The Government finally seems to see the wisdom in supporting marriage

THERE IS HOPE YET. In what one minister called a "grief-cutting" exercise, the Cabinet has finally given its approval to Lord Mackay's radical overhaul of divorce legislation.
No more "quickie divorces", no more "now we are, now we aren't" mentality. And by offering mediation services to troubled couples, the Government seems to be taking a very important step in the direction of bolstering, rather than ciestroying, the family unit.
About time, too. One out of three marriages end in divorce. One child in five is brought up by a single parent. The devastation wrought cannot be calculated in alimony or in payments extracted by the Child Protection Agency. For, divorce is not merely a commercial venture gone awry, or a Barings Bank gone bust.
It is far, far worse, bringing with it the realisation by two people that they have suffered an incalculable loss that of the love and respect they once bore one another.
It is the immeasurable suffering of children who witness the break-up of their emotional frame-work, who see the nucleus where they had their first lessons in give and take, in love and trust, explode in a battlefield of recriminations and accusations that leave its members wounded.
More and more, spiritual leaders seem to agree that the family lies at the core of our society: both Cardinal Hume and Rabbi Jonathan Sachs,have written empassioned pieces (and in the Chief Rabbi's case, a book) about the importance of the family as a blueprint for a good society. They have
spoken years before Arnitai Etzioni lectured on the importance of communitarianism abou our need for the "I" to give way to the "we", and for "community" to replace "rampant individualism".
In the great machinery of our society, family values can act as lubricants assisting the turning of the wheels. Thus, it is in the interest of our Government to support the family through the fiscal and legislative system.
When Archbishop John Habgood of York calls for tax cuts for those families with children, when Lord Mackay calls for an end to easyspeedy divorces, they are striving to bolster an emotional, social, legal edifice that for far too long has been subjected to the hammer blows of selfish individualism and attendant instant gratification.
Marriage, to Catholics, is a sacrament, a sacred covenant that lasts a lifetime, "for better or for worse": it is not a contract for a limited period of time that can be broken during a "difficult spell".
It is with this in mind that such services as the excellent Catholic Marriage Advisory Council (CMAC) operates, and from this tenet that it draws inspiration. Happily, through the new Lord Mackay proposal, we would all benefit from the counselling offered by such groups.
It can only be hoped that, following a period of reflection, and in light of the advice given by the CMAC and similiar entities, fewer and fewer people will take what was once an automatic step.