It was high time somebody did something about it. Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s surprise visit to the Clerk of the House to present a private member’s motion regarding divorce was something that has been on the cards for years. With hindsight, we will in future come to see the amazing thing about it is that it was not done before.

At this point, of course, there is nothing inevitable about divorce: that is still to be seen. The people must in one way or another express its views. Predictably, all the various experts will have their say, and politicians too. Hoping the issue will not become a political football is a forlorn hope, but just as in other countries, so too here, when the time comes to decide all the factors in public life, good and bad, will come into play.

It will only be after everyone has had his (and her) say that the decision will be reached.

Obviously, being such a controversial subject, at the end there will be those whose opinion will triumph, and those whose opinion will lose. There will be recriminations galore. It is the task of the country to ensure that, once the decision is taken it is accepted as the decision of the country as a whole. It is in the nature of such things to be irreversible although any legislation is formally reversible. The main thing is for the country to ensure that the decision will be taken well, that all shades of opinion are giving a proper airing and that after the decision no section of the population, whatever the decision, feels it has lost its place in the nation.

Studies have been done, and maybe more are needed, to plot the evolution of the Maltese family over the past decades. We use the word ‘evolution’ carefully, for although there are many who speak of the deterioration of family life in the last decades of the 20th century, as Malta came under a more direct influence of international trends and life styles, we are not so sure the family was all that better when mothers had 10, or even more children, when fathers were ‘Padre Padrone’ types who brooked no disagreement, when individual freedom was a concept that just did not exist.

At the same time, one must also factor in the family as an ideal, at least its incarnation in the 21st century – love between free and conscientious adults, possibly reaching fulfillment and expression in children. More than that brings us to hot controversies. A least common factor must be found how this ideal can be lived in the circumstances of today’s world.

Otherwise, we, the country, loses more than it gains. It must not be a victory of ones over the others, but a compromise solution in the best interests of the community.

All that can help the family, seen in a broader tint than conceived in strict confessional terms, must be encouraged. In yesterday’s leader we spoke how social policies of countries such as the UK have actually been encouraging single-parent families where the mother is supported by the State and where this actually encourages the fathers to stay away, to shirk their responsibilities, to avoid work, to a listless floating life with no future. Only a country hell-bent on self-destruction would do so.

However, the issue has to be faced. The fact is that too many families are splitting up. The fact is there are many ‘ad hoc’ arrangements. The fact is there are issues of justice involved.

For a time many thought that the marriage separation and marriage annulment procedures were enough. They were not. Then people started to shop around for legal solutions by getting a divorce from another country, but only those with means did that. This did not stop those without means from finding an alternative solution.

We also notice, perhaps because of this situation but perhaps too because this is a trend abroad as well, that many young people today are shying away from marriage commitment. The number of ‘ad hoc’ arrangements has increased and multiplied.

The Catholic Church, the other faiths, people with religious beliefs and convictions have every right to express their views of marriage as an ideal of love, and it is important that they continue to do so in a world increasingly dominated by cynicism.

From here, the ultimate solution is still not clear at all: how after this huge debate will the end result be. But here’s to hoping that at the end, as said earlier, all the participants in this epochal national debate will feel they own the final decision.