The government's intention to enact a law on cohabitation is undoubtedly well -meant but one certainly cannot look at such a law and compare it with similar laws abroad in isolation. The big background looming behind the cohabitation scenario is the fact that in Malta, divorce is not available in cases of marital breakdown.

This is why many observers have reacted negatively to the idea: some saying we are putting the cart before the horse while others emphasising that the possibility of a couple registering as cohabiting is no substitute for remarrying after divorce.

Both these views are essentially correct. Indeed, if the cohabitation law is intended to partly satisfy the demand for divorce, then the whole exercise is a case of good intentions leading to an even worse situation than the one it is trying to solve.

This does not mean there is no case for a cohabitation law, but the lack of divorce in Malta will obfuscate the real reasons why such a law is a positive step as it will tend to promote cohabitation to the status of some kind of 'Maltese style divorce'.

I have always believed that Maltese society will come to the point where the absence of divorce will be more harmful than its introduction, in the sense that the lack of divorce would lead to a substantial number of new family units that are unregulated as one or both partners cannot remarry.

We have reached the stage where the social disorder that these situations are causing should no longer be considered acceptable. Incidentally, in his column in The Times last Thursday, Ranier Fsadni put paid to the speculation that our rate of separations is a long way off the European mainstream.

In these circumstances, enacting a law on cohabitation that will obviously be used - or is it abused? - to go round the problem caused by the lack of divorce in Malta will only serve to institutionalise disorder rather than to restore social order.

It is interesting to note that when the idea of a cohabitation law was mooted some years ago, the Maltese Church spoke against it in the most outright manner - as it had every right to do - probably realising that this would lead to a 'backdoor divorce' situation. This time around, the Church has not said anything against a cohabitation law. The change of tactics reflects the change of the social milieu in Malta and the resulting change in the mood of the majority.

The way the Church tackles the question of divorce varies not only from time to time but also from one country to another, even though it is consistent in its tenet on the indissolubility of marriage.

Ask any fellow Maltese migrants in Australia or the UK who sought to commence annulment proceedings in the Church courts. They will tell you that the Catholic Church in those countries refuses to start such proceedings unless the couple in question are already divorced.

In other words, the Church in those countries will not consider the possibility of declaring the nullity of a marriage unless this marriage is already dissolved in the eyes of the state. In Malta the Church acts quite differently!

The state is obliged to legislate in order to uphold social order and not to force 'morality' on any citizen. Stealing and murdering are crimes because they disrupt social order and not because they are a sin. Desiring to do such misdeeds is no crime, even if it is immoral and a sin.

The arguments of the anti-divorce lobby are now well-known. An interesting 'trick' is to quote studies made abroad that portray the negative effects of divorce. Those who quote these studies seem to do so without realising that in the countries where these studies were made - notably the US, the UK and Scandinavia - there is no semantic distinction between the word 'divorce' and the term 'marital breakdown'.

In all developed countries - except Malta - these mean the same thing for it is only in Malta that 'divorce' is distinct (or perhaps 'divorced'!) from 'marital breakdown'. The negative effects that these studies portray are therefore the negative effects of marital breakdown - something that is already happening in Malta, and these will not be exacerbated if marital breakdown automatically leads to divorce.

Opting for the possibilities granted by a future cohabitation law to regulate the relationship between couples who wish to marry but cannot because there is no divorce legislation in Malta, will not strengthen the institution of marriage. It will weaken it.

The scenario of a cohabitation law without a divorce law will tend to institutionalise what will be, for practical purposes, two levels of marriage: a first class 'A1' marriage - whether celebrated by a religious or a civil rite - and a second class, also-ran 'B2' pseudo-marriage attained via the registration of cohabiting partners who want to remarry but are impeded from doing so by those who want to save and strengthen the institution of marriage.

micfal@maltanet.net