Sir, – Breda O'Brien argues that we should "stop seeing marriage as a private romantic arrangement between two people and instead see it as part of a vital web" ("Making divorce easier will bring little benefit for children", Opinion & Analysis, November 28th). This revisionist opinion on divorce made for interesting if unconvincing reading.
Marriage is a public institution where commitment is recognised by the state and society at large. The view of marriage as indissoluble is a private religious viewpoint.
When the Irish Free State banned divorce in 1925, Senator WB Yeats made some cogent arguments, principally that the ban on divorce was sectarian. “You are to insist upon [people] . . . taking a certain view of biblical criticism, or of the authority of the text upon which that criticism is exercised, a view that they notoriously do not take.” It is even more sectarian in a modern and plural Irish society.
Divorce has not introduced “hello divorce, goodbye Daddy” as predicted by the No side. Prognosticators on any further loosening of restrictions on divorce are worthy of similar scepticism. If one wants an indissoluble marriage I suggest you stick to the canon law. There is no rational basis, however, for the imposition of this view as the civil law of the land to ensnare people in the tangled web of a loveless marriage. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN DINEEN, LLM
Clontarf, Dublin 3.
Sir, – In making an argument against legislation that would allow divorce to be easier to obtain, Breda O’Brien says “the Government runs scared from any support for traditional marriage, while falling over backwards to facilitate new forms of union”.
“Traditional marriage”, until the passing of the recent marriage equality referendum, suffered from a serious defect. As an institution it thought of itself as exclusively heterosexual in nature. It failed to recognise that same-sex couples also loved each other and desired to have their love celebrated publicly, as heterosexual couples have done for millennia.
It failed to recognise that same-sex couples could also rear children as effectively as heterosexual couples, and perhaps, above all, it was an affront to Christianity, as it maintained that God only recognised heterosexual unions and even frowned upon same-sex unions.
Thanks largely to the present Government this limited and discriminatory approach to marriage, “traditional” though it was, has been overthrown by the majority of Irish people. “Tradition” is no longer accepted as an excuse for discrimination.
As for divorce, Breda O’Brien is free to argue any way she likes, but hands off “new forms of union” as being in anyway unworthy to be identified with “traditional marriage” in the future. – Yours, etc,
DECLAN KELLY,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.