Posted on 07/06/2002 5:00:19 AM PDT by buccaneer81
A 'marriage strike' emerges as men decide not to risk loss
By Glenn Sacks and Dianna Thompson
Katherine is attractive, successful, witty, and educated. She also can't find a husband. Why? Because most of the men this thirtysomething software analyst dates do not want to get married. These men have Peter Pan syndrome: They refuse to commit, refuse to settle down, and refuse to "grow up."
However, given the family court policies and divorce trends of today, Peter Pan is no naive boy, but instead a wise man.
"Why should I get married and have kids when I could lose those kids and most of what I've worked for at a moment's notice?" asks Dan, a 31-year-old power plant technician who says he will never marry.
"I've seen it happen to many of my friends. I know guys who came home one day to an empty house or apartment - wife gone, kids gone. They never saw it coming. Some of them were never able to see their kids regularly again."
Census figures suggest that the marriage rate in the United States has dipped 40 percent during the last four decades to its lowest point since the rate was measured. There are many plausible explanations for this trend, but one of the least mentioned is that American men, in the face of a family court system hopelessly stacked against them, have subconsciously launched a "marriage strike."
It is not difficult to see why. Let's say that Dan defies Peter Pan, marries Katherine, and has two children. There is a 50 percent likelihood that this marriage will end in divorce within eight years, and if it does, the odds are 2-1 it will be Katherine, not Dan, who initiates the divorce. It may not matter that Dan was a decent husband. Studies show that few divorces are initiated over abuse or because the man has already abandoned the family. Nor is adultery cited as a factor by divorcing women appreciably more than by divorcing men.
While the courts may grant Dan and Katherine joint legal custody, the odds are overwhelming that it is Katherine, not Dan, who will win physical custody. Overnight, Dan, accustomed to seeing his kids every day and being an integral part of their lives, will become a "14 percent dad" - a father who is allowed to spend only one out of every seven days with his own children.
Once Katherine and Dan are divorced, odds are at least even that Katherine will interfere with Dan's visitation rights.
Three-quarters of divorced men surveyed say their ex-wives have interfered with their visitation, and 40 percent of mothers studied admitted that they had done so, and that they had generally acted out of spite or in order to punish their exes.
Katherine will keep the house and most of the couple's assets. Dan will need to set up a new residence and pay at least a third of his take-home pay to Katherine in child support.
As bad as all of this is, it would still make Dan one of the lucky ones. After all, he could be one of those fathers who cannot see his children at all because his ex has made a false accusation of domestic violence, child abuse, or child molestation. Or a father who can only see his own children under supervised visitation or in nightmarish visitation centers where dads are treated like criminals.
He could be one of those fathers whose ex has moved their children hundreds or thousands of miles away, in violation of court orders, which courts often do not enforce. He could be one of those fathers who tears up his life and career again and again in order to follow his children, only to have his ex-wife continually move them.
He could be one of the fathers who has lost his job, seen his income drop, or suffered a disabling injury, only to have child support arrearages and interest pile up to create a mountain of debt which he could never hope to pay off. Or a father who is forced to pay 70 percent or 80 percent of his income in child support because the court has imputed an unrealistic income to him. Or a dad who suffers from one of the child support enforcement system's endless and difficult to correct errors, or who is jailed because he cannot keep up with his payments. Or a dad who reaches old age impoverished because he lost everything he had in a divorce when he was middle-aged and did not have the time and the opportunity to earn it back.
"It's a shame," Dan says. "I always wanted to be a father and have a family. But unless the laws change and give fathers the same right to be a part of their children's lives as mothers have, it just isn't worth the risk."
Dianna Thompson is the founder and executive director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children. She can be contacted by e-mail at DThompson2232@aol.com. Glenn Sacks writes about gender issues from the male perspective. He invites readers' comments at Glenn@GlennSacks.com.
No woman I know would ever kill her child, after it's born.
I can't even think of someone I ever met to level a charge at like that.
I am so sorry that you see things this way.
The institution of marriage is getting a bad rap by people who want to change the fundamental underpinnings of our society. They are succeeding in so many ways: abortion, gun grabbing, forbidding prayer, flying planes into buildings, etc.
It is so sad to see this happening.
I understand what you say, but not having children is also a bad option - you lose out on a lot. It is a shame that our society is punishing the most basic needs of humans - and it is not sex, it is the need for lasting relationships.
>Almost pushes you to use the abuse button. Almost... :^)
Forums are so difficult for divorce lawyers because they cannot engage in punitive billing online. :^)
Your analysis is superficial. What has happened is that the world has very literally changed. Marriage existed a century ago to fulfill literally dozens of functions, many of which are obsolete now. That isn't to say that marriage is bad, it is just that it would be unreasonable to expect it to function identically today to how it functioned a century ago because some of the old contexts simply don't exist any more.
The problem isn't with marriage per se, it is with how marriage has changed to suit the changing context of its existence. I see two big flaws in the way these arguments often play out. First, there are those that want marriage to be exactly the way it was a century ago. Second, there are those that think the way it is now is just fine. Both positions are flawed on many levels. The fact is, the institution of marriage and all the social structure that surrounds it does need to change from what it was a century ago to accommodate the substantially different context of its existence. The problem is that the changes that have taken place have been very much in the wrong direction and have done nothing to accommodate the clean and useful evolution of marriage.
As I see it, there are three dogs in this race: what we used to have, what we do have, and what we should have. People need to rigorously analyze and criticize the various outcomes or the problem will not go away. There needs to be a third way, and it would be far more constructive if we spent time actually figuring out what marriage should be in a modern context.
I agree with this generalization, except for the part where you assert that women have grown up. In many ways I think even women are less mature today as well. Men have as little use for women today as women do for men, and for largely the same reasons. In truth, men and women really don't need each other any more, except for procreation perhaps, and even those days are numbered. The irony is that the people who are getting married in this context are precisely the people who shouldn't; the best candidates for marriage under the usual criteria are those that it serves the least.
I don't break it down by gender; I find most of humanity to be pathetic and irresponsible. Nonetheless, that is their choice, and I suspect this has always been the case throughout history. Nature punished irresponsibility more severely in the past, though.
Lot's of poor baby boys grow up without fathers, or mother's for that matter, and do just fine. In a perfect world, courtship, marriage, babies, mom and dad bring them up. But it is a far from perfect world.You really can't force, or sue anybody into being a good parent.
It is not enough that she has spoiled their minds against him. His son still has not called once in 15 years and he has only recently been reacquainted with his daughter who is 20 years old and in college (which he also pays for)
My own experience is somewhat different...when I left my ex my reasons were very valid (he was continually, physically abusive) and I still never asked for a dime. Nor did I play games with visitation and so on. Today, because of it I think, we share custody of the kids and each do, financially, what we can for them. While I can't stand him, we can be civil because somehow in all that nonsense we had managed to put the kids first.
You are so right. Looks like the 'revolution' has done more harm to women, in general, than good. If women are going to jump in the sack at the drop of a hat then expect a man to respect and revere her ...well, there is an old saying that is still very true
"Why buy the cow when the milk is free?"
These reasons, to a large extent, have been demolished by our culture first, and economic necessity second. Many women now hold full time jobs and work as many if not more hours than men. This leaves either the male to bond with the kids or some daycare worker.
Whatever the situation, the divorce laws have hardly kept up with the changing times. They still reflect the assumption that women are the primary caregiver and therefore the child is best off in her care.
This one sentence tells me all that I need to know. All that I have said about the current generation of women is given validity by this one sentence. You probably would be much better off remaining single.
Yet!! Where there's a will, there's a way. Call me a skeptic, but I fully expect to see a bill in my e-mail some day from some obscure lawyer in some obscure forum.
Men have grown up in the last 40 years. Women have regressed to permanent adolescence, and made themselves of very little use to any Man with a shred of sense or independence.
Or is that "bashing"?
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