Let’s educate ourselves by allowing careful reporting of family cases

LAST night reality TV got real with the first of a four-part series called For Better or Worse. It’s all about divorce, and RTÉ publicists say it will ‘break one last taboo’ in Irish society by looking at the reality of marriage break-up through the eyes of some of the people directly involved.

In the first episode we heard stories about couples meeting, falling in love and the early difficulties which beset their marriages. The series will feature four couples in particular but others will highlight divorce-related problems such as domestic violence, single fatherhood, the impoverishment of women and the sale of family farms.

It looks like a good idea. Despite the fact that large numbers of people continue to get married (20,000 couples did so last year) the divorce rate doubled between 1998 and 2002 and the number of divorced people now stands at 35,100. Anything that sheds light on the causes and effects of this is welcome.