Undo the 'I do'?
While there is no doubt that many of those seeking legal separation may have concrete criteria for doing so, the vast numbers of people applying to undo the "I do" is, by anyone's standards, rather ambiguous. Have we really become so accustomed to replacing broken objects with shiny new ones, without a thought as to whether they can be fixed, that a marriage is no different?
Analysis carried out by Accord, the marriage counselling organisation, revealed that 35,059 people had been divorced in Ireland by 2002, yet 20,047 couples tied the knot last year. With the cost of the basic wedding totalling approximately E10,000, a decidedly un-romantic E350 million (E31 million a year) has been spent by couples on marriages ending in divorce since 1992.
Due to the waning popularity of the Catholic church, it has been suggested that modern marriage is often little more than a romantic, and totally reversible, gesture. As Tina Turner once wailed, "What's love got to do with it?" ...especially when the band is booked, the cake is baked and decorated and wedding invitations have been distributed to everyone from your boss to your auntie Betty. In this, perhaps the most materialistic of eras yet, the effort exerted in planning the perfect wedding does not always reflect the effort that will be devoted to maintaining the perfect marriage. In theory, while everyone loves a wedding, very few seem to be willing to dedicate themselves to a lifetime of compromise, which inevitably leads to resentment, impatience and a sharp advance into divorce territory.
Zsa Zsa Gabor, an American actress, memorably claimed that getting divorced just because you don't love somebody is almost as silly as getting married just because you do. If your partner is 'almost' ideal, should you forget about the missing piece in your relationship or carry on in search of perfection? Evidently, marriage is no longer just about love.
The concept of the pre-nuptial agreement is another interesting development in the world of wedded bliss. Described as the one human tragedy that reduces everything to cash, divorce can be an expensive option for the party with the higher income and the option of the revised vow, "Till debt do us part", is often a very attractive one.
Some may believe this undermines the whole point of a marriage, believing that a marriage of minds and hearts should also mean a marriage in finances, but any divorcee will tell you, metaphorically speaking, that if you get hit by a truck, you're much more likely to look left and right next time you're crossing the road, and the 'pre-nup' often acts as a safety net.
While countless couples enjoy fantastic marriages, how do we recognise and weed out those heading for catastrophe? The answer, unfortunately, is that we can't, and nobody can undermine another's choice to walk up the aisle. Perhaps, as Helen Rowland, and American journalist once said, "When two people decide to get a divorce, it isn't a sign that they 'don't understand' one another, but a sign that they have, at last, begun to".
