marriage. Of the good kind. The kind that brings one closer to God, if you want to look at it that way. Who wouldn’t want companionship and constancy?
Agree with you there to a point. However, do you know how many men I know who got married with good intentions to what seemed to be good, honest women only for the women to then undergo a 360 degree conversion and to go on to become con-artists living in a virtual soap show of their own?
Mind you the same happens to women but without the full arm of the law snatching their assets and children off them.
[Daphne – Oh come on. How little you know. In all but the most exceptional cases, it’s the women who end up the worse off. We’re talking ordinary people here, not celebrities or the wives of mega-bankers. When I think of all the people I know whose marriages have broken down – and in my generation that runs into very significant numbers – I can say with confidence that in all but one or two cases it is the women who have ended up in the more difficult situation financially and in every other way. Basically, the men go back to being bachelors on the dating scene, and the women become single parents landed with a ton of responsibility. And when the marital home is sold, the proceeds are divided on a 50-50 basis even though with those proceeds the woman has to buy a home for herself and the children and the man only for himself. That is to say nothing of the fact that being responsible for the children means that most of the time she is unable to get a proper job and ends up dependent on maintenance even if against her will.]
Before I get a million comments objecting, A) I understand the legal framework in Malta is different; B) I know that women have been mistreated in the past and that the modern laws were formulated with good intentions and with the aim of protecting them, not realising that they would then be misused to steal and hurt men by legally stealing their children, assets and future income, not to mention robbing them of their role in society.
The fact that you then have to forfeit most of your pay, house and most assets to fund your ex-wife’s new life and new boyfriend might also play a part in some men not wanting to legally tie themselves to someone who could ruin their lives in an instant.
[Daphne – Well yes, you are talking of a different jurisdiction but also of a different mentality and geography. It’s absolutely not the case in Malta. Women can’t remarry and move a thousand miles away with the children.]
I was merely pointing out that marriage is not some godawful “sagrificcju”, but a throughly enjoyable thing. Hell I’d get married in a heartbeat.
Daphne, somehow I knew you would ark up about this and get me all wrong. I was not talking about Malta at all and the countries I am talking about are specifically Holland, the UK and Australia.
[Daphne – I didn’t know you were and yes, in that context I agree with you completely. But the Maltese situation is completely different.]
I once had a great old impromptu conversation with a nice lad on a coach who happened to be a family lawyer. He told me that one of the worst decisions a man can make these days is to get married. He said that things he sees in his daily life make him thank heavens he got married to a like-minded person in India, as opposed to someone who thinks that a marriage is temporary.
I know of one particular case where the woman was a well-known drug-addict and had shady characters visiting on a daily basis. Well, the man had to give the rights of the house to his ex-wife as she was given custody of the child. The man who had a stable job as a manager had visiting rights once a week for around half a day I believe.
To conclude, I get your point Daphne but it is very Malta-specific. Not all men are big scary womanisers.
[Daphne – Very few Maltese men are either big (fat is different) or womanisers, though some of them are quite scary. The problem in Malta generally is quite different: despite the legal regime, they regard the money they make as literally theirs and think in terms of giving their wife hand-outs. The wife who is looking after children then has the status of a child living off pocket-money and gifts, which are curtailed when he’s angry or she’s been ‘bad’, and stopped or hidden altogether when the need suits. When the marriage breaks down, this already difficult situation becomes extreme and impossible and the wife/mother ends up even having to fight for money for her children’s food bill.]
Daphne, I can already anticipate that you are going to say that not all women are con-artists on a mission.
[Daphne – No, actually I am NOT going to say that, because many Maltese women are indeed manipulative in the extreme and con-artists on a mission. It was a function of survival in a chauvinistic island, and the behaviour is passed down from mother to daughter in early, systematic training. I do not say that in their defence but merely as a socio-historical explanation. What we see now (in Maltese society) is the unfortunate confluence of this survival behaviour, which grew out of a particular socio-historical situation, with the reality of full empowerment in society, the work place, education and under the law. The end product is many Maltese women who wear hooker shoes and ill-advised clothing, wheedle, flutter, flirt, soft-soap, scheme and manipulate while in possession of the full freedoms of their European counterparts, which make that self-abasement redundant, and who think that this behaviour is normal rather than very confused.]
My situation is possibly rather odd, in that there have been a somewhat disproportionate number of my male friends and family who have had experiences similar to those which I have described. That hardly means I think all women are like that, just as I know you don’t think all men are womanising slobs.
Settled then. We are on the same page. I found what you said about women passing down that defensive attitude, which is now distorted in the recently-hatched liberal laws, interesting and have seen similar behaviour elsewhere in southern Europe.
When I have witnessed this in professional environments I always thought their aggressive predatory type behaviour – mostly towards other women, that is — and the constant sexually charged, attention-seeking attitude towards men was hard to understand. But your observations do shed some light on that tendency.
[Daphne – I could write reams about it. Not only am I routinely the target of some really spectacular spite from women who appear to take it personally when another woman is in the public eye or under discussion and shows absolutely no inclination to flutter and flirt, but that style of communication is also completely alien to me so I can observe it acutely and at leisure, like a sort of anthropologist. There are actually some Maltese women for whom this communication-with-men style is so automatic (the default position) that they speak to/communicate with any man, even if it’s their long-term husband, son, son-in-law, brother, best friend’s son, cousin, in that way. They don’t even realise how inappropriate it is because at some strange level in their minds it’s not about sex or suggestion but about ‘managing men’. They haven’t worked out that this aspect of management comes through the suggestion of sex, however subliminal, and some of them would probably be horrified if told. I’ve seen some exchanges in which I’ve had to remind myself that this is a woman talking to her son. And of course, this means that the sons grow up programmed to expect this style of communication from all women and are taken aback by the ‘abruptness and directness’ of women raised elsewhere.]
A good indicator as to why young people are not bothering anymore can be found in this book:
Men on Strike: Why Men are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream – and Why it Matters
and a review:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ironshrink/201309/book-review-men-strike