IT IS a sad fact of modern life that Australia has joined a Western trend towards fewer marriages and more divorces.

While economists and demographers might point to the impact of prevailing economic and social conditions on this trend, the growing influence of secularism and materialism cannot be denied or ignored.

Certainly financial factors, including the obscene cost of housing and accommodation these days, act as deterrents to both establishing households and starting families. These same restraints have also, tragically, been blamed by some for their recourse to abortion.

The great irony is, of course, that we are not stuck in the depth of a major economic downturn, such as the Great Depression of the 1930s – we are all reassured that we are living in an age of great prosperity and economic growth.

(Perhaps the growing numbers of the ‘working poor’ to which Bishop Kevin Manning refers draws a truer picture of our ‘prosperity’.)

Over the past 20 years in Australia, due largely to changes in Family Law legislation, it has become easier to obtain a divorce than ever before.

Government plans for a trial of ‘separation centres’ for counselling in preparation for legal separation are therefore welcome.

Such counselling would reinforce the need for a commitment to marriage and also focus on the trauma suffered not only by the couple involved, but on their immediate family, including children, and their wider network of family and friends.

Marriage breakdown is therefore something that impacts on us all. As Catholic Welfare’s Frank Quinlan says: “The breakdown of the family unit has ramifications far beyond legal issues and should not be treated as simply a legal problem.”

We all need to foster commitment and responsibility so that marriage will be reconfirmed as a pillar of society rather than a mere contract easily entered into and sometimes as easily and legally broken.