Why is no one sticking up for marriage?

I took part in a debate organised by the Times this week about reform of our divorce laws. Well, I say a ‘debate’. There wasn’t much of that. Not much in the way of dissent. The four other panellists, who included a government minister, all wished to liberalise our divorce laws. And it was chaired with great impartiality by Sir James Lawrence Munby, who was until recently the president of the Family Division of the High Court of England and Wales. He made a stirring ten-minute speech on why we need to liberalise the divorce laws. Yes, it was like one of those exquisitely balanced Newsnight debates, then. The audience consisted of 100 or so lawyers who wished to liberalise the divorce laws. So I felt a little bit, you know, isolated. I don’t want the divorce laws liberalised.

One by one they got up to speak, and each began by saying that more than anything they wished to preserve the institution of marriage and then one by one outlined how they intended to undermine it as soon as humanly possible. Including Sir James, relishing his exciting dual role as referee and captain of the home team. Upon his retirement from the Family Division, i.e. the courts which are there to look after families, Sir James announced that the traditional nuclear family was dead and that we should ‘welcome and applaud’ its passing. Another speaker, Sir Paul James Duke Coleridge, also demanded we make it easier for people to escape from marriage by dropping the notion of ‘fault’ from divorce proceedings. Sir Paul, another retired High Court judge, is the chairman of an institution called the Marriage Foundation. The views expressed by these two eminent men — which seem to contrast a little with the requirements of their day jobs — brought to mind a chap called Malcolm Bell, who achieved brief prominence in midsummer this year.