The main problem with the divorce debate is that a discussion that should have taken about 10 minutes has been stretched out to months and years.

There really isn’t very much to say for or against and most of the bombardment can be boiled down to Provisions for the Termination of Contract vs What Jesus Wants. The rest is spin, yawns, and fabulous helpings of nonsense.

Take the billboards, starting with the Divorceless Marriage kind. First things first. The movement (no pun intended) deserves a healthy cheer for its exquisite taste in timepieces.

Single-hand clocks boast an impeccable pedigree and are nowadays manufactured by a precious handful of artisanal companies. Really, goes to show to what heights of excellence eternal marital bliss (or its close cousin, celibacy) can raise one.

Pity we can’t say the same of the rest of the billboard’s content, at least not unless we prize sleight of hand and downright deceit. That, or the movement has its categories jumbled.

The billboard conflates marriage in general with broken marriages. It quite rightly points out that most people would say ‘No thank you’ to an abstract model of temporary marriage. I have yet to meet someone who decided to get married for a while, so to say.

Only divorce is not meant for marriage in the abstract but rather particular marriages that haven’t worked. That is to say there are actually two clocks. The one brought to us by the pink (risky colour if you’re talking ‘traditional marriage’) billboards is not about ‘żwieġ’ at all. I find it hard to believe that lawyers and media lecturers can’t tell the difference.

What about the pro-divorce billboards? I’ll be blunt: I think they’re dumb, far dumber in fact than the single-hand clock. I really can’t imagine what Deborah Schembri and co. were thinking when they came up with such nonsense. I suspect the strain of going on TV every other day to state the obvious is taking its toll.

Let’s start with the woman and her black eye. ‘What if she were your daughter, would you give her another chance?’, the billboard whines. This really plays into the opposition’s hands. I’m sure I’ve heard someone somewhere say that divorce would also give the man who punched her another chance – and yet another, and so on to a string of black-eyed ex-wives. In a similar version, remarriage would put the good eye at some risk.

The argument is silly but no sillier than the billboard. Truth is that domestic violence and divorce are different species altogether. ‘Other chance’ or not, the matter is that some people are unfortunate enough to find themselves living with partners whose boxing careers took the wrong turn.

Happens in Malta as well as in places where the right to get a divorce is unquestioned.

I also think that using the argument from domestic violence to root for divorce quite defeats the basic rationale of the Yes camp. Which is, or should be, that a couple who for whatever reason feel they wish to move on should be able to do so in a regulated and mature way.

It would be busy days indeed for ophthalmologists if people took the Black Eye = Right to Divorce equation to its logical end. That leaves us with two gems, the ‘poġġuti’ and the ‘bgħula’ – brought to dovetail with the divorce movement’s claim that divorce would ‘eliminate the social stigma of illegitimacy’.

Really, what in Heaven’s name is this about? There are about four people left in Malta who think that poġġuti beget bgħula.

They probably also think that throwing stones at sodomites is terrific fun, that the għaġuża (hag) and her cat burn best over a slow fire, and that the choice on May 28 will be whether or not Malta G.C. should go for Integration with Great Britain.

Reminds me of when someone (the name escapes me but it had to do with the hereditary peers business of the 1990s) said in the House of Commons that the Duke of Buccleuch among others owes his pedigree to a bastard son of Charles II.

Raised eyebrows all round, as you might expect given the unlikely cocktail of archaic language and Blairite middle-class notions.

The divorce movement’s choice of words was probably a calculated one and intended to shock. It does, for the wrong reasons. It amazes me that lawyers and politicians who meet hundreds of people every day should so misread the signs of the times and labour under the impression that cohabitation and illegitimacy are socially unacceptable. And that we need legislation to stop us from calling people poġġuti and bgħula.

Happily, there no longer is such a thing as a social stigma of illegitimacy, let alone cohabitation.

‘Illegitimate’ children go to school and do whatever else children do, quite as normal. Their parents are not ostracised from social circles and being a ‘poġġut’ doesn’t necessarily mean your neighbours nick your gas cylinder from your doorstep or poison your puppy.

Indeed I would have thought the whole point the divorce movement is trying to make is that it’s high time Maltese law caught up with contemporary family structures.

The bizarre thing about Malta today is not its poġġuti and bgħula but its legions of people who live average lives in a legal limbo.

Hand on heart I’m sober: the best billboards I’ve seen so far are the ones put up by the Żebbuġ parish priest. Nothing could be simpler or more coherent than ‘God does not want divorce’.

The only problem that slogan raises is a theological one and has to do with the omnipotence of the Almighty.

But then Fr Daniel Cardona will have figured, rightly, that his flock will have put that behind them, certainly until May 28.

mafalzon@hotmail.com