Australia is a huge rest home, where no unwelcome news is ever wafted on to the pages of the worst newspapers in the world.

The house wife is an unpaid employee in her husband's house in return for the security of being a permanent employee.

Guilt is one side of a nasty triangle; the other two are shame and stigma. This grim coalition combines to inculpate women themselves of the crimes committed against them.

The sight of women talking together has always made men uneasy; nowadays it means rank subversion.

Marriage made more sense when it was indissoluble. It's the woman trying to cope with the strains of a one-parent family who will suffer most from the relaxation of the divorce laws.