In his hysteric tantrums to scare Maltese and Gozitan voters on the divorce issue, “bulldozer” minister Dr Austin Gatt resorted to one of the most banal arguments I have heard to date! While being interviewed on Radju Malta by Andrew Azzopardi, Dr Gatt claimed that “it is very rare that someone who is not rich (benestant) can afford to divorce”.

Dr Gatt gave a very “simplistic” example to justify his claim. He said that someone earning €1,000 a month, would have to give his “separated” wife €500 as alimony. If he remarries and has children, “how can he afford this”? asked a seemingly baffled Dr Gatt!

It seems that Dr Gatt suffers from bouts of occasional amnesia. He momentarily forgot that first, this is already happening with legal separations and cohabitation, which by the way is intended to be given legal accreditation by Dr Gatt’s own government. Second, that alimony is paid to the “separated” wife if she does not work and earn a living. Many married women today work and are therefore financially independent. If the “separated” or “divorced” wife has custody of the children, the husband has to give his share of maintenance money needed for the children until they come of age.

If the “separated” husband decides to remarry, after having obtained a divorce decree, he would surely have taken into consideration any problems he and his second wife will have to face if they intend to have children. If the second wife works, this should not be an insurmountable problem. But they may, after all, decide not to have children, Dr Gatt!

Anyway, such personal decisions should only be taken by the people concerned. Certainly not by Dr Gatt, Dr Lawrence Gonzi, or anyone else who may have been lucky enough to have had, up to now, a successful marriage, since that amounts to unwarranted interference in the personal lives of thousands of fellow Maltese and Gozitan citizens whose marriages have irretrievably broken down!

Dr Gatt wishes to keep the status quo where thousands of his fellow citizens are forced to remain “married on paper only”. This proves that Dr Gatt has a very poor idea of what constitutes a true marriage. And coming from someone who has publicly claimed in that same radio interview, that he is “a fervent Catholic and inspired by the Church’s teaching”(!), I found it rather rich!

Eddy Privitera

MOSTA