No Divorce law in the Philippines

The Situation

I am writing this based on my own imagination. I love imagining because it is free to imagine.

As far as my knowledge is concerned, there are few countries in the world that prohibit divorce by the law. To name them Philippines, Vatican City, and Malta are under the law of no divorce. Perhaps, there are more countries that I do not know.

But the question is “Are marriage saved by enacting such kind of law?” I think not.

I would like to take the Republic of the Philippines as an example throughout my writing. *Please no offence to any of my Pilipino friend who has come across my hub and read it. I am taking this for the sake of my personal reflection about marriage law.

And I assume that any other country that enacts no divorce law will have the same consequences as found in the Philippines.

Grown up in a country where divorce is legalized, I was kinda surprised when I first learnt that the Republic of the Philippines does not allow divorcement.

At the same time, I come to a realization that how corrupt we the human beings are. So much so that the law has to be enacted for the purpose of keeping the married couple safe. No divorce.

We fell in love deeply. We needed each other so much. Our love had brought us together and swore before God and signed that “we the two have become one.” But when the honeymoon life is over…. Love seems not to be that much sweet as it was before. By that time, just love is not enough anymore for survival.

Just like in the Philippines, although divorce is not allowed separation and annulment legally allowed. But being separated is still bound within the marriage contract. What about annulment? These are the grounds for annulment:

• 1. Lack of parental consent in certain cases – if a party is 18 years or over but below 21 years old
• 2. Insanity – if a party is unsound in mind at the time of marriage
• 3. Fraud –concealment about drug addiction, lesbianism etc at the time of marriage
• 4. Force, intimidation or undue influence
• 5. Impotence – at the time of marriage either party was incapable of consummating with incurable causes- but being unfertile is different from it.
• 6. STD – either of the party was afflicted with sexual transmissible disease

The Results

While with no divorce law, we purpose to save marriage in the country, the results seem not to be satisfactory. I believe that this kind of legislation more or less brings most of the couple who are in love into awareness of “no divorce.” Maybe, they need to take their time and think if their love would really be lasting. Probably they would opt to live together instead of getting married at once and wanting to divorce. But divorce is not allowed. Then they would live together.

Living together itself is not such a big problem. But an attempt to save marriage by the “no divorce” law totally fails here. At the same time the sacredness of marriage is lost.

The other direct result is that when the two lovers live together, they would have children. What if either side of the party will no longer be happy to live together, he/she would simply leave and find another love life and have more children again.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons why the yearly population growth rate of the Philippines too high. Though that has not to be the only reason, it is only my assumption.

However, even countries which legally allow divorce will also face another kind of disadvantages. While there is no perfect legislation on earth, the principle behind the law must be always sought.  

I think the bottom line here is, whether or not we are under the No divorce law, marriage has to be highly valued before or after marriage.