DIVORCE: Do you think it is the end of the traditional family?

The idea of family in Malta has not changed for decades. Traditionally, a family consists of a married couple, a man and a woman, who decide to start a family and have children. The introduction of divorce would remove the permanency characteristic of marriage having serious consequences. In Malta, when a couple decides to get married, the tendency is that they do so through the church. Upon doing so, they are getting married legally as well. What is interesting is that a couple who doesn t believe in the church s teachings has the right to marry through the state. Quite plainly, to get married, one simply has to sign a few papers and you re married. Divorce is the termination of the contract signed in the latter marriage. The Church believes that marriage occurs through divine intervention. However, the church should not have any say in the legislation of a country, which unfortunately is not the case in Malta. It is a fact that each year the number of marital breakdowns (separations, annulments, and divorces) is increasing drastically. In 2008 the number of marital breakdowns in Malta was 738, quite a considerable amount for our population. Adverse consequences such as social, emotional, physiological and financial burdens follow. The state should cater for such people and offer them a second chance at their married life. As the situation stands in Malta, that is divorce is illegal, people whose marriage fails simply opts to cohabitate with their new partner. Should this new couple feel that it would be best for them to enter a married life; the state does not provide this possibility. The Maltese campaign in favour of the introduction of divorce publicly announced that divorce is not a good thing, but the option to divorce should be legalised. It is unfair to refrain from giving the right to divorce simply because your marriage is so far doing well. To this they add that, divorce will not be a simple thing to get. The right to divorce will only be given to those who have been at least five years separated and all attempts to reunite the couple have failed. The benefit of divorce of separation is that a partner will no longer have to seek legal permission from his/her pervious partner, but one will simply be seen as single and in liberty to re-wed. Neither divorce, nor separation strengthens the traditional family, but if the

latter has failed in certain cases and we have the power to give another chance why shouldn t we? However, when on sees the other side of the coin, divorce is far from a utopia. Divorce simply devalues marriage. So far marriage has been a huge milestone in one s life. Moving away from the single s, as free as a bird, life, is not easy. However, the married life is looked upon by loving couples who yearn that one day they too will give their lifelong commitment to a single partner. The legalisation of divorce will make this commitment impermanent. Many believe that marriage will be taken more lightly since the possibility of divorce will be available if things do take a wrong turn. Divorce is a child s worst enemy. If a 6 year old child returns home from school to find an atmosphere of fighting, surely this won t leave a positive impact on his life. Moreover, if they do divorce, both his parents will have different and new partners. The thought of saying dad s girlfriend or mum s partner is horrible enough, let alone living with such people. To sum up, divorce has its good and bad, just like anything else. It will have effects on the Maltese family but only on those who let it affect them. Divorce is simply a right a citizen should make use of when marriage has not succeeded.