The arguments of those who are against remarriage after legal separation have focused on three main themes.

First, they have attempted to instil in people a fear that the introduction of divorce will lead to every social ill they can think of – and to blame it on divorce. This is the culture of fear which the mediaeval church used so effectively to retain power until the Age of Enlightenment – having as its core a belief in reason as the key to progress – exposed it as a sham in the 18th century, and the invigorating winds of change of Vatican Council II completed the job two centuries later.

Secondly, they say that divorce causes marriages to break down. And, thirdly, they argue that divorce creates a so-called “divorce mentality or mind-set” that undermines society.

Let us take each of these arguments in turn and see if they stand up to cold logic and rational argument.

First, “The introduction of divorce,” we have heard it alleged, “leads inexorably to abortion, higher rates of illegitimate births, increased cohabitation, fewer marriages, greater marriage breakdown, drug-taking, increased mental illness and every social ill you’d care to mention”.

But such assertions are as credible as the statement made to me by an acquaintance a month ago that “The introduction of divorce in these countries is the reason their economies are so much more successful than ours”. That statement is as ridiculous and illogical as the earlier one.

There is absolutely no credible, causal link between the introduction of divorce in these countries and abortion, or any other kind of social ill you’d care to list. Nor is it tenable to argue that cohabitation is higher in countries where there is divorce because of the introduction per se of civil dissolution, or that lower marriage rates occur in those countries as a result of the introduction of divorce legislation. It is statistical and logical nonsense to argue in that way.

Every objective assessment of these problems in these countries (mostly conducted in North America, the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian countries) shows clearly that there is a multiple array of cultural, social and economic causal factors – most of which are different from those obtaining in Malta, as well as being unique to each of the countries under study.

When Malta looks to other western societies it sees a wide-spread collapse of marriage when measured by the incidence of divorce. But this is caused not least by a tendency in such countries, over the last 40 years or so, to make divorce progressively easier to obtain. Of course divorce rates will go up if you make the law ever more permissive. But this is palpably not the case when you examine the Private Members’ Bill now being proposed in Parliament, which is extremely restrictive and responsible.

Blaming any of these ills on the introduction of divorce is utterly misleading. It is an attempt to engender fear and it fails the stern test of logic, as well as fact. The fact is that when we look around us in Malta we also find the collapse in marriages, and its grim consequences for families, to be prevalent, if not rampant, here as well.

Our marriage breakdown rate comes out higher than the divorce rates of Greece, Italy and, the country with the best record of all, Ireland – on whose legislation we are modelling ours. The only difference is that the collapse here has to be measured in broken marriages, not in divorce applications, as exemplified by the high and escalating number of Maltese annulments, legal separations and divorces obtained abroad.

Secondly, to say that divorce causes marriage breakdown, rather than offering a legal remedy for the collapse, is distorted logic. Marriage breakdowns occur well before divorce. It is not divorce which causes the marriage to break down. Marital discord – which is the cause – and marriage breakdown come before legal separation or divorce, often by several years. To argue otherwise is to put the cart before the horse.

Thirdly, the argument that divorce laws create a so-called “divorce mentality or mind-set” is dishonest and null in a context where the “mind-set” of cohabitation is both possible and, in Malta, most prevalent. (And, no, people do not go through the trauma of divorce lightly, flippantly or on a whim. Anybody who deploys that as an argument either has no conception of the pain and suffering which people in broken marriages go through before reaching the desperate last resort of divorce, or lack the sense of charity to care about the human impact.)

Moreover, it is the rankest form of hypocrisy and illogicality by those who support or condone the introduction of cohabitation laws (in the Church’s eyes, adultery) which by the most perverse logic – since cohabitation is notoriously more fragile than marriage and encourages the very instability they seek to address – they are prepared to support on doctrinal grounds as a means simply of preventing people from remarrying after legal separation.

Today’s anti-divorce movement claims to disavow cohabitation, but cannot steel itself to recognise that remarriage after legal separation would help ameliorate – if not eradicate – it. Nothing could contrast the different views of the two sides in this debate more than the way Zwieg bla Divorzju prefers to see marriages and families remain broken, while those in favour of remarriage after legal separation want to re-build families by allowing them another chance at achieving the status and stability of marriage. This would inarguably be to the greater common good of Malta.

To argue that divorce would transform marriage into a temporary contractual arrangement is a grossly cynical and wrong-headed view of why couples enter into marriage. Marriage is indeed a contract. But speak to any young person about to embark on matrimony and he or she will tell you that to argue that, because a contract can be dissolved inevitably leads any person seeking marriage not to commit himself or herself whole-heartedly in the first place, is unacceptable, wrong and utterly reprehensible.

The canards and falsehoods being peddled today by those against the introduction of the Private Members’ Bill need to be exposed for what they are: scaremongering and disinformation for which there is no justification in logic or in fact.

People who seek the civil dissolution of their marriage are looking for a civilised remedy under the law for a finished marriage. They are looking for the possibility to enjoy the stability offered by re-marriage. The objective of the Private Members’ Bill now before Parliament is to empower people to re-build their lives after marriage break-down and legal separation within the proper regulation of the law.

It is clearly in the interests of a just society to seek to rectify this manifest inequity in our society. Only an ostrich with his head firmly buried in the sand could fail to see this.

Mr Scicluna is a member of the IVA Campaign and the lead author of the report For Worse, For Better: Remarriage After Legal Separation