Life Changing Injury

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Love and Family Law

The most important aspect of family law is the love of the parents for the children and each other. Anyone who hears the term, "family law", intuitively realizes this fact. Yet as as "family law" progresses, it increasingly excludes any consideration of this aspect of the family. So long as the courts and the law ignore this factor in their proceedings and structure, the courts are relegated to the irrational.

Love is based on trust and respect, two other emotions that the courts ignore. The courts vacate the love, trust and respect between all the parties, usurping the concept of individuals in favor of procedures and more tightly defined proscriptions. The only trust and respect remaining in "family law" are to be directed to the courts and officers of the courts.
Yet the courts are not members of the family. This simple fact eludes the courts, and confounds the families which face the courts.

Marriage and Madness
Based on the concepts which guide the judgments and ongoing actions of the courts and bureaucracy, the courts and bureaucracy may as well be parties to the marriage ceremony.
Of course, a marriage is not a marriage until it is registered with the state. A couple can exchange vows before a dozen congregations but it isn't a marriage until the registrar fills out the paperwork.
This is a uniquely binding contract, since it is not the only means for tax breaks and family responsibility to be placed in Australia. A couple can simply register for benefits as a De Facto, and after 6 months it is as binding as any registered marriage. However, registering as a de facto couple is done in applications to CentreLink, for benefits. There is an easy cynicism in that fact.

De Facto
De facto relationships, although they did not enjoy legislative access to the federal courts until July 2006 (- This was one of my ex's main reasons for executing her abuse of the Intervention Order process when she did. She and her barrister gloated about it the extorted settlement. -), are still largely the province of the state courts.
Over 40% of marriages begin as De Facto relationships (ABS); and there are more than 1 million people in De Facto relationships in Australia. These relationships can produced children; and the people involved should have all the rights of any married person, but they don't.
It is only when the children of a De Facto relationship appear in the federal courts and bureaucratic rules, commonly accompanied by false allegations of abuse, that the "protections" of the law are involved.

Indeed, it would be reasonable to require by law that anyone entering into a registered marriage or indicating a De Facto relationship undergo a full explanation of the FLA and its attendant agencies - before going any further. Although the courts will recoil at such a suggestion, I'm sure that those who are in love will hardly be dissuaded. Most will simply find such training a raving bore.
It might, however, save a few shaky families from being formed. And such training would be at least a step towards equal protection under the law for all parties, including any children.

Love and Lawyers in Family Law
Rarely have two words been more appositive and dichotomous than "love" and "lawyers" in this context.
Indeed, lawyers are trained that the clients be treated like ‘wards of the state’, as if they were mentally deficient or children too young to understand the issues before them.
Rank sexism is displayed by the courts and lawyers when the father is told not to declare his love for his child(ren) or his ex because it will be seen as a motive to abuse by the courts; yet the mother is expected to beam her love for her children - and loathing for her husband - during the court procedures.
It must truly frustrate the magistrates and lawyers that some 37% (nearly 2 out of 5) of those who put on this performance for the courts return to the relationship after divorce. Is this because they are still in love or find new reasons to love one another? Or is it just the force of patriarchy and financial pressures?

There is nothing constructive in these attitudes, especially when children and parents are involved. That any parent or individual would endure a professional attitudes designed to bloat egos and perpetuate an arrogant laziness is astounding.

It's the Law
The range of human emotions and expression are not defined in the law. The best the law can do is to proscribe certain actions.
When the law attempts to define fully an individual, it fails; and in its failure breaches the human and civil rights of the individual, which are the moral groundwork on which law and society find their purpose. The law and the courts cannot deal with the concept of love. There is no mentioon of it in the law. Yet it is love that brings two people together into a marriage; and it is love that keeps them together - whether it is love for one another, their children, or just a love of financial advantage or social appearances.

The Law cannot deal with the love of one person for another. It gives no "weighting" to such a concept, as it does for finances, possessions or income.
The Law cannot deal with the love of a parent for their children, at least not well. Even if the love between two people dies or becomes poisoned for some reason, the love of each parent for the children remains. When the law attempts to define how this love is expressed, the purpose of the law seems to be to ensure that any love that remains is turned to loathing. Both parents have to struggle against this pressure for years.
In the saddest cases, the law succeeds in even turning the love of a parent for their children to resentment.

Love, I was taught by literature and experience, is a strange emotion. Unlike other emotions, love is given and returned in equal measure. Even those who fear to love cannot resist its irresistible power.
The love between two people is as instinctive as the love of a parent for a newborn child. Science has only recently proven what bards and history have recorded since the dawn of time, yet the law is silent on this fact of human existence. There is no "weight" in the law for love.
At that point become the enemy of the human rights and freedoms it was established to protect.
Once under the "protections" of family law, the family may as well make room for magistrates, lawyers and bureaucrats in their homes. The family will never be free of them. The family will suffer for the arrogance and presumptions of the courts and bureaucracy for the rest of their lives.
The law ignores the damage done to adults, in favor of protecting the children by depriving the parents of their authority and self respect - and in the process only does greater damage over years to the children.

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