The Better Alternative
When you are an influencer, there would be times in your life when some people would pressure you to cave in on something that would be advantageous to them but detrimental to the majority.
And since I have started this site, I have come to realize that I have slowly become an influencer, however direct or indirect it may be. Which is why keeping my identity is important to me. Because when my identity is known, then the harassment would come.
In recent years, I have had the privilege of meeting and becoming friends with someone who understood my thoughts on how to improve the things around me that I see and go through as an ordinary person. It was then that she warned me that someday, when they find out who I was, I would eventually be harassed to influence some sectors of society because only a few wanted something for themselves. And recently I found that to be true.
For the past year, since I wrote about the divorce law, I noticed a change in my life. More and more people have started noticing my blog entry and have started talking about it in various venues. At first I thought it was flattering. Then slowly it became apparent to me that when you can influence a lot of people to think differently about something, the pressure to influence the changers of the laws through the power of writing comes into he picture.
I still am not for the divorce law to be passed. Why?
As I have stated previously, the reasons are clear in my previous blog entry. However, I think it needs more than just that to justify my stand.
In our country we are not preventive. We are reactive most of the time. That means we seldom plan in detail and implement detailed plans. We usually have things done haphazardly for as long as we can get away with it then when something bad happens, that’s the time we try to fix the things that should have been fixed ahead of time.
Why do I say this?
We want divorce but we are not willing to invest in reproductive health in a big way. Meaning, we want to get out of relationships because we saw something nicer but we do not want to be responsible for how many children the divorcees would be leaving with a broken family. And I think in our country, we wouldn’t really care if we get the first wife pregnant every year, divorce her after a decade, then do the same thing with succeeding wives. If you want divorce to be an option then children should be taught about condoms and pills. So that when they are older they wouldn’t be forced to marry the first girl they had sex with because she got pregnant then file for divorce after a few years just because it is an option. Or that if the married couple really didn’t know each other well enough, then they should be given options to prevent frequent pregnancies.
We want divorce but we are not willing to instill in our people the very essence of commitment. The moment we allow divorce as a viable “escape plan” for people in our country, we allow them to get into commitments haphazardly too, without reading the fine print or understanding the implications of the contract. The only reason why we are said to be different from animals is because we have the conscious effort to make our own decisions based on logical thinking and not animal instinct for the sake of survival. That means, we stick to one partner, reproduce from only one partner, and die with only one partner. Why is this important? Because the world of man revolves around the strength of commitments. If we start a generation where we are able to tell our children that you have to honor every contract and agreement you make in life but you can always weasel your way out of a marriage, then how would we help them un-confuse themselves with that piece of knowledge?
We want divorce but we are not willing to instill in our people the importance of preparation and planning. Before getting married, did we take the time to really know each other? Before getting married did we take the time to discuss with each other our plans? our wants? our expectations? our specific roles? what to do when things and such arises? We don’t usually. It is only after many years of being married that we find out. Why? Because our country values the importance of virginity than longevity. By that I mean, we would rather have our children marry because they cannot have pre-marital sex even if they have nothing in common but their sexual urges. But we do not take the time to discuss with them the implications, the long-term consequences and repercussions of a marriage.
There are so many reasons why I do not want the divorce law. And it is not because I don’t want to be un-married. In fact, I would rather my husband would not return to our house anymore after committing adultery. Why? Because if you cannot honor an agreement witnessed by so many people by keeping your zipper closed at all times when with other people, then why should you even allow your own children to see that they too can do the same mistake when they are older and then return home unapologetic and crass and expect to be treated the same way as if nothing happened? By returning home after adultery, you destroyed two things. The sanctity of your marriage, and the values of your children.
I do not want the divorce law in our country because it is an escape plan for few and a burden for the majority. If you plan to have a divorce eventually, then get married in some other country where it is legalized. But do not force the influencers of this country to agree to the divorce law by harassing them, bribing them, making them experience what it is like to want divorce because the marriage has been destroyed by some act or other.
And if you want the divorce law because you want to get out of your current marriage, then that is your problem. Try to look at yourself and your intentions.
Laws are made to protect values. These laws come in many forms and from many sources. They can be a country’s laws, a school’s handbook of rules and regulations, a book of rules of a specific faith, or a simple unwritten rule in a common playground that everyone knows and follows without question.
With our country’s culture, what values are important to the majority?
In marriage vows in our country, is there a line or a paragraph that says,
“in the event of a breach of contract by either the husband or the wife, the immediate resolution is the dissolution of the marriage. However, if the husband and wife would prefer arbitration to resolve differences and points of conflict, the venue for arbitration is the nearest marriage counselling center.”
There isn’t.
The vows say that husband and wife shall stay married, “for better or for worst, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, til death do us part.”
That means when one of you gets really sick, like some venereal disease or AIDS, you have to care for the other even if it disgusts you. That means when one of you is an alcoholic or drug addict or a habitual gambler, the other has to accept it and help you get rehabilitated and never give up until your last breath. It sucks, I know, but that is the definition of commitment for a marriage in our country. Do these realities make me rethink my stand of saying no to the divorce law? No.
What does death mean to us?
For myself, the moment I was able to confirm that my husband committed adultery, he died to me. But the word death in the vows mean physical death. That means, even if I think and feel and treat him as dead, I am still literally and technically married to him because he is still alive. And his act of adultery is what he says makes him feel alive, which I know is also the same sentiment of other men who commit adultery. That it helps them feel alive. But in the process of their maintaining their feeling of being alive, deaths occur on the other side of their life. The death of their integrity in keeping their commitment to their spouse, death of their integrity to their children in keeping them safe from anyone who aims to destroy the basic unit of life which is the family, and the death of their own personal integrity for themselves.
Presently, he is staying in the spare room in our house that is supposed to be a home office. Which means he has all the opportunities to let someone inside the room without me and our children finding out about any of it. He could have a drug session there, an orgy, or just come home from work and wait for us to fall asleep so he could let in his mistress or even their illegitimate children and they could sleep together there under the same roof our children are in. If any of you were in my place, would you want your husband to come home to your house, be seen by your children sleeping in a different room and possibly even be caught with someone else? This is why I don’t want him to come home anymore. Because I already know he is weak and would eventually not be able to keep our house clean of any such activities and people. How then would I be able to maintain the values of my children if they see such foul acts from their own father in their own home? How many of my countrymen have the same situation? Where their spouse is able to bring home people that would compromise their children’s values? Yes, it has come to this point where the pressure to agree to have the divorce law passed is being made in my own household just to see how long it would take before I give in to the pressure. I know one of these days I would be made to see something inside that room that I don’t want to see just to force me to agree to the divorce law.
Which is why many spouses, both men and women, who think and feel they have found someone better than their spouse, want to have the divorce law passed. And then what? When they are able to divorce their current wife or husband, what’s to stop them from divorcing succeeding spouses on a whim? Then what would be the definition of the basic unit of a family in our country? Would it be the husband, the current wife, and the collection of children from the first wife to the current wife? Would it be the current husband, the wife, and the collection of children from the first husband to the current husband? How are we going to include this new definition of a family tree into the school curricula? Then we would also need to have all the textbooks for character education rewritten to include the word divorce and the structure of such. Which prompts me to ask, could we actually include the word divorce in character education books in our country?
Sadly in our country, we tolerate adultery. Although it is a crime, a marriage cannot be dissolved with the crime of adultery. There would only be punishment, but while the punishment is being enforced, the couple are still legally married to each other.
In many situations, spouses get back together after many kinds of conflicts. But that only happens when the spouse that caused the conflict apologizes profusely and makes a continuous effort to change and never let the offence happen again. In our country, that usually only happens in movies and television shows. In real life it is a rarity. Why? Because our culture dictates that the spouse should never own up to their mistake since everyone around them would never rat them out anyway.
Which prompts me to ask this.
If I was to ask those who want the divorce law passed to submit a full report of the economic implications of the divorce law, would they be able to give it? what should the report contain? All the computations and figures needed to prove that the divorce law would not have any effect statistically on societal structures, all types of health concerns, mortality rates, education performance results, population needs, and all other census data. Which I think should be a good method of objectively deciding to pass any kind of law, with the help of figures. Simply because numbers don’t lie.
Do you want the divorce law to be passed because you messed up your marriage vows and want to escape?
Or do you want the divorce law because you believe with all your mind, heart and soul that it would lead to the improvement of our country, our people, our economy, our society and our over-all performance as a nation?
Think about it.
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