Wouldn't it be nice if the courts everywhere would be this helpful?

The Dubai Courts' "marriage guidance" section, concerned about the rising rate of divorce among Emiratis, issued an unusual warning yesterday.

The message is that absolute honesty in a marriage, particularly when it comes to a husband delving around in what his wife was up to before they got married (not having known her at all), is really not the best policy.

A family counsellor with the Family Guidance and Reformation section said it would be counterproductive for a wife to tell her husband about any previous relationships. Doing so could sow seeds of doubt it could take him years to get over, he said.

“Such questions as ‘who did you love before me?’, ‘to whom were you engaged?’ or ‘with whom did you go out?’ only serve to increase divisions between a couple and are a warning sign of the imminent end of the relationship,” he said.

Funny how people can know in their heart – because you do, at least if you are over 30 – that conversations between two people having a current relationship about the details of any of their previous relationships can come to no good, and do it anyway.