Britain: Peer calls for tougher divorce laws

British law should be reformed to discourage quick divorces, says Baroness Ruth Deech, a crossbench peer in the House of Lords.

Lady Deech, one of the country’s most senior family lawyers, also said that if children are taught not to smoke and how to have a good diet in school, then they should be taught the value of marriage, the Mail Online reported last week.

A recent report by the Center for Social Justice, titled “Every Family Matters,” detailed the financial cost of family breakdown in Britain. It estimated that the cost of drug and alcohol abuse, crime, and educational failure fueled by family breakdown is ₤120 billion (us$195 billion) annually.

Lady Deech criticized Britain’s divorce laws, saying that they make divorce too easy. “It is far more difficult to terminate those other pillars of a stable life, employment and a tenancy, than marriage.” She said. “It seems to be an unspoken political decision that attempts to make divorce more difficult are totally unacceptable. Any other situation that is known to harm children … attracts legislation and extensive public campaigns without dissent. But even when public debate focuses on the plight of single parents and their children, the fact that over half of them are created by divorce and separation is overlooked. It is astonishing that no government seriously considers divorce as an issue while expressing anxiety about single parents, their children and society’s health.”

Lady Deech “called for tougher divorce laws generally to protect children from the damage caused by family break-up,” the Mail Online reported. She “said 40 years of divorce law reform had increased the number of divorces and hurt families.”

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