STRENGTHENING OF MARRIAGE (Hansard, 29 July 1964)

§ Mr. John Parker (Dagenham)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to enable a further marriage to be contracted by either spouse when a separation has persisted for five years. In recent months there has been considerable disquiet in the House about the rise in the number of illegitimate births. What is not generally realised, however, is that nearly 40 per cent. of the illegitimate births take place in what are in fact stable families, where father and mother live in the same household and bring up their children together. These children are the offspring of de facto marriages which are not legal because one or other of the parents is not in a position to marry his or her partner.

I believe that marriage would be strengthened if it were possible for such marriages to be made legal and for their children to be legitimised. It is the case that, after desertion for three years, it is possible for one of the partners to remarry. I am suggesting that, after a separation of five years, it should be possible for either of the parties then to remarry if he or she so desires. Why the period of five years? I submit that life is short. Five years is one-tenth of an adult's normal life-span these days, taking the period from age 20 to age 70 as being a reasonable expectation of adult life.

What I propose has been the law in Australia since 1959, when a Federal law was passed replacing the various State laws, thus giving a uniform marriage law throughout Australia. It has worked very well there. It was introduced as the result of experience in one State, Western Australia, going back many years.

Many reverend gentlemen, including the Archbishop, have stated that one of the important problems to be discussed is some arrangement for ending of marriage by consent. I submit that that is not the problem at all. If, at the present time, any two people wish to terminate a marriage nothing is simpler than to arrange an act of adultery or to see that sufficient evidence is produced 1454 to suggest that adultery has taken place. What is required is an alteration in the law to enable a marriage to be ended without the necessary consent of the other party.

It is alleged that this would be unfair because one party is guilty and the other is not. In reply, I would say that it takes two to make a marriage and also two to break it. This matter should not be settled on the basis of whether one party or the other is or is not guilty.

It may also be said that this would offend religious views. But I urge very strongly that this country is now a secular country. The marriage law should meet the needs of all the people and not only those of a particular sect. It should be for Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Humanists, Agnostics, Jews and Moslems and all the various Protestant sects. Many Protestants accept the views of Archbishop Cranmer that it is right and proper, when a marriage has broken down, to terminate it rather than the views sometimes put forward in this House.

At present, only one-tenth of our people are regular church-goers every Sunday. I believe that it is perfectly right and proper for any particular Church to have rules for its own members. No Church, however, has the right to impose its views on the great mass of the people who do not belong to it. It would be quite right and reasonable for any Church to deny communion to, to ex-communicate or to expel a member who does not carry out its views on this matter, but it is not right for it to try to dictate to others who are not members of that Church what the law of the land should be—not even to lapsed members.

It is suggested that this change would be unfair to a particular individual if he or she did not want a divorce, since the other partner could enforce it. I put the opposite point. I think that it is wrong that one individual should now be able to prevent his or her ex-partner from making a second marriage when the first has failed just because he or she may have religious objections or may want revenge. It is wrong that we should have this religious persecution enshrined in the law. For the present situation is, in fact, religious persecution. If one person enforces his view 1455 about marriage on some other person in this way, then that is persecuting that person by forcing him to observe religious views which he does not possess. It is high time that we took such practices outside the law of the land.

I am not proposing to go into the question of children now, since that is a different matter. There is a very strong case for properly looking after the children of divorcees but also a very strong case for looking after all fatherless children, whether they be the children of deserted wives, of widows, or of women trying to bring up children in their own household, although unmarried. There is, in fact, a very strong case for overhauling all social services as they affect fatherless children and this should certainly include all the children of divorcees and deserted wives. This is quite apart from any alteration now proposed in the law of marriage and divorce.

Such a change in the social services for fatherless children should be on the basis of a common United Kingdom social service. But it is high time to consider also having a common United Kingdom law of marriage and divorce and not having separate laws for different parts of the island. That would end the Gretna Green scandal and would be a natural corollary of developing the social services on a common United Kingdom basis for fatherless children, including the children of divorcees.