The Divorce debate
Malta may soon be the isolated exception in the world wide divorce debate if Liza Maza, a member of the Phillippines House of Representatives, gets her way. Maza is pushing a divorce bill that has sparked a strong reaction from the Catholic church. This latest initiative may have failed it's first congress test but the pro-divorce momentum in the Phillippines is taking shape. From Karl Wilson of Agence France-Presse via the Phillipine Daily Inquirer:
It is the last nation on earth, besides the tiny Mediterranean island state of Malta, where divorce is not legal. And, like contraception, the issue is seldom openly discussed for fear of incurring the wrath of the Catholic Church which still holds considerable influence over the country's politics and government. But with a growing number of women demanding the right to divorce in the archipelago nation, the controversial subject is now back on the political agenda.
Left-wing congresswoman, Liza Maza, on Thursday published a bill for the legalization of divorce, and in doing so ignited another bitter debate on the issue. The last attempt to legalize divorce in the Philippines was made during the last Congress (2001-2004). Despite being well drafted the bill died on the Congress floor without a vote. The Church is already on the counter attack describing Maza's bill as "anti-women."
Archbishop Oscar Cruz, a past president of the Catholic Bishops Conference on the Philippines, was quoted recently saying that divorce "strikes at the social standing" of women in the country.
Women's groups, however, see the church's views on divorce as being outdated and out of step with the realities of life in the 21st century. Last year Chile, after a bitter eight-year fight by the Catholic Church, managed to overturn a 120-year-old ban on divorce. Ireland, another staunch Catholic nation, legalised divorce in 1997 while Spain managed to change its law in 1981. The Philippines is now braced for a similar battle.
Interview with Liza Maza
Forbidding Divorce - Wired Temples
This story was also noticed by the Bad Thinking blog
Public opinion survey in Malta on divorce and abortion by Mario Vassallo
posted by Robert Micallef at 3/20/2005 11:42:00 PM
I'm Gerald Diño, a law student from the Philippines. I'm currently researching on the probability of the legalization of divorce here in the Philippines. I've learned that our country (Malta and the Philippines) are the only states that have no divorce law. I'm saddened by this fact. I think, despite the serious efforts of our lady legislator, Liza Maza, her actions would still fail. The biggest obstacle in our situation is the heavy influence of the Roman Catholic Church in policy and lawmaking decisions. Although there's a separation of state and church in this country, it's not being religiously followed. If Philippines would fail, I hope Malta will shed some light on our lawmakers, if Malta would be successful in legalizing divorce.
Afterwards effect of Divorce in other countries:
A study effected by Dr. Patricia Morgan, a British Criminologist in her most important report stated that after effecting a lot of studies in U.K. and again also in the United States of America discovered a clear link between the braking-up of families and criminality. National Development Study held in the U.K. In the year 1975 on 18,000 young children before they became sixteen years, the majority had already appeared before the court for some criminal offence. The result on boys was as follows:-
8 % those who lived with natural parents (divorced)
16 % coming from single mothers.
19 % coming from women living with another man (divorced or separated)
70 % of those in prison came from families without a natural father (broken families)
As we all know from news on television or newspapers that criminality in the Britain had increased enormously, especially when divorce was introduced. The reason that this year (1975) was quoted because it was near the year when divorce was introduced. The Social Justice Commission of the UK with its Chairman the Rt. Hon. George Iain Duncan Smith PC., MP. listed 190 recommendations to address such problems of social decay, like high crime rates, low aspirations, low educational attainment, & high dependency on the state.
Since the early 1970's there has been a decline in marriages (annually fallen by one third) and marked a big rise in the numbers of lone parents families. It was also reviled that “those not brought up by both parents were more likely to have experienced educational problems, drug addiction, alcoholism problem, serious debt problems and also unemployment too.” The report also stated “the cohabiting parents with young children were more than twice as likely as married parents to split up, regardless of age, income and other socio-economic background factors.”
One might say what do the Criminologist say as to what is causing all these crimes? From studies it was established that males are more likely to commit crimes from females. It was also established that when they are between 12 to 18 years they are more likely to commit a crime. However, the majority factor indicated that these had parenting indication, and among the strongest predictors was of juvenile involvement in crime, (Knife crime had increased in U.K.) especially when the family environment is absent, such as due to separations or divorce.
These parental factors are all related to delinquency and can be grouped to four categories:
1.Parental neglects such as in large families, poor supervision, inadequate parent-child interaction.
2.Parental conflict and discipline such as abuse or nagging, harsh, erratic or inconsistent discipline.
3.Deviate (parental) behaviour, or attitudes, parental criminality, or violence or tolerance of violence etc.,
4.Associate to family disruption for example in chronic spouse conflict or marriage brake-ups.
So why have Divorce when we already have available separation. Is it worth to have divorce. Finally, please note that in any case with divorce one would still not able to re-marry in Church again for the second time!! So what the use of having it?
Gerald Dino, you say there's no divorce law in Malta or the Philippines. Does that mean people can't get divorced in those countries?
This is a very interesting subject. Problems do often arise when the subject of religion and law are interlinked.
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