One of the noticeable aspects of Donald Trump’s administrative entourage is that multiple marriages (following divorces) are not unusual.
Mr Trump himself has been married three times. One of his most able supporters, the former mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, has also been married three times. And his new chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, is married to his third wife.
None of this is considered particularly remarkable: Donald Trump has faced far more criticism for making lewd remarks about women than for splitting up with his two previous wives.
Ex-mayor Giuliani – revered in New York for having “cleaned up” the city, dramatically reducing crime – is currently married to his third wife, Judith. The break-up of his second marriage attracted a good deal of media attention in 2001, because an affair became public. Yet the Italian-American Giuliani has defined himself as a “not-so-good Catholic”.
There are also, by contrast, Trump-associated characters who have remained married to a first spouse: his vice-president elect, Mike Pence, a serious Christian; his chief of staff Reince Priebus, still married to his childhood sweetheart; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Irish-American Catholic Paul Ryan.
Pope Francis wisely said, when asked for a comment on the election of Donald Trump, “I don’t judge politicians.” But in terms of the changing face of social mores, it’s interesting, just the same, that serial marriage now seems just another fact of life.
Moreover, it seems as though it is no bar to “family values”. President-elect Trump is surrounded by a loyal family circle from his first, second and third marriages. His daughter Ivanka – a convert to Judaism – has, with her husband Jared Kushner, been a key strategist in her father’s success.
But turn back the pages of history to December 1936, when King Edward VIII was making his decision to abdicate because he wished to marry the twice-divorced Mrs Simpson. The Commonwealth was up in arms against such a démarche (with kirk-led Scotland being particularly outraged). The Anglican Church worldwide said it was a serious breach of Christian sacramental standards and could not be countenanced. The Catholic Church was equally critical, though it was felt to be more of an Anglican issue.
When Anthony Eden became prime minister in 1955, it was thought prudent to keep a divorce in the background. When Ronald Reagan became US president in 1981, he was excused for having had one divorce because he had been a Hollywood actor.
Thus do social values change gradually over the years.
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Catholics and other Christians do not, in general, like the permissive law on abortion that prevails in the United Kingdom, but most Christians nevertheless accept that legitimately enacted law must be respected.
That should apply right across the board. Yet it seems that it does not. We now learn from the Daily Telegraph that the Crown Prosecution Service failed to secure convictions for illegal sex-selective abortions – terminating pregnancies because the infant is female – for fear of seeming “racist”.
The Telegraph reported that there was blatant evidence there had been sex-selective abortions in cases involving Asians – where daughters were not wanted because of dowry costs – but the CPS decided not to pursue this issue because “it was not in the public interest”.
But surely, blind (and colour blind) respect for the law should prevail. As a former lord chancellor, Quintin Hogg, once told me, “Be you ever so high, the law is above you.”
Moreover, the public interest is not served if the law seems to be witheld for reasons of ethnicity or race: that’s precisely the kind of policy that provokes racism.
Female genital mutilation is also against the law in Britain. But so far as I know, not a single case has been pursued, let alone convicted, in this country. This is holding the law in contempt.
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The Office for National Statistics has revealed that most housework is still done by women. Although men like to cook (or “show off culinary expertise”), women still spend twice as much time in the kitchen, and more than six times as much time on cleaning and laundry.
Look, the reason is simple. Women (mostly) care more about domestic standards than men. And whoever cares most about cleanliness and tidiness ends up doing it.
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