In a piece on this website yesterday I argued that the reason that Irish people who do not live in Ireland should not have a vote in our elections is that they do not have to live with the consequences of their decisions. For the rest of us, by contrast, voting provides copious opportunities to make mistakes: Marry the wrong political party in haste; repent at leisure.
The concept of living with the consequences of your mistakes is an old-fashioned one, which is presumably why the Green Party’s Patrick Costello has introduced a bill that would reduce the waiting period for divorces from two years down to six months. Quoted by Maeve McTaggart in the Irish Independent, Mr. Costello said:
“As a TD I have dealt with numerous concerned and frustrated constituents whose marriages have broken down,” Mr Costello said.
“They tell me the existing laws are onerous and tie them to their ex-partner for longer than they would like. This prevents them moving on with their life and starting a new chapter. It is for these people, my constituents, that I am introducing this legislation today.”
Old-fashioned conservative right winger though I am, Costello’s basic argument here is not without merit. When a marriage irretrievably breaks down, there’s a certain cruelty to being left trapped in a legally binding relationship with someone you can no longer bear to be with for a period of two years. Our lives are short; that’s a long time to be stuck in an unwanted situation. I know many decent people, some of them very close to me, who have lived that misery.
And yet, at the same time, each and every one of those people made the decision to get married in the first place. Marriage, by its very nature, is a big statement: If it is simply a civil marriage, then the two people involved are inviting the state to bind them together as tightly as two people can be legally intertwined. If it is a religious marriage, then the parties are inviting the divine creator of the universe to link them together in eternity.
If those ties can be easily and painlessly unwound, is marriage a big statement anymore? Does it have any value or significance at all? I’m not sure it does.
One of the foundational principles of conservatism – a political ideology to which yours truly subscribes and Deputy Costello does not – is that an awful lot of very bad laws are passed with very good intentions. This would seem to be to be a prime example. The intention cannot be faulted – Costello’s explicitly expressed desire is to reduce the pain and suffering of those in marriages that have broken down irreversibly, and to help them to move on and live the rest of their lives.
Yet to do that, Deputy Costello must by definition make marriage into something less significant and permanent than it is. In other words, he must lower the risks to getting married.
Logically and rationally, getting married to somebody else is a risk/reward proposition: You hand over half your earthly goods, in effect, to your partner. You may be handing them half your pension. They automatically become your sole heir, or primary heir, should you die prematurely. That’s before the inherent social risk you take by publicly declaring that your partner is the person you believe to be the perfect match and partner for you. There’s a reason, traditionally, why people have been nervous about accepting or making proposals, and why the acceptance of a proposal is such a huge event in anyone’s life.
The rewards of marriage do not need to be expounded upon here, but clearly there is a reason why this is a way of life the majority of people choose.
Yet if marriages can be quickly and painlessly ended, we may swiftly find ourselves in a position where marriage is no longer much of a risk at all, and therefore concomitantly not much of a reward. For marriage to be significant and special, it must by definition carry risk: “I’m asking you to marry me” isn’t quite as significant a declaration of love if it means “I’m asking you to commit to me for at least the legal minimum of six months”.
That’s why I’m inclined to oppose the Deputy’s idea: For marriage to have any meaning at all, leaving a marriage must necessarily carry a degree of legal jeopardy and personal pain that is vastly greater than leaving a non-marital romantic relationship. If you’re willing to stand in front of your family and say “till death do us part”, then that must mean something – otherwise we might as well cancel the whole thing.
The law as it presently stands already, arguably, goes too far in Deputy Costello’s direction. That said, most of us are humane people who are willing to grant that mistakes can be made in good faith even in the biggest decisions of one’s life. The present balance where a dissolution of marriage requires two years of living apart from your spouse is not an unfair one.
There’s also the question of the limiting principle: Why does Deputy Costello see six months as reasonable, and not six days? If, as he claims, this is about letting people move on with their lives, then his argument can logically be carried through to immediacy: If I decide to divorce my wife on Wednesday, what’s the argument for a court not granting that divorce on Thursday? Why six months rather than six days, or six hours?
Ultimately the question here is not about what’s fair to potential divorcees, but about whether we as a people decide that the institution of marriage is worth conserving as something significant and special. My personal view is that we should, which is why Deputy Costello’s idea, well intentioned though it may be, should be rejected. I suspect most fair minded people, having thought about it for a while, would probably agree.