French counter-enlightenment thinker Louis de Bonald’s uniquely strong proposal for discouraging divorce, as summarized by Mark Henrie:
If divorce is allowed at all, therefore, parents should be treated as deceased and the children raised as wards of the state. This follows because “a father and mother who divorce are . . . really two strong people who conspire to rob a weak one [the child], and the State which consents to this is an accomplice in their brigandage.” Bonald’s insistence on the primacy of the good of children in the state’s relationship to families anticipates the arguments of such contemporaries as Mary Ann Glendon. But his application of a harsh sanction to support the institution of marriage (without regard to the perceived interests of individuals) is unique to Bonald’s approach. While we would not want to contemplate the seizure of the children of divorced parents, perhaps we can find other sanctions that would alter the calculus of divorce. As Bonald says, “Choices will only be more prudent when their consequences are more serious.”
From “Divorce, Communitarian Style” in our archives.
October 18th, 2012 | 5:26 pm
I have to agree that de Bonald’s solution would never fly in these United States. But I do think that in cases where minor children are involved, divorce should simply not be allowed except for the four “A”s, adultery, abuse, addiction, or abandonment. And those should be pretty strictly defined.
October 19th, 2012 | 9:21 am
Even in the case of the four “A”s, it should be only the innocent party – the one who didn’t commit adultery, didn’t abuse the spouse, doesn’t have an addiction, didn’t abandon the family – who can obtain a divorce. Sometimes spouses will not want to divorce even in these difficult circumstances, either because they hope guilty spouses will change, or because they calculate (often correctly) that they’ll be better off if they remain married.
October 19th, 2012 | 7:27 pm
Scotch Meg, Absolutely. It never occurred to me that anyone would interpret what I said to mean abusers, addicts, and adulterers could use their abuse, addiction, or adultery as excuses to abandon their family, but when I read your comment, I slapped my forehead and said, “D’uh.” I really need to be more clear sometimes.
October 19th, 2012 | 8:11 pm
Since marriage is a contract, and the state’s role is to uphold contracts and punish those who default on them … how about the person who seeks the divorce (or commits crimes that make the other wish to divorce) loses all their joint property?
A little harsh maybe?
What the Catholic Church does works well: you can get divorced, but you can’t get remarried. Which is why Catholics (I mean serious ones, who don’t plan to break the Church’s law) don’t divorce except in pretty serious situations. On the other hand, this actually is civil law in the Philippines, and everyone just ignores it and move in with second “spouses” without telling anyone they’re not legally married.
However, I would NEVER suggest that, having lost one parent, a child should then have to lose the other. I can’t imagine how that would be in the best interest of the child. The person who wrote that clearly doesn’t know much about kids and their deep attachment to their parents. There are some situations where children have to be separated from their parents, but these are rare and they always do leave some scars.
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