Gabriela Women's Partylist can count on my support in their quest (yes, quest may be too dramatic a word, but that's what this battle for a divorce bill will be!). I am happily married and I have no plans whatsoever of leaving my husband. I just can't keep my mouth shut in this issue.
Being a predominantly Catholic country, it was expected that the Church will have a lot to say about this. Ret. Archbishop Oscar Cruz even said that he's afraid that when people get married, at the back of their minds, they know they can get out of it.
And from our own kabaros, there were mixed reactions. One lady interviewed, happily married for three years, says that she welcomes the divorce bill both for men and women who are trapped in a loveless marriage. While another lady, separated from her husdband for 17 years already, is vehemently opposed to the divorce because it might make a mockery out of marriage. What! She should talk!
Well, for Ret. Archbishop Oscar Cruz' information, people get married because they LOVE each other, so why in the first place would they entertain thoughts of untying the knot before they even get the chance to tie it? Unless of course one is forced into a marriage! And for the sake of argument, why are there still couples, in countries where divorce is legal, who choose not to get married even if they can eventually get out of it anyway?
Love is an emotion rationalized only by how good someone makes you feel. It cannot be measured by rulers or weighing scales. For how can you explain the way your heart beats a littler more faster when you're with your partner? How can you explain the tenderness in your heart and the smile in your eyes? These are but symptoms, not explanations.
People can fall in love for many reasons. But they can also fall out of love as well. When all these symptoms of love disappear, do you have to force yourself to live and still be with that person you used to feel these for? Or if the tender caresses suddenly turned into jabs and uppercuts? When the unflattering eyeshadow you're wearing was actually applied uncarefully by his fists?
The divorce bill is for both men and women who are already unhappy in their marriage. But moreso, it is for us women who often get the short end of the bargain. Most women stay in a violent marriage because society offers them no other choice. A woman separated from her husband is stigmatized as a maarte or pakawala. A woman who has no means to support herself and her children cannot simply walk out on her provider. And believe it or not, most battered women stay in the abusive relationship because they think they actually deserve the beatings they're getting!
The Divorce Bill will undoubtedly empower women to think for themselves. To believe that they can make a clean break from a painful, loveless marriage without having to suffer the biases of society. Staying in a loveless, abusive marriage is what makes a mockery out of the sanctity of marriage and purity of love.
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