"There is no legal cure for grief..."

It is really tedious to get dragged into anybody else’s personal crusade. But it is worthwhile responding to personal attacks when there are bigger issues involved that affect all of us, as there are in any discussion of the family or of family law. In this debate, there are thus a few things that need to be said in the interests of objectivity, and the following four points may be useful by way of a final response.

1. Family and relationship breakup affects us all.

All of us are affected by family breakup or breakdown, directly or indirectly. We may have relevant experience directly, whether because we have children who are caught in the middle of our own relationship breaking up; or whether we are or were the children caught in the middle of our parents’ breakup. Many of us have been directly affected by the grief and trauma of the ending of a marriage.
It may be easy (and delightfully old-fashioned!) to label a woman as unfit to participate in this debate because she is a “childless career feminist”, but it is of course both lazy and wrong to make any presumptions about anybody else’s personal circumstances. It is in fact utterly ludicrous to suggest that any individual has no right to participate in a debate about the family. Given the extent to which so many are affected by marital and family breakdown in Ireland as elsewhere, it is obvious that campaigners for change need to work with others from different perspectives, and be informed by the experiences of a wide cross-section of people. Only then can a truly objective view of the necessary reforms to family law be arrived at, but the rights of children always need to be paramount in any campaign for legal change which may affect them.

2. When relationships break up, children tend to get caught in the middle of the emotional fallout.

This is another truism, but a hard fact nonetheless. All too often children, and their care arrangements, are used by one or both parents as a battleground on which to play out the emotional issues between the adults involved. Of course, this is not always the case. Ideally, the question of how the children will be best cared for after a separation is amicably decided between the parents. But in those hard cases where parents cannot agree on childcare arrangements, judges have the unenviable task of deciding on the terms of custody and access. They must make their decisions based on the state of affairs presented to them, in the best interests of the child. In so doing, judges have to examine the actual parenting roles assumed by both mother and
Father. And where young children are concerned, in general mothers remain the primary caregivers after the breakup just as before it - as the figures on working parents show.
In an ideal world, both parents would share parenting responsibilities equally - and a key aim of the feminist movement has always been to create a more equal society, in which it would not be assumed that mothers are always the primary caregivers, nor fathers the primary breadwinners. In such a society, parenting duties would be shared equally between men and women, and custody would then generally be equally shared between parents upon any breakup of their relationship. But unfortunately we have not achieved that ideal state yet, and each individual case must be dealt with on its own merits within the terms of fundamental family law principles.

3. There are many problems with family law in Ireland - but the most effective way to resolve these is through an inclusive campaigning approach.

Another truism, and there are many examples of the different problems that exist. For instance, the constitutional definition of family in Article 41 is far too narrow, given the changes that have occurred in Irish society in recent decades. The definition continues to exclude from protection all relationships not based upon marriage - an outdated view of what constitutes family‚ in Ireland, and that does not conform with the reality where nearly 80,000 couples declared themselves as cohabiting in the 2002 Census.
Another glaring example of an outdated approach is that the law still does not recognise the right of gay people to marry or form legally recognised partnerships, with consequent injustices for many same-sex couples in terms of taxation, immigration, property and pension rights, to name but a few issues.
There are several inclusive campaign groups, with women and men involved,working to change family laws. The One Family campaign group (formerly Cherish), the national membership organisation of one-parent families, is open to all single parents. AIM Family Services, the family law reform NGO, has been working since 1972 for vitally important practical changes in family law, including legal recognition of the non - financial contribution to family welfare of the partner or spouse who has worked in the home caring for the family; enhanced access to free civil legal aid and advice for all who needit; and the development of a more specialised family courts system, with judges expert in family matters.
It is far more effective to campaign in this inclusive way for necessary legal change, than to adopt the sort of confrontational approach towards mothers and women that characterises some of the fathers’ rights groups here and in Britain.

4. The law is not a cure-all.

Finally, whatever family law campaigners achieve, and whatever legal change comes about, the law cannot undo the emotional hurt caused by the breakup of a relationship. There is a sense that many people expect too much of the law,and believe that it will provide a panacea for their own individual situation.
This is only natural. When anyone is closely and emotionally involved with any issue, they may lack the necessary distance to see that there is a bigger picture. The pain and bitterness that accompanies so many relationship breakups for so many people can often cloud individuals’ perceptions of the wider issues involved. What most people do come to recognise, however, is that the law can never offer any kind of emotional solution to family breakdown. The law will always be a blunt instrument in these situations, as it is in any human situation. In personal injury cases, we all know that no amount of financial compensation can ever really compensate for physical or emotional injuries suffered. Similarly, no family judge, however compassionate and judicious, can remedy the hurt caused by a separation or divorce. The most important role for family law is clearly to seek to protect the vulnerable children caught in the middle.
The bottom line however is that there is no legal cure for grief. The law cannot put back together a family that has been split apart. We would do well to remember this ultimate truth, as we debate calmly and rationally the changes that have occurred in the Irish family over recent decades, and work together in an inclusive spirit for changes that are objectively necessary to family law.