It seems that both the pro- and anti-divorce movements have embarked on a mission to shoot themselves in the foot, competing with each other to see which of them can put up the most offensive, illogical or bland billboard.

So after months of debate, reams of column inches about the topic and the unintentional hilarity of the online exchanges which rendered the greater part of the thinking public comatose with boredom, the great Divorce Debate began in earnest.

And for a country which doesn’t set much store by rational discussion, there could be no better way of conducting this all-important debate than by converting it into a billboard battle.

That’s because billboards are eye-catching, easy to understand and have more emotional punch than any article about the topic could have. Or rather, that is what effective billboards should be like.

The ones we are landed with lack these characteristics. They range from the completely unremarkable to the ones which have precisely the opposite effect to that intended.

Take the initial offerings by the anti-divorce movement. The very first billboard consisted of a shocking pink backdrop to a ticking clock with the words ‘Zwieġ li Jiskadi? Le Grazzi’ (Marriage with an expiry date? No thanks).

I don’t know what bright spark came up with this billboard design, but you can’t get more anodyne than this. It might as well be an advert for a novelty clock or for the countdown to a summer concert. Even the message it is trying to push home is not very clear or credible.

The designers of the billboard would like to have us believe that if divorce legislation is enacted, marriages will automatically dissolve once the four-year limit is up.

But this is misleading. Even those people who support stable and permanent marriages know that the introduction of divorce legislation does not mean that all spouses will be obliged to file for divorce.

The existence of legislation does not necessarily mean everybody will avail themselves of it.

Perhaps this billboard is meant to appeal to those who fear that divorce legislation will usher in a mentality where marriage is considered to be a temporary and non-binding contract. I can’t say I don’t sympathise with this view.

The thought that one’s marriage may not last is a frightening one and the people may hope that the unavailability of divorce in Malta may somehow make it harder for people to leave their spouses.

However, the incidence of marriage breakdown is not dependent on legislation, but on a number of other factors including the fact that people prize individual happiness far more than in the past. To paraphrase the ‘guns don’t kill people, people do’ motto of the American gun lobby, ‘divorce laws don’t break up marriages, people do’.

By way of further blandness, the anti-divorce movement also gave us the ‘Flimkien Għal Uliedna’ billboard, featuring a smiling nuclear family unit. The underlying message is that the family unit should be protected.

So far, so unremarkable. I think there’s general agreement on that, but this aim – however admirable and widely shared – will not be attained by opposing the introduction of divorce legislation, but by attempting to tackle the underlying reasons for marriage breakdown.

If the anti-divorce movement has claimed the prize for the most uninspiring billboard campaign, the pro-divorce lobby wins that for the most tasteless and off putting billboards.

Their juxtaposing the face of a young girl with the words, ‘Poġġuti bilfors u wliedna bgħula’ (Forced to cohabit, our children are bastards) may have been intended to shock people into reacting but are more likely to be counterproductive.

Here’s why: Those people who are separated and have children out of wedlock and mind about the social status of their children will vote for the introduction of divorce to be able to regularise their union and their children’s status. They do not require any convincing. If anything, the use of the pejorative (and not so widely used) term ‘bastards’ to describe their children, will only serve to annoy them.

There’s another thing too. The law does not allow for any form of discrimination between children born in wedlock, and those who are not. The stigma – if one can call it that – that attaches to the state of illegitimacy, is of a social nature.

As more children are born out of wedlock and people become less judgmental, the term bgħula as a form of insult has fallen into disuse. It is unlikely that the introduction of divorce legislation, allowing cohabiting couples to marry, will stop people intent on calling others ‘bastards’ from doing so.

The lack of legislation is not the problem here, the retrograde attitude of people is, so the pro-divorce movement shouldn’t try to play the faux victim card here.

The same kind of play on the emotions is found in the billboard depicting a woman with a black eye with the tagline: ‘If this was your daughter, would you give her a second chance?’ The answer to that is quite clear. Which parent wouldn’t want his child to have a second turn at the wheel?

But again, divorce legislation has little to do with saving women (or men for that matter) from being the victims of domestic violence. The absence of such legislation does not mean abused spouses have to remain put, at the receiving end of more violent acts. This obvious fact has not stopped the pro-divorce lobby from using this misleading image to tug on the heart strings.

The billboards – like much of the debate – are no longer about the issue of whether divorce legislation should be available for all, and not only those who can take up residence temporarily in a foreign jurisdiction – but about a host of unrelated issues, emotional blackmail and guilt induction. So very typical of us.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt