Last week (Smash TV, Saturday 5 March), one of the foremost divorce proponents, who could stand to personally benefit if divorce is legalised in Malta, said that while there is 15 per cent divorce rate in Ireland, there is 22 per cent marriage breakdown rate in Malta. What he did not say was the percentage of couples who made up again in Malta after some time. Something so rare in countries where there is divorce that a single case made the news recently on BBC! 

A fallacy repeated to strengthen the pro divorce argument runs something like this: “Christians divorce at roughly the same rate as the world!” It’s one of the most quoted statistics and it’s perhaps one of the most inaccurate! Nationalist Member of Parliament Charlo Bonnici was right in saying that there is a dearth of statistics on this topic.

According to some studies carried out in the USA based on the best data available, the divorce rate among Christians is significantly lower than the general population. Here’s the truth... many people who seriously practise a traditional religious faith − be it Christian or another − have a divorce rate markedly lower than the general population.

The factor making the most difference is religious commitment and practice. Couples who regularly adopt any combination of serious religious behaviours and attitudes − attend church nearly every week, read their Bibles and spiritual materials regularly and pray privately and together, generally take their faith seriously, living not as perfect disciples, but serious disciples − enjoy significantly lower divorce rates than mere church members, the general public and unbelievers.

Professor Bradley Wright, a sociologist at the University of Connecticut, explains that from his analysis of people who identify as Christians but rarely attend church, 60 per cent of these have been divorced. Of those who attend church regularly, 38 per cent have been divorced. Other data from additional sociologists of family and religion suggest a significant marital stability divide between those who take their faith seriously and those who do not.

W. Bradford Wilcox, a leading sociologist at the University of Virginia and director of the National Marriage Project, finds from his own analysis that “active conservative Protestants” who regularly attend church are 35 per cent less likely to divorce compared to those who have no affiliation. Nominally attending conservative Protestants are 20 percent more likely to divorce, compared to secular Americans.

Professor Scott Stanley from the University of Denver, working with an absolute all-star team of leading sociologists on the Oklahoma Marriage Study, explains that couples with a vibrant religious faith had more and higher levels of the qualities couples need to avoid divorce: “Whether young or old, male or female, low-income or not, those who said that they were more religious reported higher average levels of commitment to their partners, higher levels of marital satisfaction, less thinking and talking about divorce and lower levels of negative interaction. These patterns held true when controlling for such important variables as income, education, and age at first marriage.”

These positive factors translated into actual lowered risk of divorce among active believers. “Those who say they are more religious are less likely, not more, to have already experienced divorce. Likewise, those who report more frequent attendance at religious services were significantly less likely to have been divorced.”

The divorce rates of Christian believers are not identical to the general population − not even close. Being a committed, faithful believer makes a measurable difference in marriage.

Saying one believes something or merely belonging to a church, unsurprisingly, does little for marriage. But the more one is involved in the actual practice of your faith in real ways − through really ‘belonging, believing and acting according to Church teaching, learning regularly from Scripture, being in communion with God though prayer individually and with your spouse and children, recourse to the sacraments and having friends and family around you who challenge you to take you marriage’s seriously − the greater difference this makes in strengthening both the quality and longevity of one’s marriages. Faith does matter and the leading sociologists of family and religion tell us so. 

However, even committed Christians live in the same society as the rest of the population and are exposed to the same temptations, which is why it is imperative that divorce be opposed because Maltese society would be better off without divorce legislation. Divorce as nuclear radiation impregnates the whole of society and the release of the restraint on remarriage wrecks havoc even among erstwhile staunch families

G. Bonett