How to split when divorce is banned

[LemonAndLime]

With the strong influence of the Catholic faith, divorce is illegal in the Philippines. But couples who have fallen out of love find novel ways to split - including multiple annulments. For a country which does not allow divorce, there seems to be an awful lot of people in the Philippines who have ex-wives or ex-husbands…

…And it is hardly an option available to everyone. This is a country where a third of the population live on less than a dollar a day. An annulment is simply too expensive for the vast majority of people. The result is a two-tier system, where rich people can marry again and poor people cannot…

…There are undoubtedly people who feel trapped by the lack of a divorce law - those whose first partners are long gone and who would dearly love to marry someone else, and the children born out of wedlock and into stigma because their parents cannot get married.

Supporters for legal divorce also point to the high number of battered wives who feel trapped, unable to leave their husbands.

A small percentage of Filipinos are already allowed to divorce - the 5% of the population who are Muslim, and also some Filipinos married to foreigners. So why does the government not just accept that some marriages fail, like they do everywhere else - and that divorce is sometimes the only option? Because that would be to ignore the strong feelings people have toward their faith. The majority of people here are not just lip-service Catholics, but fasting, praying, regular-attending members of the church.

And when the bishops say that divorce is anti-Filipino, and to legalise it would be to cheapen the institution of marriage, people take that message seriously.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/9509519.stm

 

[Stylites]

I can’t speak for civil laws in the Phillipines, but the Church does not recognize divorce; divorced people are still married in the eyes of the Church. She may allow for civil divorce so as to justly effect the division of property, etc. But a Catholic is free to separate from their spouse and still remain a good Catholic. Remarrying would be a sin, as it is adultery.

Now, if the poor are unable to acquire annulments in some countries then the answer to that is not to legitimize adultery in the Church but to change the fee structure.