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Why Government
Should Support and Protect Marriage
by
Camille Williams
Editors'
Note: Some feminists see the appointment of Wade Horn, former president
of the National Fatherhood Initiative, as the new assistant secretary
of the Department of Health and Human Services as alarming. His
flaw? He believes in fatherhood!
The Boston
Globe
recently reported that despite the fact that Bush has appointed
more women to positions of power than has any other President, Martha
Burk, chair of the National Council of Women's Organizations claims
that feminist leaders are see these appointments of conservatives
as "alarming from the perspective of gender equity and women's programs."
(1) Burk expressed concern that Wade Horn, new assistant
secretary for family support at the Department of Health and Human
Services has been known to 'push marriage as a way to keep women
and children out of poverty.' Horn, former president of the National
Fatherhood Initiative, has worked to increase fathers' positive
participation in their children's lives, and encourages men to marry
the mothers of their children and work to support their families.
Why should some women's groups object to that sort of "push" for
marriage?
Though the
Globe didn't explore the reasoning behind Burk's objection,
it is likely outgrowth of a gender analysis which views the traditional
family as "a microcosm of the fascist state
(2)" in which men benefit at the expense of women and
children. Some advocates worry that governmental support for marriage
will result in increased numbers of women being trapped in unhappy
or even violent marriages. Research suggests otherwise.
Marriage
has a Positive Effect on Adult Well-Being. Married adults are
physically, emotionally, and financially healthier than unmarried
adults. (3) Unfortunately, many young
adults today believe that marriage should not be a prerequisite
to sexual activity or childbearing. As a result, the percentage
of unmarried adults has skyrocketed, and the percentage of children
being raised by single adults has increased dramatically.
(4)
Many see the
poverty of divorced mothers and their children as a product of marriage:
it is not. Poverty often follows unwed parenthood, or is the result
of marital dissolution. Married women are safer, healthier, and
wealthier than are single women, especially single women with children.
(5)
Extending the
definition of marriage to same-sex couples is unlikely to extend
the benefits of marriage primarily because many homosexual advocates
seek a quite different family structure. Gay and lesbian theorists
claim that by valuing long-term monogamous coupling above all other
relationships, (6) traditional marriage
devalues the sexual and social couplings they desire to legitimate.
Lesbian families, "[r]ather than being organized through marriage
and childrearing . . . are characterized by fluid boundaries, eclectic
composition, and relatively little symbolic differentiation between
erotic and nonerotic ties." (7) Some
homosexual activists also object to the notion that a sexual relationship
should result in economic interdependence.
Marriage
has a Positive Effect on Child Well-Being. A child raised by
his or her biological parents is much less likely to experience
poverty, neglect, abuse, homelessness, or early nonmarital sexual
activity than is a child raised by a single parent."
(8) Since most of those single parents are women, part
of what those children are experiencing is "father absence." And
not just any male will do, either. In a study of abuse in single
mother households, boyfriends performed only 1.75% of nonparental
care for the children, but committed 64% of the nonparental abuse;
in other studies, stepfathers and boyfriends were far likelier than
biological fathers to sexually abuse children in the same household.
(9)
Further, the
negative effects of the loss of day-to-day father-child interaction
are well documented. (10) Even the
risk of injury, illness, suicide, and shorter lifespan, as well
as lower educational attainment, are linked to the absence of a
father in the home. Government programs to help single mothers have
sometimes had the unintended effect of discouraging marriage by
withholding from married couples subsidies for which unwed parents
qualify. (11)
Marriage
has a Positive Effect on Community Well-Being. Perhaps the
most disquieting aspect of father absence is its pervasiveness and
its serious effects on society. "Tonight, four out of every ten
children will go to sleep in a home in which their father does not
live. This fact contributes to nearly every social pathology of
our time, from crime and welfare dependency to educational decline
and drug use." (12) Relying on research
from numerous sources, The Fatherhood Initiative documents the link
between father absence and school disciplinary problems, juvenile
crime, and violent crime. In fact, "A 1988 study found that the
proportion of single-parent households in a community predicts its
rates of violent crime and burglary, but the community's poverty
level does not." (13) One British
study estimated that the incidence of child abuse is 20 times higher
for children living with their cohabiting parents and 33 times higher
among children living with their mother and her boyfriend compared
to children living with their biological, married parents.
(14)
Public
Policy Should Support Marriage and Fatherhood. For some three
decades attempts to escape conventional morality and traditional
gender roles-i.e., marriage--have brought us high rates of abortion,
divorce, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancies outside of marriage,
family violence, and increasing numbers of single women rearing
their children in poverty. (15)
In response to some of those problems, Horn and the Department of
Health and Human Services have launched a Fatherhood Initiative
guided by the following:
- All fathers
can be important contributors to the well-being of their children;
- Whether parents
live togther in the same household or not, they are partners in
raising their children.;
- Men should
receive the education and support necessary to prepare them to
be responsible parents;
- The government
can encourage father involvement though programs and workforce
policies.
President Bush
obviously supports those principles, and has noted that "Every man
needs to know that however high his aspirations may be, however
lofty a position he may attain, he will never have a greater duty
or a more important title than 'dad'." Children need more than Dad's
wallet; they need more than a government agency hunting down deadbeat
dads. It is time to replace the notion that marriage is unnecessary
by acknowledging that marriage is virtually the only way
to ensure that a father will be there day in and day out for his
children.
Admittedly
"pushing marriage" will not eliminate all poverty or child abuse,
but we know that discouraging marriage brings serious problems for
parents, children, and communities. Wise social policy will not
only not discourage marriage, but will appropriately support
marriage and fatherhood.
1.
Anne E. Kornblut, "Shut Office Signals Shift on Women,"Boston
Globe, 28 March 2001, A01.
2.
Bruce C. and Jonathan O. Hafen, "Abandoning Children to Their
Rights," First Things, http://www:firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9508/hafen.html,
citing Lilian and Oscar Handlin..
3.
See "Marital Status and Personal Well-Being: A Literature Review,"
Family Relations 40(1991):97-102; "Why Marriage Matters,"
Strengthening Marriage Roundtable, Washington, D.C., 23 June 1997.
4.
See Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1996, 1997.
Washington, D. C., GPO, 1996, 1997.
5.
See Maggie Gallagher, The Abolition of Marriage: How We
Destroy Lasting Love (Washington, D. C.: Regnery Press, 1996).
See also, David B. Larson, James P. Swyers, and Susan S. Larson,
The Costly Consequences of Divorce: Assessing the Clinical,
Economic, and Public Health Impact of Marital Disruption in the
United States (Rockville, Md.: National Institute for Healthcare
Research, 1995); Barbara DaFoe Whitehead, "The War Between the Sexes,"
The American Enterprise 7 (May/June 1996), 25-27; Glenn
T. Stanton, "Only a Piece of Paper: The Unquestionable Benefits
of Lifelong Marriage," (Colorado Springs, Co: Focus on the Family,
August 1995).
6.
. Nancy D. Polikoff, "We Will Get What We Ask For: Why Legalizing
Gay and Lesbian Marriage Will Not "Dismantle the Legal Structure
of Gender in Every Marriage," Virginia Law Review 79 (1993),
1549. Professor Polikoff supports the dismantling of gender in marriage;
the quotation in her title is from "law professor and lesbian and
gay right attorney Nan Hunter [who at the time Polikoff's article
was written was] deputy general counsel at the Department of Health
and Human Services" (1537). Hunter had predicted that legalizing
gay and lesbian marriage will "dismantle the legal structure of
gender in every marriage." See Nan D. Hunter, "Marriage, Law and
Gender: A Feminist Inquiry," Law & Sexuality 1 (1991), 18-19.
7.
Kath Weston, Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 206.
8.
See data from various sources at http://fatherhood.org.
9.
See Leslie Margolin, "Child Abuse by Mothers' Boyfriends: Why
the Overrepresentation?" Child Abuse and Neglect 16 (1992):541-551;
Beverly, Gomes-Schwartz, Jonathan Horowitz and Albert P. Cardarelli,
Child Sexual Abuse Victims and Their Treatment, U.S. Department
of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
Washington, D. C., GPO, 1988; Diana E. Russell, "The Prevalence
and Seriousness of Incestuous Abuse: Stepfathers vs. Biological
Fathers,"Child Abuse and Neglect 8(1984):15-22; David Popenoe,
Life without Father, New York: The Free Press, 1996, p.
68..
10.
See,
for example, David Popenoe, Life without Father: Compelling
New Evidence that Fatherhood and Marriage are indispensable for
the Good of Children and Society (New York: The Free Press,
1996); Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single
Parent: What Helps, What Hurts (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University
Press, 1994).
11.
Wade Horn, "Welfare Incentives that Aid Marriage," http://fatherhood.org/articles/wh112800.htm?.
12.
Wade Horn, http://fatherhood.org.
13.
Douglas A. Smith and G. Roger Jarjoura, "Social Structure and
Criminal Victimization," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency
25(February 1988):27-52.
14.
Robert Whalen, "Broken Homes and Battered Children: A Study
of the Relationship between Child Abuse and Family Type." London
Family Education Trust, 1993.
15.
William J. Bennett, The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators
I (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation, Empower America, 1993).
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