"Back in the day, having children out of wedlock would result in financial penury "
You got it. The welfare state was a great enabler -- nay perhaps THE great enabler . . .
I figure we have three great enablers which appeared between 1965-1975 and that in confluence have put us in our present state:
- The Pill, which separated sex from procreation and made it possible for large numbers of women to be as promiscuous as men imagined they wanted to be
- Roe v. Wade, which provided an escape clause in case birth control failed
- The Welfare State, which provides the final fallback position if birth control failed, abortion was not an option, and the sperm donor was not good husband/provider material
Women have always been the domesticating influence on men, mainly by withholding sex until some sort of committment was made. But once the paradigm shifted from "Good girls don't, (at least, not before they've got the engagement ring)," to "Girls who don't are unhappy uptight prigs," then men were free to be as promiscuous and irresponsible as they wanted.
The result? The intrasocietal carnage we call "The Sexual Revolution," which is still producing new casualties every day.
We've got a lot of work ahead of us if we are to undo this 40-year-old mess.