“But it does make a mockery of the current law, doesn’t it?”

It’s much worse than that. The “law” makes a mockery of the institution of marriage because it embraces and elevates ignorance and simplistic specious equivocation over better education and understanding of the reality of marital problems.

Only a fool would fail to recognise that some marriages will inevitably break down, but the question is whether they need to be as numerous as is currently the case. One of the objectives of the 1996 Act was to try to identify and support those marriages which may be capable of retrieval. It’s difficult to see how that could come about until more education and understanding of marital problems is injected into the system, yet wherever you look, the legal profession seems to be in opposition to that objective.

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“I have a simple viewpoint. If parties can make up their respective minds to marry, then they may do so without ‘hoo hah’. Similarly, if they decide to divorce, they should be able to do so equally swiftly – with dignity and less cost and without mud slinging”

If one half of a couple wishes to marry, and the other half does not, then they won’t marry. On the other hand, if as you say, they have both made up their respective minds to marry, then they will. To put it another way, one person cannot force another person into marriage.

Compare that with what currently happens with divorce and with what you propose. If one half of a couple wishes to divorce, then as you have stated in several posts, irrespective of what the other half wishes, they will divorce. In other words, whilst one person cannot force another into marriage, they can force them into divorce.

Consequently, I can see no consistency or correlation between the two situations, and would suggest that your “simple viewpoint” rationale for why or how the law should be redesigned, would simply reinforce the iniquity and ignorance inherent in current practices, and there is little dignity in either iniquity or ignorance.

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“…and without expensive nannying either.”

I presume the word “nannying” in this context means anything which would enable potential divorcees to acquire a deeper understanding of their marital problems and alternative ways through them, and which would thus equip them to make a more informed and objective decision on whether to view divorce as the only option.?

The simple fact is that most people who divorce have little or no understanding of the complexities of the underlying causes of their marital problems, or what can be done to tackle them, and as a result divorce on the basis of ignorance.

Could I ask you, do you accept that marital problems are complex issues that usually have unconscious underlying causes.?

In a reply to a post by someone else in another entry, you stated the following;

..I have never been instructed by a client who has not agonised on the decision to end their marriage, and in so instructing also believes that there is no viable alternative for themselves or their children. If they did, they would not be instructing me.

Clearly your reply centres on the word “believes”. The belief you speak of would be fine were it to be based on a clear understanding of the reality of the issues involved and what could be done to tackle them. Are you claiming your clients are always in possession of that understanding when they instruct you.? In the absence of that understanding the belief is no more than a combination of ignorance and prejudice. Is that really a sensible basis for instruction.?