Commentary
Marriage is an institution uniquely apt for the rearing and nourishing of children, an open-ended task calling parents to assume an attitude of love and commitment toward children. Conversely, divorce undermines the family unit and deprives children of an intact biological family.
Karl Marx recommended the abolition of marriage in his Communist Manifesto, stating it would naturally bring with it the dissolution of the system of free love, which he called public and private prostitution.
In other words, Marx thought that marriage was nothing but a form of “private prostitution.”
Inspired by such teachings, in the 1980s, the Australian Union of Students issued a Policy Statement arguing that “prostitution takes many forms and is not only the exchange of money for sex … Prostitution in marriage is the transaction of sex in return for love, security, and housekeeping.”
This idea that marriage is a form of prostitution is accepted by a number of feminist scholars.
In 2014, on ABC’s program Q+A, British-born feminist Jane Caro stated: “I would argue that traditional marriage is basically selling [women’s] bodies and their reproductive rights to their husbands is a form of prostitution.”
The radical feminist promotion of “sexual liberation” rests on the application of Marxist forms of critical analysis to groups of people who are identified by gender and then urged to overthrow their “oppressors.”
“Patriarchal” is the word often used to describe the traditional conventions observed by respectable members of society, which are dismissed as “oppressive.”
Therefore, Marxism holds that the institution of marriage, within its attendant sexual morals, must die out and be replaced by “free unions of love.”
For a woman to be a housewife is considered shameful, and some feminists will go so far as to suggest that children will be better off by being raised by the state in public facilities rather than at home with their biological parents.
Sexual politics introduced what American feminist Camille Paglia describes as “the Stalinist style of feminist criticism.”
This type of feminism, according to Paglia, “strides into great literature and arts with jackboots on and red pen in hand, checking off ‘racist,’ ‘sexist’ and ‘homophobic,’ peremptorily decreeing what should remain and what should be discarded.”
Breaking a Sacred Vow Without Consequence, But With Reward
With the rise of radical feminism in the late 1960s, a significant slice of popular culture came to associate marriage with oppression and the suppression of freedom.
Another part of the strategy to undermine marriage was the creation of “no-fault” divorce in the early 1970s.
By subjecting marriage to critical Marxist analysis, “no-fault” divorce is advocated as a means to achieve “women’s sexual liberation.”
Of course, the idea was not quite promoted like that, but as a “humanizing effort” to allow “irretrievably broken” marriages to be terminated without any finding of guilt.
Once something is embodied in the law, it also becomes part of the moral reality of human society, thus shaping attitudes and expectations.
The purpose of the law was once to instruct citizens to aspire to a virtuous life.
Prior to the “no-fault” divorce in 1975, an element of “fault” in divorce encompassed adultery, desertion, habitual intoxication, cruelty, and the like. The innocent party, on credible grounds, was able to justify his or her divorce and be compensated for the damage caused by the other party, both morally and financially.
But the “no-fault” revolution changed these compensatory grounds, and it turned marriage into an easily revocable contract. This, of course, naturally reduced—perhaps even removed—the expectation for a permanent lifelong commitment.
It is one thing to allow “no-fault” for a marriage where both spouses agree that divorce is really what they want. But it is quite another when divorce occurs with no mutual consent—when one of the spouses decides to unilaterally leave the marriage contract.
Accordingly, the primary effect of the present laws is to disempower the victimised spouse by depriving him or her of leverage to bargain over the terms of settlement of property and financial matters.
No-fault divorce is part of the phalanx of laws that allows the state to invade our domestic affairs and harass people.
The system involves the intrusive presence of state agents forcibly removing people from their homes, seizing their property, and separating them from their children. It inherently abrogates not only the inviolability of marriage but also the very idea of having a private life.
According to Jennifer Roback Morse, founder of the Ruth Institute, the current “divorce regime is a unilateral divorce regime.”
“Anyone who wants a divorce gets to have one: The State always takes sides with the party who wants the marriage the least. The State incentivizes disloyalty and infidelity between spouses. And when things go wrong, the State empowers itself to clean up the mess,” Roback Morse argues.
Why Should Marriage Be the Only Contract to Be Breached With Impunity?
Under “no-fault,” the deserted spouse is often treated the same way as the unfaithful one who abandoned their family.
For example, a conscientious husband, who is not guilty of any misconduct, is made vulnerable by the prospect of losing access to the biological children he has loved, protected, and helped raise. The husband will also be forced to maintain the “guilty” ex-wife and their now-separated child. He may be forced to pay the mortgage charges but must leave the family home and pay rent for a separate residence.
As can be seen in this hypothetical example, the abandoned spouse is doubly victimised. They have largely lost their children, home and lost a large part of their income. The prospects of mending this shattered and impoverished life, re-partnering and perhaps having more children are negligible.
It is clear that the “no-fault” revolution, in allowing the marriage contract to be breached without any legal consequences (though there are serious and unavoidable consequences), has undermined the value we place on marriage to the detriment of Australian society.
Therefore, at the very least, marriage should always be treated as a normal contract.
The courts routinely award damages for non-economic loss in personal injury claims and damages for loss of reputation in defamation claims.
Accordingly, any “fault” for divorce should be followed by the award of damages and for weighting the division of family property. Why should marriage be the only contract that may be breached with impunity?
Above all, this radical, Marxist feminist approach must be condemned, and it should be a major public policy goal to protect marriage by restoring its full contractual nature.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
