Valparaiso, Chile, Oct 08: As if planning a wedding was not tough enough, betrothed couples in Chile could soon face a new prenuptial stress: choosing whether or not their marriage will include the option to divorce.

Lawmakers, under intense pressure from the Catholic Church not to legalize divorce in Chile, one of the few countries in the world where it is banned, may include in a new divorce law two marriage modes, with and without the possibility of divorce.
"It is important to give people the option to guarantee their marriage for life, that the law gives them the chance to do that," Sen. Andres Chadwick of the right-wing Independent Democratic Union party, or UDI, and president of the senate committee drafting the divorce law, said.
Chadwick said the idea was to make divorce possible but also to let couples renounce their right to divorce when they register their marriage.
The initiative, which follows several failed attempts to legalize divorce in the socially conservative country, is going through its final rewrites in committee this week before it goes to the full senate and then on to the lower house.
It was not yet clear how Article 21, which sets out the two marriage modes, would fare on the senate floor. But several influential senators from the center-left Christian Democrat Party support the divorce-free marriage option.
Polls consistently show that most Chileans want legalized divorce, and Socialist President Ricardo Lagos is pushing hard for the new law. Recently the executive asked Congress to make divorce an urgent priority.
Ironically, the new law would actually make it tougher to end a marriage because it would eliminate a loophole that tens of thousands of Chileans have used to break up their marriages so they can remarry.
Under the loophole, some judges allow couples to dissolve their marriage if they lie in court, swearing they registered in the wrong jurisdiction.
The Catholic Church has stepped up its anti-divorce campaign, airing controversial ads saying children of divorced couples are more likely to become drug addicts and criminals. The spots generated huge criticism and the church withdrew the most contentious one.

Bureau Report