The effects of divorce

Labour MP Evarist Bartolo and Labour candidate Deborah Schembri, who formed part of the pro-divorce camp, were reported to have said (May 29) that, one year on, Malta had not seen the disaster predicted by those opposed to divorce.

Without going into the merits of whether the introduction of divorce was beneficial or detrimental, I wish to comment on the significance of this statement.

There is a myriad of organisms that we do not see but which are there nonetheless. The only reason we do not see them is that we do not normally avail ourselves of the requisite instruments.

The point here is that if something is not seen this may say a lot about the instruments we are using to try and observe it but very little about whether it exists or not.

Moreover, if I were to look through a microscope and see some of these organisms, I would not know what to make of them because I have not been trained for this.

Therefore, while seeing them may be important, the sight of them would be useless if the observer is not competent to diagnose what he or she is seeing.

A third consideration is time. If I were to take up smoking I doubt that one would notice much difference in my health one year on but certainly this is not a good reason to take up smoking.

Therefore, whether we see the disaster predicted by those opposed to divorce or not depends very much on how well equipped we are to make our observations, how competent we are to diagnose them and how long it takes for any effects – beneficial or detrimental – to manifest themselves.

Finally, we should bear well in mind that some tests can be destructive.

If I wanted to know whether a certain substance is good or bad for my health I could find out by imbibing it. Unfortunately, if it is poisonous, finding this out would not be of much use to me! If it is not poisonous I should consider myself fortunate but, still, no less foolish!

As I wrote before, this is not in any way meant to attack or promote the divorce legislation but to reflect on the quality of the two individuals mentioned earlier.

I confess to finding it terribly wanting.