Seminar discusses ills of marriage breakdown

Twenty per cent of those who started separation proceedings last year went on to part ways, a seminar on marriage breakdowns in Malta heard yesterday.

According to Madam Justice Anna Felice, 1,200 requests for mediation were filed last year - 500 of these couples went on to start separation proceedings, with 100 separating.

The judge said another 1,500 couples sought provisional measures, pending the start of proceedings.

Speaking during the seminar organised by Proġett Impenn, a Church initiative in favour of families and marriage, Gozo Bishop Mario Grech stressed the importance of investing in education to safeguard marriage.

He said the Church should engage in an intellectual discourse to counter the tide of marriage breakdown. He also called for dialogue with politicians and educators, among others, to decide what needed to be done to safeguard natural marriage on the basis of certainty, values and strong ethical principles.

Mgr Grech said just like it was not enough to address symptoms of a medical problem, one needed to dig deep to determine the underlying reasons of marriage breakdowns.

Sir Paul Coleridge, a judge in the Family Division of England's High Court, compared the fight Malta has on its hands to combat marriage breakdowns to the Great Siege in the 16th century.

"I fear you are going to experience another destructive invasion if you do not confront it and prepare for it. It is potentially as destructive to your way of life as any physical invasion, although more slow moving and difficult to detect," he said.

While Malta might not yet have marital problems on the same scale as those in the UK, it needed to be very vigilant and prepare for the worst, Mr Justice Coleridge said.

He said the effects of family breakdown on the life of the nation and ordinary people would be as marked and as destructive as the effects of global warming within the next 20 years.

Speaking about the effects of marriage breakdown on children, Mr Justice Coleridge said almost all of society's social problems could be traced directly to the collapse of family life. Broken families were often behind the most highly problematic children.

"I am not saying that every broken family produces dysfunctional children but I am saying that almost every dysfunctional child is the product of a broken or badly dysfunctional family."

He said the disappearance of stigmas related to illegitimate births, cohabitation and divorce over the past decades had led to the current instability and lack of longevity in relationships.