In a review of Kay Hymowitz's new book, Marriage and Caste in America, Lisa Schiffren notes how we have become jaded about out-of-wedlock births:
The U.S. government recently announced that 36.8 percent of the children born in America in 2005 were born out of wedlock. In other words, almost 4 of every 10 American newborns were placed into the arms of unmarried mothers with no real claims on the men who impregnated them. Very few of these parents will end up marrying each other, and very few of the fathers will be permanent presences in the lives of their children. The children themselves will have meaner and more marginal lives than their peers in two-parent families.
The number is staggering, and at least as much of a threat to our way of life as anything Osama bin Laden has cooked up. Yet it is met with a collective shrug. Indeed, we are now so inured to such statistics that we regard them as a fact of nature, about which little can be done. Because child-bearing outside of marriage is a subject wrapped up with the highly fraught issues of sex, race, and personal mores, politicians tend to avoid it. Academics often try to quantify it, but in ways that miss the human element of the problem.
Read the rest at Commentary magazine. (HT: Dustin Steeve of The Right House blog who also has some intriguing thoughts on the subject.)
Comments (3)
No matter how you look at it, the ugly fact remains; marriage is indeed becoming a middle/upper class institution.
I understand your view that marriage makes for success, and while I don't disagree, it is impossible to deny that that is not the way those who are abandoning marriage see it.
They do indeed see it the other way around.
This is a vicious cycle, and I don't have an answer. But making divorce more difficult will almost certainly scare more away from marriage, at least in the underclass.
March 8, 2007 2:39 PM | Comment Permalink
Osama bin Laden has become the new "Hitler".
One used to be able to tell that a discussion had descended to ridiculous hyperbole when somebody started saying "...Its just as bad as the Nazi's!" or "He/She/It is acting just like Hitler!" etc.
Now Osama and Al Quaeda fulfill that role.
Sorry, won't read the book. That one line tells me all I need to know right there.
Of course, you guys are spending all your time and money trying to prevent the few people that want to get married from getting marriaed(gays and lesbians) instead of looking at your own backyard.
See its just not as sexy or as good of a fundraiser to point a finger at the real people who are destroying marriage as an institution. Namely straight people.
Christianists will be spending all their efforts in the next few years to kick down gay and lesbian Americans. But not one marriage will be defended, not one marriage will be saved. No matter how many "marriage is between a man and a woman" laws are passed.
Mr. Dobson once referred to people that wanted gay marriage as the "Forces of Hell Itself". Apparently he didn't realize that he was looking into a mirror at the time.
March 8, 2007 3:26 PM | Comment Permalink
Nicely observed: People are marrying less. Can you suggest a cause for this? Can you find a reason to worry about this, other than a fabricated panic? No? Then post something more significent.
March 8, 2007 5:54 PM | Comment Permalink