An insult to humanity

Sadly, it has been a characteristic of the pro-divorce lobby during the referendum campaign to accuse the Church of conducting a “crusade” when its own treatment of the serious question we have been asked to consider has shown many more signs of crusading. At the drop of every hat, a certain hysteria possessed this lobby to the extent that wherever it saw a mote in the eyes of its opponents, this highlighted the plank in its own.

You could be forgiven to think – take the example of the billboard showing a woman with blackened eyes, a victim of violence – that the yes lobby was campaigning not for no-fault divorce but for fault divorce. The dishonesty in that particular billboard was not so much the message it attempted to transmit. Rather, it was the implication that divorce could, or would, put a stop to domestic violence. This was a demonstrably false assertion.

But, of course, the greatest failure in the pro-divorce campaign was its inability to explain or, more specifically, its refusal to show that the very concept of divorce-on-a-whim was intrinsically deceitful; to prove that this no-fault business was anything better than frivolous. Not only did the concept make out marriage as an institution to be bartered against time, it made marriage out to be a frivolous pastime.

The truth is that once a vow has been cheapened out of existence it becomes clear that a second vow, and a third, and the Elizabeth Taylor-style of changing partners, even cheaper. There is no guarantee that the second vow will turn out to be any more solemn and much to show that it will be even less binding.

In the name of freedom and personal autonomy, it has been argued that this does not matter when it is clear to all but the myopic that it matters very much – in social terms, in societal terms, in terms of vow-keeping, once regarded by society as the gravest responsibility the taker of the vow has ever undertaken. That is one principle that no-fault divorce regards as expendable and if a vow can be expendable what is there that cannot be?

That extraordinary man, G. K. Chesterton, philosopher and man of letters – possibly the most striking intellect of the 20th century – once remarked with characteristic directness that the vow made most freely must be the vow kept most firmly. On Saturday, we are being asked a hare-brained question. It behoves us not to give a flippant answer, not least because the future of Maltese society is at stake. In our favour and to help us avoid frivolity, we would do well to see how other societies have been affected by a shallow regard for marriage.

In the United States, in the United Kingdom, in a number of European countries that have opened the floodgate to societal incoherence, there are moves to shore up busted dams. British Prime Minister David Cameron entertains little doubt that the society over which he governs is a fractured one – and that the easy dissolution of marriage has contributed not a little to the brokenness that characterise British society – from teenage pregnancy to rootless children to an increase in the number of cohabiting couples.

It is not a myth but a verifiable statistic pretty well in every European country that divorce has not led to a decrease in that number, on the contrary, nor to any stability in an institution that requires a man and a woman to form the state without which the very idea of statehood comes under assault. It is clear that the destruction of such a state must bode ill, very ill, to members of society within the greater, but less natural, state.

There are two interpretations, one given by Pope John Paul II, the other from an unsurprising source that may well be quoted here. The first, Blessed John Paul’s, does not even assert a religious connotation but a human fact and holds that “the fear of making permanent commitments can change the mutual love of husband and wife into two loves of self… two loves existing side by side, until they end in separation”.

The second, an eminently secular one, comes from the actress Catherine Deneuve and makes an honest point. “I don’t see any reason for marriage when there is divorce.” This is what countless couples have also decided. Why bother with an institution, once considered sacred, when a more profane one is available – divorce on demand?

The state is rapidly taking over the family. What protection will the family have as it is weakened by its enemies? We have worked back to the start of the 20th century when the Soviet state decreed that the family – and religion – had to be eliminated. Many western societies have come to the same conclusion. This we cannot want.