Mainly drivel in anti divorce debate

OMG we have another two weeks of having to put up with all the drivel about the forthcoming referendum on divorce. I do not posses a doctorate and did not go to university, but reading all the tosh being bandied about by people who have supposedly reached a high level of education and form part of our professional class I am thinking that there is lot to be said for the university of life.

“When you live abroad, like I did, you realise that divorce is contagious... If your sister divorces, you have a bigger chance for divorce...Studies abroad showed how many marriages would have been saved had there not been the divorce option,” Anna Vella a medical doctor (lawyers are also called doctors here) and president of the Cana Movement, reportedly said on a TVM debate.

Hopefully, such claptrap does not spill over in her medical advice. I also lived abroad (London) for over 25 years and I never came across divorce as a contagious disease. In contrast to the Cana Movements’ founder Mgr Charles Vella she is obviously terrified by divorce.

The “Yes” to Divorce has put an interview (that has apparently been banned from appearing on our local TV stations) with Mgr Vella on Norman Hamilton’s Bla Agenda on You Tube and it is doing the rounds on Facebook.

On it, the Monsignor says, “I am not scared by divorce. The fact that divorce is available does not mean the end of the Catholic marriage. I am saying this with my hands on my heart and a clear conscience...).

He carried on saying, “as the founder of the Cana Movement, I will fight to the death to save a marriage, but I cannot ignore the plight of the many separated and divorced couples who come to see me and who are suffering. They are still part of Christ’s Church and we have to look after them.”

I would surmise from this that he also does not agree that voting for divorce is a sin, which is yet another babaw tactic being promoted by other priests. As for the nonsense, “if your sister divorces you have a bigger chance for divorce”, which Dr Vella (not to be confused with the Mgr) spouted, expanding on her “contagious” theory, on the latest TV debate, that would mean that if your sister decides to end it all by jumping off the bastions you have a bigger chance to join the suicide ranks. What utter claptrap.

And this was supposed to be a serious debate on our national TV station. No wonder I have long given up watching it. And what about the “Studies abroad” that showed the “no divorce” option “saved marriages”? Which studies exactly? Is this how Dr Vella argues at a medical presentation?

Now in my limited line of ‘expertise’ if something needs saving it must be in trouble and whether divorce is available or not that ‘turbulence’ is not going to disappear.
Anyway, how exactly does the no to divorce option save a marriage? The no to divorce option is not a guarantee that a marriage that has hit the rocks will miraculously stay whole.

Deborah Schembri, appearing for the “Yes” lobby quite rightly accused Dr Vella for ridiculing the debate when the latter said her movement "believed in a lasting marriage, and not a state where people stay together until you are a size 10".
My first reaction to that quote, when I saw it on Alex Saliba’s FB post, shared by Josanne Cassar, was, “No wonder they are worried”, the anti divorce women that is, because let’s face it very few women stay a size 10 for long and a stroll down any major pedestrian walkway will tell you that many women have not only gone beyond a size10 but are verging on the obese.

But seriously, this is yet another tactic meant to scare the women who lack confidence and most of all brains. And what does it say about our men? That they will all leave their marriage if divorce is introduced as soon as the waistline starts to give? On their wives of course, cause theirs doesn’t matter!

And what about the men who married big women because they like their women that way? I suppose those could have a lasting marriage despite divorce.
And what about the rest? There was I thinking that a stable marriage was based on love and respect yet the anti-divorce brigade think it is all very shallow and is all about the woman’s waistline.

Family lawyer Bernard Grech also speaking for the anti-divorce movement made a telling comment. It was reported that he spoke out against the concept of no fault divorce, saying “spouses could walk out of a marriage without reason or control... rendering marriage a loose tie.”

Control is the operative and significant word here. So according to the anti-divorce lot, marriage is all about control and being restrained. But surely a stable marriage is all about two people enjoying each other’s company, not being forced to endure it. Married people are adults and should not need to be ‘controlled’ or ‘restrained’ by the state to stay in a marriage they want out of.

He also warned, according to the report, “that the law as proposed would impose divorce without reason and erode Malta's ‘heritage’ of long-term commitment in marriage.”

Impose Divorce? Does he mean if one partner wants a divorce and the other doesn’t? Why would one partner want to stay in a marriage that the other wants out of? To my mind that spells unhappiness and instability all round, including the children.

Ah yes, the children. In another debate, not on the telly this time, Arthur Galea Salamone, from “Marriage without divorce” , was the pot calling the kettle black. He criticised the “Yes” campaign for using children in their billboards, while urging those voting on the 28 May to keep children in mind when voting on the introduction of divorce. And his movement carries the slogan ” T o g e t h e r f o r o u r C h i l d r e n ” .

Then of course we had the Children's Commissioner, no less, making such a hash of her argument against divorce. Although she claimed she was not taking sides. Helen D'Amato proclaimed she did not believe divorce would solve problems for children from broken families.

Well it does rather depend on the problems doesn’t it? Echoing A n d r e C a m i l l e r i, she said studies had shown that the introduction of divorce led to a decline in marriages and rise in cohabitation and children born outside wedlock.

On the one hand she conceded, “the issue was complex and the reality was that children from broken marriages suffered and it did not make a difference whether the cause was separation, annulment or divorce.”

On the other, she quoted excerpts from a study, which showed that 10 per cent of children, from families who were together, were at risk of having mental health problems but the number increased to 25 per cent for children from divorced families.

So does it make a difference or not? “Beware of divorce, it can drive your kids crazy”, is the implication of her statement on the study. She has been criticised for not giving the conclusions of the study and misrepresenting it by one of the study’s authors.

Ms D’Amato kept stating the obvious, i.e. that children are best off in a stable family, (Do we need a Children’s Commissioner to tell us that?) but amused me when she said she was annoyed by the two extreme views that gave the impression divorce would either save or destroy all children, when she herself had given a dire predicament for children if divorce was made available.