Tag Archives: Marriage

Polemics

New study: marriage drops probability of child poverty by 82%

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From the Heritage Foundation.

Excerpt: (links removed)

The collapse of marriage, along with a dramatic rise in births to single women, is the most important cause of childhood poverty—but government policy doesn’t reflect that reality, according to a special report released today by The Heritage Foundation.

Nearly three out of four poor families with children in America are headed by single parents. When a child’s father is married to his mother, however, the probability of the child’s living in poverty drops by 82 percent.

Robert Rector, Heritage’s senior research fellow in domestic policy, provides a brief overview of each state with unique data and 14 charts per state, while also updating his years of related research in the special report titled “Marriage: America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty.” Heritage’s study, including a national charts slideshow, arrives a week before the Census Bureau’s annual report on poverty, which is expected to show another increase.

“Policymakers on the state and national levels recognize that education reduces poverty, but they’re largely unaware that marriage is an equally strong anti-poverty weapon,” says Rector, a nationally recognized authority on the U.S. welfare system.

In Florida, for example, white families headed by single parents are five times more likely to be poor than those headed by married couples. In Illinois, the poverty rate for a single mother with only a high school diploma is 39.5 percent, compared with 8 percent for a married couple with the same education.

The rate of births to unmarried women—now four out of every 10 babies overall, five out of 10 for Hispanics, and seven out of 10 for blacks—has soared since the mid-1960s, when President Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty. Births outside marriage are mostly to less-educated women—sadly, those with the least ability to support children.

While more Americans grow dependent on welfare, government fails to communicate the benefits of marriage even as it warns young people not to smoke, do drugs, have “unsafe” sex, or drop out of school. Rector calls this “tragic.”

If we  as a society were really serious about solving poverty, we would stop focusing on redistributing wealth and employing unionized drones, and start focusing on promoting marriage. But that’s not politically correct, since feminists don’t like marriage. And that’s why it doesn’t happen. If women have to work to be like men, then they need free contraceptives and abortion, and they have to be taught to have sex early, so that they don’t aspire to marriage and parenting. So what if this causes a lot of premarital sex and the occasional baby? Children don’t matter – feminism matters.

News

Mark Regnerus’s research vindicated by University of Texas at Austin

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From Focus on the Family.

Excerpt:

The University of Texas at Austin announced Wednesday that a sociologist who has been excoriated by some in the media over a study showing that parents’ homosexual relationships can have negative effects on children is innocent of academic misconduct

Dr. Mark Regnerus made headlines in June, when his study was published in the widely respected journal Social Science Research. According to his findings, children raised by homosexual parents are more likely than those raised by married heterosexual parents to suffer from poor impulse control, depression and suicidal thoughts, require mental health therapy; identify themselves as homosexual; choose cohabitation; be unfaithful to partners; contract sexually transmitted diseases; be sexually molested; have lower income levels; drink to get drunk; and smoke tobacco and marijuana.

As a result, a gay-activist blogger accused Regnerus of academic fraud, demanding in July that the university release all his research material and emails with fellow sociologists.

Administrators conducted an exhaustive pre-investigation to determine whether a more comprehensive one would be necessary — including hiring a consultant who formerly ran the Office of Research Integrity at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to oversee the process.

After sequestering all of Regnerus’s correspondence and conducting both written and oral interviews with him and his accuser, Scott Rosensweig, Research Integrity Officer Robert Peterson wrote in an Aug. 24 memorandum to administrators, “None of the allegations of scientific misconduct put forth … were substantiated either by physical data, written materials, or by information provided during the interviews.

“Since no evidence was provided to indicate that the behavior at issue rose to a level of scientific misconduct, no formal investigation is warranted.”

There was not even enough evidence of misconduct for an investigation. Regnerus was very thorough and conscientious in the conduct of research – it was original, quality work. And this is in liberal Austin, no less! But will this be reported in the media as much as the accusations were? Not bloody likely.

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Commentary

When a feminist says she wants to get married, does she really want marriage?

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Here’s an interesting article about marriage from the Sydney Morning Herald.

Excerpt:

Where different promises are made, the man undertakes great responsibility and this is also the wording of the book, as it has always been. The biblical teaching is that the promise made voluntarily by the bride to submit to her husband is matched by the even more onerous obligation which the husband must undertake to act towards his wife as Christ has loved the church. The Bible says that this obligation is ultimately measured by the self-sacrifice of Christ in dying on the cross.

This is not an invitation to bossiness, let alone abuse. A husband who uses the wife’s promise in this way stands condemned for betraying his own sworn obligations. The husband is to take responsibility for his wife and family in a Christ-like way. Her ”submission” is her voluntary acceptance of this pattern of living together, her glad recognition that this is what he intends to bring to the marriage and that it is for her good, his good and the good of children born to them. She is going to accept him as a man who has chosen the self-discipline and commitment of marriage for her sake and for their children. At a time when women rightly complain that they cannot get men to commit, here is a pattern which demands real commitment all the way.

Secular views of marriage are driven by a destructive individualism and libertarianism. This philosophy is inconsistent with the reality of long-term relationships such as marriage and family life.

Referring to ”partners” rather than husband or wife gives no special challenge to the man to demonstrate the masculine qualities which he brings to a marriage.

Men have to accept the limitations imposed by a commitment to marry. Both husband and wife must exercise self-control and the acceptance of boundaries, although in ways which are somewhat distinctive. My greatest interest in the draft service the diocese has prepared is the high standard being proposed for men.

When a husband promises to love his wife as Christ loved the church and give himself up for her, he is declaring his intention to be a man of strength and self-control for her benefit and for the benefit of any children born to them. Such qualities, properly exercised in the spirit of self-sacrifice, enhance the feminine and personal qualities of his wife.

Each marriage and each era will work this out differently. It is in this context and this alone that the revised marriage service enables a woman to promise submission.

Her submission rises out of his submission to Christ.

It is a pity that the present discussion has been so overtly political. Instead of mocking or acting horrified, we should engage in a serious and respectful debate about marriage and about the responsibilities of the men and women who become husbands and wives. The Bible contains great wisdom on this fundamental relationship.

The rush to embrace libertarian and individualistic philosophy means that we miss some of the key relational elements of being human, elements which make for our wellbeing and happiness. It’s time to rethink marriage from first principles. It really matters.

I’m happy with only having to do my male roles and not having to worry too much about being fun, non-judgmental and passive. I am a male, and that means setting out a plan, protecting, providing and building people up on moral and spiritual  things. I want a woman who takes seriously her obligations to me as a woman, too. To nurture, affirm and support me by doing the things that she is better at. I want her to listen to me and be willing to do the things I ask her to do, because I need her to help me. I wouldn’t want a marriage between “partners”. I want a husband-and-wife marriage.

I wonder if young men realize how small and insignificant physical beauty and premarital sex are compared to seeing a woman listening to you and then achieving your goals using tactics you had never imagined. What men should value is intelligence and submissiveness. Men are alone in the world, and sex with a girl who refuses to follow your lead and support you emotionally isn’t going to fix that loneliness. Men need to feel like leaders, and the more talented and intelligent the woman is in following her man, the happier that man will be. A man comes with very specific needs from a woman and marriage is set up in a way that those needs are met so that he can fulfill his roles and take responsibility for his family.

The real happiness from women comes from when they take you seriously as a man and care about the things that you care about enough to do something about it, even if it means having to study hard things and working to achieve your goals. That’s what really makes a woman good. A man needs a partner he can depend on to support him.

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