As so many have already noted, there are not enough studies available that show the reasons adversely affecting marriage in this country. Yet there are those who have already thrown their hat into the political ring favouring divorce, even by implication. This is putting the cart before the horse, or power before principle.

Marriage is an organic institution that emerges spontaneously from society. People of the opposite sex are naturally attracted to one another, couple with each other, co-create children and raise them with love and devotion. This little society of the family replenishes and sustains itself and expresses most eloquently humanity’s natural tendency to love and sociability.

The sexual act itself is an engine of this expression of love and sociability. Sexual satisfaction draws us out of our natural self-centred state. The desire to copulate induces men to try and please women, and women to try and attract men. The attachment of mothers to their babies and women to their husbands tends to keep this little society together. The man’s possessiveness of his sexual turf and of his offspring offsets his natural tendency towards promiscuity.

A natural institution

But there is more to it than this. In every known society, communities develop customs and norms that define the parameters of socially acceptable sexual, spousal and parental behaviour. This natural tendency runs counter to the new idea that no structure should be privileged over any other. Many simply blame the parents, because that is the easy way out. But parents now dare not raise their eyebrows and expect children to conform to socially accepted norms of behaviour, because we are fast losing any socially accepted norms of behaviour. The modern culture of sexual and parental tolerance ruthlessly enforces a code of silence, banishing anything remotely critical of personal choice. A parent, or even a peer, who tries to tell a young person that he or she is about to do something incredibly stupid, runs into the brick wall of the non-judgemental social norm. And we have neglected to empower parents in the way we so readily empower those who flout society by their every action but then expect society to pay the bill.

Of course, the spontaneous emergence of marriage does not imply that it will always work out fine. Neither can we expect any cultural institutions surrounding sexual behaviour, permanence of relationships and the rearing of children to just work out fine. The State may still need to protect, encourage or support the permanence of marriage just as the State may need to protect the sanctity of contracts.

If one side is right, the other must be wrong

However, the present debate has already gone further than that. On my part, I believe that the sexual urge is a natural engine of sociability, which solidifies the relationship between spouses and brings children into the world when it is used responsibly. Others, however, claim that human sexuality is a private recreational good with neither moral nor social significance.

I claim, together with medical science, that the hormone oxytocin floods a woman’s body during sex and tends to attach her to her sex partner, quite apart from her wishes or cultural norms. Others claim that women and men alike can engage in uncommitted sex with no ill effects.

I claim that children have the best life chances when they are raised by their married biological parents. Others believe children are so adaptable that having unmarried parents presents no significant problems.

Finally, I strongly believe that this particular form of free association is so distinctive as to make marriage a unique social institution that deserves to be defended on its own terms.

Both sides cannot be right. So there is an urgent need to establish the truth of the matter and accustom ourselves to it, rather than try to recreate the world according to our wishes.

The social cost

There is, to me, another danger. We now live in an intellectual and social environment where the laissez-faire idea is being strongly applied to sexual conduct and married life. This will require massive expenditures and interventions by the government. A fairly typical example explains what I mean:

A man and a woman have a child. They have no permanent relationship and no desire to form one. When their relationship ceases to function to their satisfaction, it dissolves. The mother sues the father for child support.

The couple goes to court over how much he should pay. The court ultimately orders him to pay a particular amount. He insists on visiting rights with his child. She resists but they finally settle on a schedule to which he is entitled.

The agreement works smoothly at first. But inevitably, with the probability of either of them finding new partners, they quarrel. He visits and she is not home. She accuses him of overindulging the child, giving it too many sweets and generally spoiling it. He stops paying child support. They go to court, again, where he is forced to pay up. He in turn appeals to the court to reinstate his visiting rights. She says she will leave the country. He goes to court, again, and gets a temporary order to restrain her from moving to another country. She invents a charge of child abuse and gets a restraining order forbidding him from seeing the child.

You may think all these legal battles are the necessary price we have to pay for adult independence, for the privilege of following our own desires. You may blame the mother, or the father, or both. You may point out that this is a nightmare for both adults, as well as for the child. But on one point I think we can all agree: the multiplier ill effects will have to be borne by the society of which we form part.

Without the father’s assistance, this woman and her child are more likely to become dependents of the State, when it would be more cost-effective to help the mother obtain assistance from the father than to provide taxpayer-funded financial assistance for what is, after all, a private matter. The social order simply cannot afford to indulge people who can’t get along with their closest and most intimate family members. But in our current ideological environment, the political pressures for the State to intervene on behalf of the unmarried mother may be too strong to resist.

The road ahead is a bumpy one. Unlimited sexual activity will eventually be considered an entitlement. Marriage is already on the way to being considered an infringement of the modern person’s desire for rights without responsibilities. Having children outside wedlock is no longer considered an act of gross selfish irresponsibility. Women argue that they are entitled to have as many children as they want in any context they choose. In this sense, children have become consumer goods.

As I have already said, the observation that both men and women sometimes fail to live up to the ideal of lifelong married love does not prove that marriage is unnatural or has reached its sell-by date. We must ask ourselves how we can direct natural human motivations into socially constructive channels. To me the answer is to create a cultural and legal order that supports and sustains lifelong married love as the normative institution in which to beget and rear children. In our Electoral Manifesto we suggested the creation of an independent Family Research Institute whose remit would be to scientifically analyse family problems and suggest support measures.

A free society needs

marriage

When a couple loses the ability to negotiate, if they ever had it in the first place, the dissolution of their union has significant spillover effects. It is likely to be detrimental to their children. The children of unmarried or divorced parents are more likely to have emotional, behavioural and health problems. Schools will have to support them extensively as their achievement is likely to be poorer, their behaviour a problem and their attendance poor. As these children mature they are more likely to get into trouble with the law or take up drug abuse. This is amply supported by reliable evidence.

Therefore, the demand that the government be neutral in this matter is unreasonable. A truly free society needs a culture that supports and sustains marriage as the normative institution for the begetting and rearing of children. A culture full of people who violate their contracts at every possible opportunity cannot be held together in a free association. Likewise, a society full of people who treat sex as a purely recreational activity, who look upon children as consumer goods and marriage as a glorified relationship, will demand an ever-expanding welfare state.

The basic principle of coherence states: “Each piece of the system reinforces the other parts of the system to form an integrated whole which is much more powerful than the sum of the parts.” What applies to physics applies to society. To break the integrated whole, all one needs is to break up the separate pieces first; hence divorce, abortion, family and social breakdown, which have all contributed to a society that wants rights without obligations and responsibilities.

The converse is equally true. Enforce obligations and teach responsibility and we will start to reinforce the system that has held society together from the start.

Those who oppose marriage have used the language of choice and individual rights to advance their cause. This rhetoric has a powerful hold over the young mind. It is doubtful that marriage, as an institution, would have reached this point without the use of this language of personal freedom. Many writers and opinion makers, as well as politicians, have a lot to answer for once their day is over.

But this rhetoric is deceptive. It is simply not possible to have a society with no social or legal norms about family structure, sexual behaviour and childbearing unless the State is prepared to sanction destructive behaviour and present us with the bill.

Fairness and freedom do not demand sexual and parental licence. If marriage isn’t a necessary social institution then nothing is. And if there were no necessary social institutions, then the individual would be left to face the powers of this earth alone. A free society needs marriage.

Dr Muscat is the leader of Azzjoni Nazzjonali