Former President Ugo Mifsud Bonnici yesterday said he was strongly against divorce because the State should not reward people who get into new unions while they are still married.
“It’s one thing to make a mistake or try in one’s conscience to find another solution in life, but for the State or the whole country to say you did well and recognise a new union while you are still married, is very harmful,” he said, during a political discussion in Tarxien to mark the 25th anniversary of the party’s club.
Dr Mifsud Bonnici downplayed the often quoted idea of a couple being “incompatible”, saying no couples are compatible and marriage reveals stark differences between spouses.“My wife and I like to do different things. We like to eat different things and have different interests,” he said, adding, however, that a couple had to make an effort to stay together.
Dr Mifsud Bonnici said he was “almost ashamed” that his country was on the way to introducing this law.
“One of the values of this nation is the principle of keeping to one’s word. How can we make a law for people not to keep their word? God forbid that when a man gets old, he chooses a new younger wife... We are dismantling one of the pillars of society,” he said, to loud applause.
He said it was “ridiculous” to take a vow of marriage for life and then water it down to four years.“As this law is proposing, the priest should ask: do you take this person for four years?” Although he said people should not “judge” those who freely decide not to live together any longer, society must be interested in “the rules”.
“And the rules should remain the same,” he asserted. He also criticised the referendum question as “unclear”, saying even those in favour of divorce should vote against it.
Meanwhile, former President Eddie Fenech Adami reiterated his stand against a referendum on such a “moral and ethical” issue. He said issues of principle like this should not be decided by the majority, and MPs should therefore not be bound by the public’s decision, particularly if the decision was “morally incorrect”.
“The European Union referendum was extremely important but it was not an issue of ethics or morals,” he said, adding that in the case of a divorce referendum no MP should be forced to vote against his or her conscience.
However, he said a referendum result should not be ignored, so “obviously, there will be consequences” for those MPs who vote against the will of the majority.
The divorce issue, he added, was raised through “political disloyalty” because an MP (Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando) put forward a Private Members’ Bill on such a controversial and moral issue behind everyone’s back, including his own party and its leader.
Asked about how values were changing on the island, Dr Fenech Adami said:
“I am very alarmed about the way our country is being dragged... we form part of the world so we receive all opinions. Among them is relativism: everyone thinks they are capable of deciding for themselves on everything. And I think this is bad for society, and it is showing.”
He said the country’s values were going downhill but the freedom to choose between different values made people more convinced of their beliefs and are not simply doing so because of tradition.