Matthew Bonanno on the reasoning behind the divorce saga, and how statistics are becoming another form of religion

Truth be told I would’ve preferred not to write an article on divorce, mainly because so much has been written that it’s difficult to say something that hasn’t been said already, and frankly I’m fed up with the whole ‘debate’ (bigger inverted commas have rarely been needed so badly). In fact I may be writing this too late, since the Nationalist Party is shamelessly doing its damnedest to scupper any chance of a referendum, a referendum which it had mooted in the first place. Not that I ever thought a referendum was a great way to decide on a civil right which won’t affect the whole of society, but if you can’t rely on your members of parliament to ensure people’s right to potential happiness, you have to take what you can get. Now we’re probably going to get nothing. Another reason why I was reluctant to write anything was that I think that most people are firmly decided one way or another on this particular issue, and it would be hard to persuade them to change their minds. This is also the reason why I think the Pro-Divorce Movement have a tough job on their hands, but more on that later.

I believe that some fears which people have over divorce are justified, but can also be countered with rational arguments and by dismissing the fear-mongering. There is of course one rather big exception, and that is the religious reason i.e. that divorce is bad because God says so. It is an exception because the nature of religion makes it impossible to reason with, and for this reason I refuse to even try. Actually, I’ll just ask one question to the people who oppose divorce on religious grounds: Do you oppose divorce for civil marriages too? If the answer is yes, what right do you have to do this?

As a politician your first duty is not to your god, but to the people who you represent, and not all of these people are Catholic, and not even all Catholics believe that God frowns upon divorce. I despise most contemporary pop music with a passion, but this does not mean I have a right to ban it. If I did ban it, I could claim that I was doing so for the greater musical good, but this would be wrong. I was pleased to read in yesterday’s Sunday Times a quote by Mario de Marco: “This is not so much a matter of what my belief on the subject is but whether I can, or should, impose my opinion on others.” Other MPs please take note.

While questioning my own views on divorce, I’ve often thought: Say my parents have a series of arguments or something else happens which makes it unbearable for them to continue being together. Without the availability of divorce they may try harder to work things out, but if divorce is introduced, perhaps they might make less of an effort to stay together.  But this is both a selfish and flawed way of reasoning. Selfish because it is my parents’  lives and they can’t stay together just because I want them to, and flawed because, if being together was so unbearable they would nonetheless separate. This way of thinking, that divorce causes marital breakdown, reminds me of the lyrics from the White Stripes song Effect and Cause: ‘I didn’t rob a bank because you made up the law’…’You can’t take the effect and make it the cause.’

The main difference between separation and divorce is that divorce allows remarriage, and one of the main arguments against divorce is that it has negative effects on children. This I believe to be the most natural and instinctive argument against divorce, and one with largely good intentions. A related concern that people have is that we’ll end up “like the rest of Europe”, a somewhat condescending and arrogant comment implying that because some families abroad are fragmented, with people bringing up children who aren’t biologically theirs, then everyone is miserable, confused and mentally disturbed, and more pertinently, that we are by default happier and better than them. As other commentators have noted, there is a certain hypocrisy in wanting to be part of Europe so badly, and then saying that their societies have collapsed and that they’re basically deluded. Has anyone actually bothered to ask the children (and here I’m mainly referring to older children) of separated couples for their opinions on the matter? I’m not trying to brush off the difficulties that children no doubt have adjusting to living with the new partner and children of a subsequent marriage, but I think that this would be the lesser of two evils.

Then of course there is that greatest among conservative fall-backs – ‘family values’. Ask a  diehard conservative to define family families, and to give a definition of what ‘the family’ actually is, and they usually struggle to provide an adequate answer. Also, the PN claim that they are safeguarding the family. Aside from opposing divorce, what else are they doing to help families to stay together? Also, surely if the PN is so pro-family, then it should encourage the creation of more families after existing ones have fallen apart.

Several politicians, amongst them Eddie Fenech Adami, who seems to be completely averse to divorce but who apparently doesn’t have any problems with annulments, have said that the well-being of society is more important than the individual. Let us assume that this is true (I don’t think it always is). So if an individual, or rather a couple (see, already a problem with the argument) wants to get divorced, then they can’t because society comes first. But if a few individuals want to impose their religious beliefs, which they got from a 2000 year old book as preached by celibate people who have never been married, onto the whole of society, then that’s fine and dandy.

At this point you may be thinking, “but the anti-divorce movement is not using religious arguments to justify their stance.” True, but it seems to me that the Anti-Divorce movement is turning statistics into another form of religion i.e. something that is not to be questioned. “If the statistics say X is true, then it must be true”, they seem to be saying. Firstly, statistics, that is raw data, have to be interpreted, and one has to be literate in statistical analysis in order to interpret statistics properly (I was tempted to say “except in our country, where everyone is an expert”, but this is common with foreign tabloid newspapers as well). Secondly, despite being a scientific endeavour, a research study can still be biased. The best example of this is when in the 1960s studies were used to prove that cigarettes are not bad for your health. Thirdly, statistics are not fully conclusive  For every one study that says divorce is detrimental to society, there may be five that say the exact opposite, or vice versa. Finally, statistics obtained in one country or culture might not be applicable to another. Statistics are important in order to make a more informed decision, but should not be the be all and end all. As Maltatoday put it in a headline referring to a debate on RTK, the debate is drowning in a sea of statistics and religion. In this case I think the religion is Statistics itself.

Furthermore, is it then just a coincidence that the countries who don’t have divorce yet, namely Malta and the Philippines, as well as the countries where it was introduced comparatively late, such as Italy, Spain and Ireland, are all predominantly Catholic? No, of course this isn’t about religion.

I think that the main danger that the Pro-Divorce Movement faces is preaching to the converted. They need to find out what normal people actually know about divorce, and then put their minds at rest. I also think that they can afford to be a bit more aggressive in their efforts. They need to persuade.

Finally, I admit that when divorce is eventually introduced, and it will be, I’ll find it strange to celebrate it, because the act of divorce in itself is not a positive thing. However, what is cause for celebration is the fact that people will be given another chance to achieve happiness if their marriages do fail, and this in itself is another step to secularism by nature and not just by name.