We all build fences around us because these outline and defend our own identities. States are unthinkable without their borders. Where groups of states have decided to soften their borders with each other, like in the EU, these have drawn a more rigid outer border. Even laws could be understood as fences, defining the rights of individuals and protecting values and goods from going down the drain.

Fences could isolate but they could also build a sanctuary of protection enabling life to grow in quality within agreed boundaries. The marriage laws constitute such a fence. A man and a woman, with their own limitations, agree to shift their individual fences to encompass their married life. Society and the state acknowledge and protect this new fence around the married couple without intruding in the inner sphere of its life. What the divorce law is proposing sounds like a partial removal of this fence around married life. But it is effectively more. It lowers the fence for all and sundry, something the pro-divorce group is negating all the time.

What is the true significance of a fence if it could be unilaterally dismantled by one of the spouses? Just imagine a piece of land where a dividing wall is pulled down by one of the parties. The dividing wall ceases to exist as a dividing wall. Does it alter much if both spouses agree to dismantle their common fence? Seen in isolation, it does not change a lot. With or without an outer fence, a house on Filfla remains isolated. But seen in the texture of a whole society, the partial removal of a substantial number of fences makes a big difference. It creates a completely new landscape in many ways.

First, it renders living off the fence inoffensive, introducing a sense of anything goes. As a society we understand we cannot open our borders for all. When somebody enters our shores without due authorisation we deem such behaviour offensive and asylum is granted only to a minority of individuals, even though we feel all refugees are in great distress. It is the protection of a common good which is at stake and not the stigmatisation of the unauthorised.

Furthermore, fences and borders call for due respect. It is no coincidence we are called to identify ourselves at borders to prove we are crossing in good faith. When we step on the doorsteps of our hosts’ house we all show that amount of respect and admiration for the host family and hope for an enriching exchange. We do not appreciate guests who do not show respect to our house and who come and go whenever they like or guests that steal into our privacy.

Fences cushion mainstream inclinations. Not all that glistens is gold even though modern advertising has found its ways even in the remotest places. As a country, we have very limited resources and cannot afford to make the same mistakes as others. Marriage is not just a romantic fix. Divorce is not the must-have as it is portrayed by its supporters. Nor is it the enviable status of prominent individuals as promoted by tabloids and film stars.

Fences guarantee a certain degree of sovereignty. In a way, marriage remains a vast area that is still uncharted by laws. Laws come in at its beginning and at the end. Laws regarding domestic violence came in very late and where domestic violence appears it often leads to the end of the marriage in question. In view of this, it is strange that some are calling for divorce in order to restore public order as if remarriage in this case were to be some re-entry into the spheres of law and order. State powers have many other ways how to regulate clandestine partnerships, especially for those who have shown they cannot cope with the freedoms given them inside the fence of marriage.

Finally, fences invite for a deeper approach in life and for very intensive relationships. I know of widows who refrain from marrying again because they still feel very much in touch with their departed spouse. On the other hand, there are those who refrain from deepening their relations. In terms of their relationship with their spouses, they are borderline cases, moving along and sometimes over the fence and their life is characterised as emotionally unstable and disordered. Needless to say, allowing such persons to remarry would only extend this disorder.