‘No-divorce vow should be legally binding option’

COUPLES should be allowed make a legally binding commitment never to divorce, one of the State’s leading family law experts advocated last night.

William Binchy, professor of law at Trinity, believes the lack of choice is inconsistent with a person’s human rights, including freedom of expression, autonomy from the State, privacy and liberty.

“It may be argued liberty is at its most profound and free when a human being knowingly and freely chooses to restrict the scope of his or her range of future choice,” Prof Binchy told the Merriman summer school in Lisdoonvarna, Co Clare.

Prof Binchy, a member of the Human Rights Commission who opposed the introduction of divorce in 1995, said it “replaced a single definition of marriage by another single definition of marriage”.

“The purpose of this paper has been provocative: to encourage engagement, contradiction and further progress in the debate on marriage,” he said.

Prof Binchy said the legal definition of marriage as not involving a lifelong mutual commitment contradicts the actual commitment made by many couples when they marry.

“As long as marriage remains a legal concept, society has an interest in what the spouses actually promise,” he said.

“The new law [Divorce Act] purports to mishear the public expression of their commitment and treats it as exactly what it is not, namely a commitment with a qualification denying its lifelong character,” he said.

“The denial of a model of lifelong marriage to those who would wish to commit themselves in that way is anti-pluralist in its intent and effect.

“Individual citizens should be free to make up their own mind on the question and act in accordance with what they perceive to be appropriate to their needs and values.”

If spouses make it clear that the nature of their commitment excludes the option of divorce, society should not insist on defining marriage inconsistently with their choice, he said.