To mark the sixth anniversary of Daphne Caruana Galizia's assassination, we are reproducing some of the articles she wrote for The Sunday Times of Malta. 

This article appeared in the June 27, 1993 edition. 

Marriage and moralising

The current parliamentary debate on the Family Law is interesting because it brings out the speakers' prejudices in full force.

There is nothing like so-called values to bring out the moralist, the bigot and the hypocrite in us all, but particularly in those who feel that God's reflected glory is shining down on them, like a celestial strobe light, as they stand to speak in parliament.

Over the past few days, we have had all manner of preaching and pedantry, but perhaps the most irritating of all is the thought that 64 men believe they can sit around braying on about how women feel this, and women feel that, and if married women this and married women that.

It is difficult to picture the reverse: 64 women debating the nature of men and their propensity for sacrifice in marriage.

Parliament, as never before, is playing home to the wild, sweeping statement. We have been told that marriage is a partnership, but that partnerships need not be jointly managed.

It is difficult to picture the reverse: 64 women debating the nature of men and their propensity for sacrifice in marriage

The same MP warned us that the new law will make womenless willing to sacrifice themselves in marriage as though the purpose of marriage is the creation of whole regiments of Joans of Arc, smouldering at the stake while their husbands play poker and cackle with glee.

We have had the illuminating statement that "Maltese values converge with European values, with the exception of those relating to the family and religion".

What are our European values in that case? Our thoughts on architecture and the disposal of polystyrene packaging perhaps? To intervene in Bosnia or not to intervene in Bosnia? To have sex before marriage or not to have sex before marriage. . . or is that classifiable under family values?

We have been told that "a bigger problem than illegitimate children is the increasing number of single-parent families, who between them have 3,145 children".

Yet it is only a problem because these single parents are not allowed to remarry. and thereby to cease being single parents and a bigger problem than illegitimate children.

Patronising

How in heaven's name - and bless us, we believe we are doing it in heaven's name - can we say that we are preserving marriage by holding out against the introduction of divorce in Malta, when there are 3,145 children already living in broken homes and hundreds of men and women pursuing separation suits and annulments through the civil courts?

The Maltese emblem should not be a dolphin or a prickly pear. It should be an ostrich. We have had a spate of the most unbelievably patronising newspaper articles, their authors spurred on by the ''topicality'' of their subject, as though crumbling marriages need a parliamentary debate to make them topical. ("Darling, there's a Family Law debate on... shall we split up... and give them something to discuss? 'You cite violence. I'll cite incompatibility of character. We'll get the milkman to abuse the children.")

The Maltese emblem should not be a dolphin or a prickly pear. It should be an ostrich

Inevitably, the doomsday preamble is that "marriages are breaking down all around us''. One can almost hear the spectral voice of Alfred Mallia intoning the words, while someone clip-clops two halves of a coconut to simulate the sound of the hooves on Death the Reaper's horse.

Yet they never say why marriages should not break down all around us, when they are breaking down everywhere else. We don't have a direct line to God, and a monopoly on sanctity. We have an average of 5,200 marriages a year, and it is unrealistic to expect them all to survive.

Much time and nervous energy is spent analysing the reasons why marriages break down. But when it comes to the crunch there is only one reason: no love.

You can sit and analyze until the cows come home, but in the end it all boils down to just that. Unfortunately, we have come to regard marriage primarily as an institution and not as a union of love.

It is as though marriage is somehow desirable for its own sake, no matter the circumstances in which it is contracted.

The mistake our amateur moralists make is to believe that sacrifice and effort cause love. They do not. They are the result of love.

When you love somebody you need no prompting to strive on his behalf. You certainly do not need to be goaded and hectored into it by priests, parliamentarians and quack mind-doctors.

Likewise, if your husband never loved you in the first place, then no amount of burning yourself at the stake, child-bearing, cook-in-the-kitchen/whore-in-the-bedroom behaviour is going to alter matters.

Stronger bond

The sad but inescapable fact is that love, unlike affection and respect, cannot be brought about by fair means or foul. Affection and respect can provide the foundation for a decent marriage. But they should never be mistaken for irreplaceable mutual love which makes the bond natural as well as contractual, and therefore all that much stronger.

Marriage is no longer an economic necessity, though for those who marry money it is an economic desirability. Men are becoming more and more reluctant to marry (after all they can always pay a maid or find somebody to warm their bed), and many women are only being driven into marriage by a biological clock which tells them that it's time to have children, and children are best had in a stable relationship.

Yet why on earth should people marry nowadays unless they are madly in love? When you can get by perfectly well on your own, to marry somebody you do not love seems like insanity. Yet each year 10,400 people are getting married.

If those 10,400 men and women are consumed by love and tenderness, there should be some kind of nationwide spontaneous combustion. Or are they consumed instead by gold-plated taps and a room(s) of one's own, in a country where young people do not leave their parents unless it is to marry?

If those 10,400 men and women are consumed by love and tenderness, there should be some kind of nationwide spontaneous combustion

When marriage is but an expedient to getting out of the family home and attaining 'grown-up' status, it is not likely to last long. The novelty of playing mummies and daddies and keeping house is quick to wear off.

What is this lack of preparation for marriage that sanctimonious bores keep moaning on about? Do they really believe that you can mix a marriage like a fruit cake?

If engaged couples are felt to need preparation of this sort, then they are not mature adults, and that in itself renders them unsuitable for marriage.

Conveyor belt

Soon-to-be-marrieds are asked whether they are "prepared" to spend the rest of their lives with their intended. Why not ask them if they want to do so? There's a great difference between the two. and the result could be surprising, because the road to marriage is a conveyor belt which rarely gives you the time to stop and get off.

The timely asking of the question "Do you love this person so much that you want to live with him/her until one of you drops dead?" is worth a hundred marriage preparation courses.

By the time people are asked a more civilised variation at the altar, it is too late. It takes a person of great courage to say, before a congregation that is all agog, "Now hang on a minute. I'm not really sure."

Yet "not really sure" is how thousands of people must feel while they are standing before the priest who is about to marry them. They all go ahead and get married anyway, thinking that they will get used to it, that things will work out somehow. But they never do.

How sad to think that so many women must have indeed sacrificed themselves to marriage for nothing but the driving desire to wear a dress that costs as much as their fathers earn in two months.

How sad to think that so many women must have indeed sacrificed themselves to marriage for nothing but the driving desire to wear a dress that costs as much as their fathers earn in two months

It is the princess for a day syndrome. Many of those thousands stick it out heroically for the rest of their lives, paying the price for courage which failed them at the eleventh hour. Others call a halt, and end up before the courts.

Why do marriages break down? Because they should never have happened in the first place. There is no other practical explanation - no lack of God, lack of prayer, lack of money, lack of children, lack of colour TV and video - just a lack of love.

Our tendency is to classify as happy a marriage which is no more than functional, which is a bit like hanging a pair of canvas overalls under a sign saying 'silk underwear'.

Maybe the time will come when Cana lecturers will begin their pre-marriage-courses with the opening statement: "Look here, boys and girls, if for you the sun doesn't rise and set in the person you plan to marry, then get out now. If what you really want to do is leave home then rent a cheap flat somewhere."

Meanwhile, may we be spared the rantings of those who believe that prayer and sacrifice are the keys to a happy marriage. Sacrifice is born of love, and when it is not, it is nothing but inhumane torture and should not be allowed.

Sacrifice should not be confused with masochism or a martyr complex. And let's face facts: prayer is optional.

Practising Catholics are not the only people who are allowed by God to have happy marriages. There are very many joyous marriages among non-religious people, even among people who do not believe in God. or who worship another celestial being. The only key to a happy marriage is requited love between adults, as opposed to grown-ups.

When you have that, you don't need lessons ... or a map.

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