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Concerning Divorce

CONCERNING DIVORCE

When a man and a woman bind themselves together by tying the knot of marriage, they cherish the hope of living together for the whole of the rest of their lives.

Then, when nature blesses their union with a child, it strengthens the bond of marriage, providing a guarantee of its greater depth and stability.

On the basis of data collected in western countries, the Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1984 confirms this with the statement that “childless couples tend to have a higher divorce rate than couples with children.”1

A divorce court judge in the West holds that “every little youngster born to a couple is an added assurance that their marriage will never be dissolved in a divorce Court.”2

In spite of these apparently favorable psychological factors and natural, traditional attachments of parents and children, the rising incidence of divorce is a new and observable phenomenon of the modem world. One of the most important contributing

 factors is the ease with which women can now make a living. On this the Encyclopaedia Britannica says: “Industrialization has made it easier for women to support themselves, whether they are single, married, divorced, or widowed.

In this connection, it is interesting to note that the Great Depression of the 1930s stopped the rise in the number of divorces in the United States for a time.”3

In the modem age, western civilization has been beset by many problems, many of which are more artificial than real. In many things western civilization has adopted unnatural ways, thus giving rise to unnatural problems.

The matter has further been worsened by attempts to solve them unnaturally. Problems have thus gone on increasing instead of decreasing. The problem of divorce is one of them.

The initial stimulus of the women’s liberation movement in the West was not wrong, but its leaders did not care to define its limits. In a bid to make a free society, their efforts culminated in the creation of a permissive society.

Affairs between men and women knew no limits and this had the effect of weakening the marriage bond.

Men and women were no more husbands and wives. In the words of the Prophet, they became sensual, pleasure-seeking people. This state of affairs was given a boost by industrialization, as a woman could easily procure an independent livelihood for herself.

This had never before been possible. Because of this, she has frequently refused to live under the guardianship of men that, in consequence has created a large number of social problems leading to greatly increased rates of divorce.

The western philosophers who wanted to check divorce advocated legal curbs upon men, which would legally bind them to provide maintenance to the wife after the divorce.

This maintenance sum was fixed according to western living standards, so that, in most cases, divorce meant that the man had to part with a fair amount of his hard earned money for the whole of the rest of his life.

A victim of this unnatural state of affairs was Lord Bertrand Russell, one of the most intelligent and outstanding intellectuals of his time.

Soon after his marriage, he discovered that his wife no longer inspired any feelings of love in him.

 Although realizing this incompatibility, he did not seek an immediate separation. In spite of severe mental torture he tried to bear with this situation for ten years. He refers to this period as one of “darkest despair.”

 Finally he had to separate and remarry, but he was not satisfied even with the second match and he married for a third time.

 Two divorces were a costly bargain.

According to English law, the amount of alimony and maintenance he had to pay his wives upset him greatly. He writes in his Autobiography:

…the financial burden was heavy and rather disturbing: I had given Pounds 10,000 of my Nobel Prize cheque for a little more than Pounds 11,000 to my third wife, and I was now paying alimony to her and to my second wife as well as paying for the education of my younger son.

Added to this, there were heavy expenses in connection with my elder son’s illness; and the income taxes which for many years he had neglected to pay now fell to me to pay.4

Such a law had been passed in order to ensure justice for women who had to resort to divorce.

But when people began to realize that divorce inevitably led one into financial straits, the marriage bond began to be dispensed with altogether.

Men and women simply started to live together without going through the formality of the marriage ceremony. Now more than fifty percent of the younger generation prefer to live in an unmarried state.

It was only natural that a reaction should have set in against a law that so patently disfavored men and brought corruption, perversion and all kinds of misery in its wake. Children—even newborn babies— were the greatest sufferers.