Geldof: Traditional families are better

by Philip Whiteside, Daily Mail

As a foul-mouthed punk rocker, Bob Geldof delighted in upsetting parents everywhere. But more than a quarter of a century on, he has become a champion of the traditional family.

The singer, who battled his ex-wife Paula Yates for custody of their three daughters, has attacked the selfishness which leads to marital breakdown.

"I know it's uncool, and I truly have no desire to cause upset or offence by saying this," says Geldof, who is 50 tomorrow. "But the truth of every study is clear - dual-parent upbringing produces healthier, better educated children. That's it."

'A serious thing'

In the Channel 4 documentary Geldof on Marriage, to be screened next Monday, he says divorce has appalling consequences for children, partners and the state.

"Marital breakdown costs the state about £15billion a year, and most of that is spent on single-parent benefits. Children of divorced parents are much more likely to do worse at school, commit crimes, go to prison and commit suicide.

"This marriage stuff is a serious thing. It is not to be entered into and dissolved on a whim and to make light of it is a profound mistake. Yet this is precisely what the law allows us and encourages us to do."

Another documentary, Geldof on Fathers, is being screened the following night and will tackle some of the issues raised by recent protests by groups such as Fathers4Justice.

After forming the Boomtown Rats in the mid-1970s, Dubliner Geldof created the Band Aid and Live Aid music projects in the 1980s to help relieve famine in Africa.

As an Irishman, he was made an honorary Knight of the British Empire, leading many to call him Sir Bob. He married TV presenter Paula Yates, but she left him in 1995 for another rock singer, Michael Hutchence from the Australian group INXS.

Geldof had to fight his wife in the family courts to win custody of their girls Fifi, Peaches and Pixie. And after the death of both Hutchence and Paula, he became the guardian of their daughter Tiger Lily.

'Overblown sense of self'

Geldof lives in London with French actress Jeanne Marine, who is in her late 30s. They have been together for almost ten years, but he has said that he is loath to marry again because he could not bear the agony of another divorce.

In 2002 he told an Irish magazine: "I don't need a God or state to sanction my love. I don't want to put myself into that emotional hock. I wouldn't get through it again."

On the Channel 4 programme, he blames the "because I'm worth it' society, in which people always put themselves first, for the state of marriage in Britain today.

"We hop from product to product, channel to channel, station to station, and most damagingly, lover to lover, trading each one in for a new model as soon as passion fades.

"Perhaps a lot of it is down to an overblown sense of self. We imagine ourselves to be free, but we should not be free to destroy others, especially children.

"We have, I think, devalued that idea of marriage as a legal contract. When we think of marriage now, perhaps we think too much of the day, the dress and the drunk uncle."

He says excessive selfishness is also to blame. "The soap-opera culture is so corrosive. If our expectations of married life were more realistic, then the everyday reality would not be thought of as difficult, limiting or mundane, but rather as comforting and supportive.

'Emotional nerve centre'

"We seem to have lost the ability to compromise. We've bought into the myth and we are sold a child-like and naive view of marriage. When it turns out it's not quite like the soap operas we feel cheated."

He adds: "Have we devalued domestic life and its culture of companionship, warmth and nurture and safety and calm to the point of it almost being irrelevant?

"Have we completely lost the idea of the home being important, almost an emotional nerve centre? Home, after all, is where the head is."

Geldof also seizes on statistics which show that women initiate 70 per cent of divorces, suggesting that they should lower their expectations if things are to change. "Men and women are very different. Men have never felt the need to talk, so why is it now that "he doesn't talk to me any more" is enough to end a relationship?"

While many will welcome Geldof's comments, they are likely to annoy those who support the right of partners to divorce.

Paula Hall, of the marriage guidance group Relate, said that divorce was not always the worst option. "It allows people to leave bad marriages. Because more people are divorcing, it doesn't mean there are more unhappy marriages."

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