We live in a country where adultery is allowed and divorce is prohibited. It is OK if you have a wife and a lover but not OK if you divorce and remarry. This is not a perception but a custom which has now become part of our life, so much so that even in the Family Court, the family therapists conclude that there is nothing wrong for the children born out of marriage to mingle with the children of their mum’s or dad’s partner, as long as they are not in danger and are not exposed to immorality (for all that’s worth).

I am not saying that adultery should continue to be a criminal offence as it used to be, neither am I saying that we should throw stones at the men and women who have a relationship with somebody who is still married; what I am saying is that adultery should be taken more seriously. In our system, many have the false perception that once you are legally separated or have started separation proceedings, you are free to start another relationship.
This is absolutely wrong because being separated does not give you the license to be single again. You are still married and you still have the obligation of fidelity that you had when your marriage was still undisturbed. We see so many of these separated calling their wife or husband their ex (ex my foot!) that it has now become the norm to allow this obligation of fidelity to become extinct not by law but by custom.
Then there is the other group who want to stay married but who also want their man or woman on the side. Surprisingly enough, they see nothing wrong in this double life and you find that most of them are strongly against divorce. Their wife suffers in silence for fear of being left stranded in the street, as she has no means to maintain herself and her children.
These two categories of people, those who are still in the marriage and those who are still married but separated, have one thing in common: they are both adulterous. But adultery in Malta is not given the importance and the seriousness that it merits. By law the adulterer does not stand to lose anything in the separation proceedings, except his or her right to maintenance and in our law the adulterer only forfeits anything gained during marriage from his adulterous affair onwards.
As I said, the trend in our courts, although the separation is still pending, is to find nothing wrong for the children of the partners to meet and get together, and so we are now blessed with extended families. This is not a question of morality. Morality does not come into play here. This is a question of the seriousness and the commitments of marriage and any person who is married has no right, under our legal system, to start a new relationship once he is still married but legally separated.
But the law is turning a blind eye because it knows that you cannot stop anybody the right to love again, a right which our politicians have only granted to those whose marriage is annulled, but not terminated. We live in a situation, therefore, where our courts are showing more compassion than our politicians. Our politicians, on the other hand, tend to favour co-habitation and not divorce.
If you were to ask me the difference between the two I would tell you that the difference is only in pounds, shillings and pence, because the parties in a divorce have rights whereas the parties who co-habit do not. And you know more than me, that where there are no rights there is no responsibility.
If anything, no divorce is favouring more the men than the women and is making of them men without fibre as the system tells them to go for it, enjoy it and chuck the partner out when you get fired of her. Co-habitation is nothing more than our form of “talaq, talaq , talaq”, which is the Muslim way of divorce. They just go before an Islamic court, pronounce these three words and they are free to remarry: obviously, all this is done in the absence of the wife and can be done by proxy.
In Malta I used to think – and we were taught at University – that we do not recognize the “talaq” system of divorce, but lately I came across a case when the Registrar of Marriages in Malta recognised a divorce by the “talaq” system. This was a case of a Muslim married to a Maltese in Malta who went to his country. His wife appointed his brother to represent her in the divorce, the husband went to the Islamic court and pronounced the three words, “talaq, talaq talaq” and he was declared divorced.
Believe it or not, such a divorce was registered in Malta and when I enquired and told the Marriage Registrar that such divorce ought to have never been registered, the reply was that if I do not like it, I should go to court and impugn such registration. This is not a question of liking or not liking, this is a question of sticking to the law.
Our laws do not recognize divorces that are given by religious courts (except Malta, of course, in the case of the decisions of the Ecclesiastical Tribunals); our law does not allow the registration of divorce if both parties are domiciled or resident in Malta; but oddly enough, in this case, the Muslim divorce was registered.
What we need to know from the Marriage Registrar is whether it now recognises divorces pronounced with the “talaq” by an Islamic Court. And if so, why is it that he did not publish any notice to this effect? Moreover, if he made a mistake in registering such divorce, should he not he revoke such registration? I am saying this because that office usually is very meticulous and does not even register divorces from the EU very easily, because it ensures that the parties satisfy the criteria applicable to the concept of residence or domicile under our Marriage Act. I really do not understand what happened in that case.
But my purpose is mainly to show you how the family fabric in Malta is becoming more and more confused. We say we are against divorce and we allow co-habitation, we say we are against divorce but we register “talaq” divorces and other divorces, thus licensing these persons to re-marry. We say that we are against divorce but we see nothing wrong in adultery and in the children of each partner living together.
I am not here to judge but I do want to see a system which is in favour of the party who took marriage seriously, and which abided by the conditions and obligations of marriage. It is not fair on that woman who discovers the adulterous affair of her husband to find that she has gained nothing at law by being faithful and good in the marriage. I for one would like to see automatic forfeiture of the share of the assets of the adulterer; because as the system is now, there is no deterrent in the law which makes you think twice before you search on the internet or somewhere else for some hanky-panky.
How much longer can we continue to live this lie?