Ranier Fsadni
Problem with playing Karl Marx
It has not been a good week for Anton Gouder. Many online commentators have rounded up on Mgr Gouder and all but accused him of playing God on the divorce issue. Am I the only one – at least among the non-members of the anti-divorce praetorian guard – who feels a sneaking sympathy for him?
He must feel hard done by. Everything in the RTK interview given by Mgr Gouder, including his now notorious statement that a vote for divorce would be a sin, suggests he himself thinks he is using the force of logic, not coercion.
I myself think the problem is not that he is playing God. It is that he is playing Karl Marx, a great thinker who brought to attention various unpalatable truths about human society but who exaggerated the role of a single dimension of human history (economic class relations) and overestimated his ability to explain the mess his society was in.
Mgr Gouder is no Karl Marx. But there is some resemblance between the two in the exaggerated importance Mgr Gouder gives to the role of divorce legislation in accounting for the sexual and social landscape of contemporary Western societies.
To accuse clerics of playing God is to demand that they are more circumspect in voicing their opinion. But it does not in itself show what it is that they are not getting right, even in last Saturday’s pastoral note, when the bishops asked Catholics to respect the dignity of every debater. Marx’s spectre, his sense of certainty about how things had always turned out in history, flitted across their words about divorce and marital stability.
That does not mean that the “facts” Mgr Gouder and friends like to cite are irrelevant. He has a warning for all individuals hoping for a fresh beginning after a failed marriage: since second marriages in countries like the UK have a one-in-three success rate, to hope for a happy second marriage may be to hope against the odds.
Second, looking at the big picture – the rates of marital breakdown and cohabitation, the economic, social and psychological prices paid – he cannot see how Western societies can be said to have cleared up any of the mess that Maltese pro-divorce campaigners feel Malta is lumbered with.
Third, in 18 European countries studied, divorce legislation does appear to contribute around a fifth of the rise in marital breakdowns over the last half century. So, he says divorce clearly makes things worse. It solves nothing and it adds a bit.
The rates and the prices are correct, although he tends to select the worst cases. If we are interested in not overselling divorce legislation, they are relevant. And they open our eyes to mitigating measures that would need to be taken if, that is, we want to introduce divorce to address “social problems” and not for libertarian reasons.
But those facts hardly explain the current Western family and sexual landscape. Mgr Gouder likes to say that wherever divorce has been introduced, certain behaviour patterns have followed, clearly implying a causal connection, where there is only correlation.
In fact, divorce has been around in much of the world for much of history, with very different consequences and correlated behaviour. High rates of marital instability can be found in traditional societies, too, including, say, 18th-century Malta.
Other factors must explain the current state of Western societies. The statistics themselves suggest that liberal divorce laws account for 20 per cent of the rise in marital breakdown over a 50-year period. Where is the other 80 per cent coming from? How is it that, even without a divorce law, Malta’s rate of marital breakdown is almost that of France 10 years ago?
Many anti-divorce campaigners have a one-way view of divorce. On the one hand, they say divorce has a comprehensive impact on the rest of society, to the point that it may lead to social breakdown. On the other, they do not sufficiently acknowledge the impact of the rest of social life on married life.
They seem unaware of all the research that points to the fundamental importance of property relations, the nature of work and the cultural understanding of intimacy.
Such factors have grown in salience during the same period that divorce laws were being liberalised. But it does not mean that they cannot spread to jurisdictions without divorce. It may even be helpful, in this respect, to think of European society as one, with Malta an integral part of it, even though it has a different marriage law.
In such circumstances, where, in any case, rates of marital instability are likely to rise and rates of marriage likely to drop, opting to say one wants to defend marital stability and stopping there is actually skirting a central issue: Whose marital stability? Those enjoying first marriages? What about the small minority who can beat the odds and whose second marriage would succeed if given the chance? Why should they and their children be discounted? Just because they are a few?
Such questions do not have easy answers. Now is the time to debate them but responsible people, deciding altruistically, might still disagree. Years after taking the decision, the correct course will still be up for debate.
Hence, why conscientious personal judgment matters. Not just to preserve our dignity. But also because personal experience, sifted ethically, can contribute to the intelligence of the decision.
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Joe Zammit
Jan 13th 2011, 10:36
Remarriage after divorce can easily be described as another form of cohabitation. In cohabitation there is no bond. Divorce points to no bond because when they want the couple can for some reason or another get a divorce. Divorce opens the way to literally another form of cohabitation.
Marriage and only marriage is serious and beneficial to every human society. The two characteristics of marriage are UNITY and INDISSOLUBILITY. Marriage is for ever.
No voter, no MP can vote in favour of divorce without sinning seriously against God. Divorce is a grave sin and voting for divorce is equally a grave sin that separates the offender from God and puts them on the path to hell.
Joseph Vella
Sep 3rd 2010, 16:28
Well said in every instance Mr. Flynn. Will people's closed minds be changed? Probably not in medieval Malta with its KKK hooded flagellants, wearing ankle chains and lashing whips, in honor of Easter or their local village saint:--(((
C Cini
Sep 3rd 2010, 01:19
If we contribute to the intelligence of the decision we can't be explicitly in favour of divorce. I will never agree that there was no correlated behaviour. I would say clearly that divorce didn't helped society to have strong marriages and good families. As a professior you know how the mentality changes having such a behaviour so widespread . The concept of marriage is changing drastically espcially for young generations, everything should be a source of hedonism. Infact co habitation increased drastically since marriage does not count anymore. Could divorce will solve these problems? No one says yes where there is divorce and for sure this is a clear result of how we are trying to transform societies. I can assure you that it is not true that anti-divorce campagners have one-way view of divorce. If it is like that surely I wouldn't make these observations. There are more cons than prons. We always look divorce as an easy way out to marriage problems, but reality indicates another story. No one would like to speak how we are going to help these youngsters. We will solve more problems rather than discussing for divorce.
wally vella-zarb
Sep 2nd 2010, 20:39
An example of Joe Zammit's convoluted 'logic';
(1) The statement below is False.
(2) The statement above is true.
Joe Zammit
Sep 2nd 2010, 20:00
A simple argument: The authorities of the Catholic Church have the right and duty to teach what principles are good and what are bad. There is no time limit for this right. To teach means to impart knowledge through instruction and/or training, part of this instruction states that voting for divorce is grievously sinful. Therefore, the Catholic Church has the right and duty to teach that voting for divorce is grievously sinful always, also in a referendum, general elections and during a vote in Parliament.
William P Flynn
Sep 2nd 2010, 18:11
Article 2 is the rape of the Constitution.
Joe Zammit
Sep 2nd 2010, 19:59
William, your arms are too short to box with God!
wally vella-zarb
Sep 2nd 2010, 21:56
I wasn't aware that William was into shadow boxing. Is this another of Joe Zammit's fantasies?
sciortino m
Sep 2nd 2010, 18:08
@Ranier Fsadni According to Discern, which is a Church financed research institute, at present a first marriage has a one in two chance of surviving. Since there is no divorce in Malta what is causing this 'carnage' of maltese marriages? To what is it correlated? http://www.discern-malta.org/research_pdfs/marriage.pdf Furthermore what do you suggest that these people do after going through the trauma of a failed marriage? I read your statistics regarding the crude divorce rate which is the same as the marriage to divorce rate. Considering that Malta's statistics covers only first marriages, it is not comparabale to the rate in other countries. For the rate to be comparable you should either eliminate the second divorces from the rate in other countries or increase the Malta rate with a hypothetical second 'separation' divorce rate. With regards to cohabitation, the Discern report found that quite a substantial number of cohabitations were stable because many of the children being born out of wedlock were the second and third child of the couple. Perhaps readers should note that around 25% of all births in Malta are out of wedlock.
Joe Zammit
Sep 2nd 2010, 17:15
A simple argument: The Constitution is above all national laws. The Constitution states that the authorities of the Catholic Church have the right and duty to teach what principles are good and what principles are bad. Therefore, the right and duty of the authorities of the Catholic Church to teach what principles are good and what principles are bad are above ALL national laws, including the Electoral (Polling) Ordinance, such that the Church can continue to teach also in a referendum, general elections and during a vote in Parliament.
William P Flynn
Sep 2nd 2010, 15:53
"A one-in-three success rate..for a happy second marriage"? That’s good odds; compared to now which are zero. There is no chance of having a second marriage now for the divorce facility does not exist. I say that odds of one in 30 would be good compared to zero!
Every married Maltese knows the score with separation and divorce; we didn't come down with the last shower.
What is truly irrelevant is Anton Gouder and every other sanctimonious priest and bishop who've never had a man-woman relationship and all they claim to know came from books, papers lectures and reports. They KNOW nothing first hand. Let those in a marriage decide whether their marriage is a good one and is worth persevering with, or not.
Marriage is none of any priest or bishop’s business. Marriage is a state institution; priests are no different to any Las Vegas marriage celebrant; at the end of the ceremony the spouses sign a state document; the priest is just an accredited celebrant.
Once the spouses walk out of the church, it is their life, their marriage. Down with the ill-gotten Article2 of our Constitution which makes clergy believe they can tell us how to live.
charles caruana
Sep 2nd 2010, 14:41
Part2
Following from this, the logical question to ask is this: given the increasing mess in the current Western institutions of marriage and the family, created by various complex facts, as you rightly pointed out, will the introduction of divorce legislation in Malta be a solution to the problem or a contributory part of it? Will it serve or enhance the overall common good of Maltese society? Should this common good be further eroded to fulfill the wishes of what you call ‘a small minority’?
I have one final caveat with your research statistics. You claim that ‘Mgr Gouder likes to say that wherever divorce has been introduced, certain behaviour patterns have followed, clearly implying a causal connection, where there is only correlation.’ Well recent research is proving Fr Gouder right and you wrong. Divorce is contagious, and there is a definite causal connection between its introduction and its spread. Check out this site: http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/view/7544/
These confirm not only our common sense intuitions drawn from everyday experience, but much recent mimetic theories of human behavior.
charles caruana
Sep 2nd 2010, 14:38
Part1
Interesting and thought provoking article, Mr Fsadni, written with true Ciceronian panache. Though obviously made with tongue in cheek, your comparison between Fr Gouder and Karl Marx is slightly fanciful: I find it difficult to imagine the single-minded conviction of the mild- mannered monsignor wreaking the same kind of havoc in human life and history that the single-minded and failed theories of Marx did.
I certainly agree with you that divorce is not and cannot be the only and major cause of the mess within the ‘sexual and social landscape of contemporary Western societies’ - though landscape is a sociologically neutral word that I would gladly qualify with devastated. But if not the only cause, it is certainly not an insignificant contributing cause: if it is responsible for a ‘ a fifth of the rise in marital breakdowns over the last half century’ that is no mean statistic, as you may readily appreciate.
Lina Caruana
Sep 2nd 2010, 12:06
Very little has been discussed about divorce holistically.The pro divorce present the picture of two people and their children separating happily, legislation to sort out their finances and expenses. Nothing is said about the party who would not have wanted to divorce, the guilty party who may need to be made more responsible for his/her actions than paying for his/her lack of responsibilities from public funding. As if all divorcees are members of a good income class with plenty of money and property which can be divided with no one left deprived . They do not seem to be aware of tears shed by families especially children who will be missing parents or in laws deprived of grandchildren because of the many divisions of time they will have to endure traveling from house to house.Certainly a bad marriage is excruciating . But are we really assessing the pros and cons? And then it is highly improbable to make everybody happy with legislation because each case is different. Unfortunately we have become desensitized to family sentiment so delicate and fragile , by dragging out its intimate privacy for scrutiny under the cold lens of "objective consanguinity"
patrick zammit
Sep 2nd 2010, 13:17
1) "The pro divorce present the picture of two people and their children separating happily, legislation to sort out their finances and expenses."
Divorce is as happy as a separation or an annulment.
2) "Nothing is said about the party who would not have wanted to divorce, the guilty party who may need to be made more responsible for his/her actions than paying for his/her lack of responsibilities from public funding."
Also, nothing is said about this when there is a separation or annulment.
Josephine Bugeja
Sep 2nd 2010, 14:33
Lina Caruana, like all anti-divorcists, refuses to see that all consequences of divorce are exactly the same as those resulting from separation. In Malta, divorce already exists - it's called personal separation. The peculiarity of divorce a la maltaise is that it denies re-marriage. Maltese divorce denies a universally-recognized right and denies the chance to try and find happiness in a new marriage. The existence of this right is not put in doubt or discussed anywhere in the world except in Malta because, in common with all other rights, it is held to be self-evident and not open for debate. Maltese divorce is inhumanity disguised as social concern. The fact is that anti-divorcists are against divorce for purely Catholic religious reasons and they want to impose their religious convictions on non-believers. They maskerade as do-gooders when they are, infact, dictators who would impose their will on others were it in their power to do so as in the times of the Inquisition. Unfortunately, even some politicians are among these maskeraders - such politicians should let politics alone or should learn the meaning of democracy. The denial of rights is inconsonant with democracy.
Joe Zammit
Sep 2nd 2010, 10:35
On the latest survey on living and income conditions released by the National Statistics Office, a pessimist would say 7 per cent of marriages have failed. An optimist would be satisfied that 93 per cent of marriages are still going steady. A realist looks at both and tries to help failed marriages to heal and steady marriages to become stronger.
Only 7 per cent of marriages have failed and some of these do not want divorce.
Raymond Camilleri
Sep 2nd 2010, 12:07
so!? so what?
Josephine Bugeja
Sep 2nd 2010, 12:23
The usual stock replies from Joe Zammit. How do you help "failed marriages"? If they are "failed", it means they are beyond repair. That's the logic which constantly evades Joe Zammit. Mr. Zammit seems not to have ever been married himself and, if my conclusions based on his recent posts are correct, is a member of a lay religious organization that imposes celibacy and chastity on its members. Hardly good qualifications for anyone to dogmatize on divorce and sexual matters.
Dr. Fsadni's article is good and considers many points in a rational and reasonable manner. I do not agree that we should continue debating, though, as far as divorce enactment is concerned. The subject has been debated to the point of exhaustion. It is time to act and legislate if we're not to continue being the laughing stock of Europe and the world. The present sanctimonious government lacks spine and seems interested only in its survival and permanence in power (with all the material avantages this entails to some) and the potential government still lacks clear and unequivocal commitment. Divorce has certainly helped to show Maltese politicians for what they are.
Joe Zammit
Sep 2nd 2010, 16:44
Josephine, divorce is first and foremost a religious topic. God has created us and God has created the institution of marriage. So he has the right to make the rules on marriage. He does not want divorce for our own good. So it's useless trying to argue and bring forth false reasons to justify divorce. Divorce is evil for me, for you and for the whole of society, including for those in broken marriages. If your marriage has failed there are only two solutions: either try to repair it or live separated from the other spouse. But you cannot enter into another relationship. Another relationship is adultery, condemned by God. And so you can't justify it absolutely.
patrick zammit
Sep 2nd 2010, 18:44
"God has created the institution of marriage." Again, not true. Humans started families long before the idea of a god took hold and longer still before the arrival of J Christ. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage For most of European history, marriage was more or less a business agreement between two families who arranged the marriages of their children. From the early Christian era (30 to 325 CE), marriage was thought of as primarily a private matter,[citation needed] with no uniform religious or other ceremony being required.
C Cini
Sep 3rd 2010, 01:30
@ Patrick Zammit.
If God created all human beings even the first one who was before J Christ, therefore how you dare to say that marriage was not created by God since he created then man and woman. Does it mean marriage for you, the cermony or private matter only? If for you is like that I m sorry to say what a lack of knowlegde you have.
patrick zammit
Sep 4th 2010, 12:08
C Cini
"If God created all human beings"
You have started your argument with an assumption.