Divorce and breakdown

Ranier Fsadni opted for two consecutive weeks, to write on the issue of divorce. In his last contribution (August 14), while analyzing our Bishops' statement, he acknowledged some important assertions like: "Undoubtedly, yes [divorce weakens marriage]"; "any private behaviour that weakens our trust in the stability of marriage damages the institution" and "some scholars ... tend to agree liberal divorce laws push [marriage breakdown] up". These are all strong statements indeed and one would be tempted to shout with Caiaphas "What need of [other] witnesses have we now!" But we do, because throughout his article, Prof. Fsadni shed doubts upon these statements.

Prof. Fsadni referred to Professors Libertad Prof. Gonzalez and Tarja K. Prof. Vittanen, who studied divorce legislations and their effects in 18 European countries. These scholars concluded that "the introduction of no-fault divorce accounted for about 20 per cent of the increase of divorce". This too is a very eloquent conclusion. He tried to water it down by qualifying these results as "provisional". Nowhere in the 31-page paper did Prof. Gonzalez and Prof. Vittanen state that their results were provisional. On the contrary, they referred to their results as "our most conservative estimates" and asserted that "the combined effect of all the legal reforms that took place in Europe between 1960 and 2002 amount to about 20 per cent of the increase in divorce rates in Europe during that period".

Prof. Fsadni admitted that "20 per cent is a high figure". However, after such an affirmation, an exception is expected to follow. He remarked that "it leaves 80 per cent of the rise to be accounted for". The truth is that the researchers set out specifically to study the relation between change in laws and increase in rate of divorce. Their results clearly established that 20 per cent of the rise in divorce rates has a single identifiable source, namely, divorce laws. Nobody blames the law for 100 per cent of all the marriage breakdowns, as Prof. Fsadni hinted.

In his article, Prof. Fsadni thought it convenient to quote the study and inform us that "the introduction of unilateral divorce on the other hand, had no long-term effect." One must comprehend the meaning of "unilateral divorce" as provided by the researchers themselves in order to understand why the introduction of this type of legislation did not leave a long-term effect. They explained that "under unilateral divorce, the break-up will take place unless the spouse who wishes to stay compensates the one who wishes to leave." It sounds strange and precisely because it is strange, it is not embraced by a great number. As a result, it is much more difficult for this type of legislation to make a conspicuous difference in divorce rate.

Moreover, for some reason which I cannot grasp, Prof. Fsadni desisted to communicate to his readers one of the important conclusions of this study: "The effect of the move towards 'no-fault' divorce laws seemed permanent (allowing for the time scale of the panel) with strong, significant long-term effects." Is this not worth underlining?

We are not to be tricked. All countries introduced divorce legislations with a number of restrictions attached. Yet all went down the slippery slope and in practice introduced no-fault divorce legislation.

With all due respect I would like to ask: Is it possible for those "who believe in the value of marriage and the family" and/or for any wise and prudent policy maker or legislator to turn his or her back on this?