Ireland is still too immature to discuss ill effects of divorce

It is now 25 years since the formal introduction of divorce to Ireland. Although we had the referendum in 1995, the law itself was not passed until 1997. The analysis I have read so far of the anniversary has been shallow and self-congratulatory. It is as though there is no downside at all to divorce.

Instead, the introduction of divorce has been seen as another sign of Ireland’s developing ‘maturity’ as a society.

But it is worth considering briefly why almost half of society voted against divorce back in 1995. Is it because they were all in thrall to the Church? Is it that they were happy to see people trapped in terrible marriages?

In fact, the concern was mainly that, once introduced, the number of people divorcing would escalate and that the main victims would be children. These concerns are not to be dismissed out of hand.

Indeed, contrary to popular belief, none of the main campaigners at the time predicted the ‘floodgates’ would open, with the possible exception of Rory O’Hanlon, the former High Court judge.

Senator Des Hanafin said ^[1]  the change would be more gradual. In fact, comparing Census 1996 ^[2] with Census 2016 ^[3], we see that the number of divorced or separated people in Ireland surged from 94,443, to almost 300,000, a big jump by any reckoning.

While divorce is still much lower here than in countries like Britain or the US, there is still one couple divorcing or separating each year compared with every four who marry. Over time, that will add up to a lot of people.

We might say that it is better to go your separate ways than to languish in a miserable or even violent or abusive marriage. It is certainly true that if a marriage is high conflict, both the couple and the children are better off if the couple break up, but the fact is that at least half of marriages are considered low conflict, that is, the couples are not always loudly rowing, much less is there any violence.

Research shows ^[4] that couples who persist in low conflict marriages can often resolve their difference and the marriage survives.

The same research ^[4] shows that children often suffer when parents who are in a low-conflict marriage divorce.

If we are going to analyse the effects of 25 years of divorce in Ireland, these are the sorts of facts we would consider, but we don’t seem to want to do that, and perhaps that is a sign that we are not as mature as we fancy ourselves to be. Instead we bury our heads in the sand about the downsides of divorce.