Have Anti-Father Family Court Policies Led to a Men's Marriage Strike?

GlennSacks.com ^ | 07/05/02 | Glenn Sacks and Dianna Thompson

[FreedomFriend]

Kathleen is attractive, successful, witty, and educated. She also can't find a husband. Why? Because most of the men this thirty-something 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."

The US marriage rate has dipped 40% over the past four decades, to its lowest point ever. 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 which is 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 Kathleen, and has two children. There is a 50% likelihood that this marriage will end in divorce within eight years, and if it does the odds are two to one that it will be Kathleen, 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 Kathleen joint legal custody, the odds are overwhelming that it is Kathleen, not Dan, who will win physical custody. Over night 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 7 days with his own children.

Once divorced, odds are at least even that Dan's ex-wife will interfere with his visitation rights. Three-quarters of divorced men surveyed say their ex-wives have interfered with their visitation, and 40% 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.

Kathleen 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 Kathleen 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% or 80% 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."

[FreedomFriend]

I will say this. It is women who are at the forefront of many of the country's leftist, anti-American, anti-traditional values organizations. It is our politicians who cater to the women vote and, thus, enact left wing legislation. Thus, feminism, in that regard, of which it is diluting the traditional fabric of law, not to mention sanity, is hurting America.

[FreedomFriend]

It's a communist front organization. Look how they have allowed the communist forces to come right in and take advantage of the "freedoms" that they fought for, to the detriment of the family. They used it for abortion, for homosexuality, etc. Now, they're using the word "tolerance" to come after normal Americans, and to condemn them, for having good morals, common sense, a love for America, and a Love for God.

The early women were dignified. They stood by their men. They didn't want to get divorced at the drop of a hat, nor fight for the murder of the unborn. They also took their roles as mothers a lot more seriously than I can say for some of these "women" today. However, despite that, there are still a lot of good women, albeit fewer numbers.

[lentulusgracchus]

Feminists want women to feel rejected by and embittered toward men.

WHY?

Because, as a leading radical feminist herself once put it: "Feminism is the theory; lesbianism is the practice."

Pretty stout post, and it has a kernel of truth to it. Thanks.

I remember reading a screed by a movement feminist named Joreen, 25 years ago or so, in which she bewailed her growing isolation from and by the feminist women she had been working with, who were put off by what I understood to have been her shrillness and misandry. Perhaps I missed a signal there!

Since then, I've read similar posts to yours by lesbians posting to Salon "TableTalk", that a lot of the early leaders of the feminist movement were indeed lesbians. At the time, however, I think most men, like me, tried to be "fair-minded" and always regarded that accusation of sapphism in the leadership as a roorback and a smear by ill-mannered men.

Ms. ran a colloquy on one of its anniversaries, some 15-20 years ago, among IIRC Gloria Steinem, Bell Hooks (who spelled her name all in lowercase and was/is an avowed lesbian), and another feminist. One of their reminiscences of early feminism was the problems that grew up between straight women and the sapphic women who migrated into leadership, and the subsequent low-level but persistent identification, in American women's minds, of gender feminism with lesbianism. The discussion of the moment was in part about what to do about that perception, which grew up in spite of the fact that the basic ideas, the principia, of feminism, had been "internalized" (pls. excuse the bogus word, but it fits here) by women who refused to identify themselves as "feminists".

Therefore, I think that American women by and large identified this agenda problem a generation ago -- they just don't talk about it in any way that men would recognize as cost/benefit analysis, critical thought, rational analysis of feminism, or any of the other thought processes that we would apply to it. What women did instead was to buy into the message of equality -- and then hold the messenger at arm's length, asserting other reasons for their standoffishness and refusal to identify with the feminist movement overtly. They slipped the punch and went with an indirect approach instead, accepting with one hand and rejecting with the other. "Fascinating", as Commander Spock would say.

[WaterDragon]

Agreed!

[lentulusgracchus]

[Quoting] Or a dad who reaches old age impoverished.....

It happened to my dad.

I know a geologist that happened to. Guy had clawed his way up from a draftsman's position (he had only a high-school degree and was an autodidact) to that of senior development geologist in his early 50's, earning over $100K until his firm was bought out. The new managers were incensed at his salary and lack of a college degree and nailed him in the first RIF. He went home to his second wife of some half-dozen years and spelled things out to her: over 50, no degree.......and so, while he was still in "outplacement", she cleaned out the house and took off. He came home one day during his first month out of work to find her gone, her closets emptied, their accounts cleaned out. I found that behavior on her part impressive, and instructive.

And whoever posted above that "99.5% of them see it coming", no, the guy didn't see it coming. Neither did the two women I know who got dumped similarly by husbands who cleared out overnight, nor did the husband of another woman I know who got the same treatment, when she suddenly eloped with her secret paramour.

[lentulusgracchus]

Well, actually, those early Americans were at least half of them women, and they contributed fully to the founding of this country, doing their part.

Yes, of course. We're not disagreeing, I think. I was just pointing out that the positions the Left covets were all held by white males.

Gender feminism is about dispossessing the builders and proprietors, about turfing men out of their jobs, and about leftist apparatchiks creating, and then exploiting, yet another social division, another discontent, in order to come to power -- as the Bolsheviks of another era did.

My point was that, of all the social divisions the Left could try to exacerbate, this was the one likely to do the most damage.

[Mr. K]

This guy is right on the money.

I just divorced, and despite the COURTS own doctor diagnosing my ex as a psychopath,
recommending that I have SOLE custody, and she not even be allowed overnight visitation,
despite her 15 year history of child abuse and neglect,
having children by 4 different men,
despite her (falsely) charging me with assault and BEING DISCOVERED to have lied about it by eyewitneses,
her subsequent arrest and conviction for filing those false charges,
the children being hospitalized DURING the child custody trial while in her care,
and a prior history of her children having been removed from her in the past by CPS for abuse,
Despite all this New York State Supreme Court Judeg JOHN O'DONNEL TOOK THEM AWAY FROM ME after 2 years at the end of a the trial and gave them to such a mother....

[Carry_Okie]

And whoever posted above that "99.5% of them see it coming", no, the guy didn't see it coming.

There are ALWAYS ephemeral doubts about stability in any relationship, just as there are about one self. Such is a citation after the fact.

[FreedomFriend]

That's absolutely INSANE. What reason did this sorry excuse for a judge give? Does he think that a mother is more important than a father, especially so when the mother appears to have many problems.

[FreedomFriend]

How old are your children, and are you going to appeal?

[lentulusgracchus]

It is an everyday occurence now that some man hears from The Black Robe that he has just become a visitor in his childrens' lives, by order of the court. What kind of deal is that?

And while he's holding his head in his hands, contemplating the enormity of it all, his ex-wife, clear-eyed to the last and with a pat of butter sitting unmelted on her tongue, has a lawyer read to her the fine print in the Violence Against Women Act......and then drops a dime to the local BATF or FBI office to inform them that her suddenly-ex husband, now under a restraining order as is the rule in contested divorces in Texas and other states, is in felonious possession of a couple of pistols and an old shotgun.

And now her ex is on the road to Leavenworth. Just like Dr. Timothy Emerson, in his case now pending.

Good post. BTTT for old-style matrimony.

[nightdriver]

"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."

Don't forget the humped-up liberal judge that orders all your personal property seized, bank account(s) seized, orders you off all of your real-estate property, and has your credit cards deactivated, then makes you wait two years before anything can be settled.

Really makes marriage a thing to be desired. Yup!

[Don Myers]

"However, despite that, there are still a lot of good women, albeit fewer numbers."

In very few numbers is correct. Most people these days are trying hard to be politically correct in whom they date and marry. There are women who won't even go out with men of their own race. There are buzzwords like independence which has been fueled by the feminazis. Women are glorifying their own sex drives by sleeping around with as many men or other women as they can. Commitment means little which comes as no shock when it is understood that many men and women these days do not make good mates.

[Don Myers]

"The "buy the cow" argument is also one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. There was no shortage of pre-marital sex in the 1970's, or the 1960's, and probably not in the 1950's. Certainly not in the 1920's. In spite of that, most people in those generations got married. Nobody talked about men staging a "marriage strike" back then. That the current situation is caused by the free availability of sex is pure BS."

It is perhaps dumb to you, but not as dumb to many others. There has always been societal norms in the male and females relationship. In our society, marriage has been the natural relationship between men and women. You are correct in that men and women have had sexual relations without marriage, but where do you suppose that the word, slut, came from? There has always been a stigma on promiscuity. Men have largely gotten away with this and women have rebelled. But, instead of making men adher to a standard, women have simply become just as promiscuous as the men. The idea that this situation does not matter in the relationship between men and women is simply a superficial understanding of this relationship.

[Nick Danger]

The idea that this situation does not matter in the relationship between men and women is simply a superficial understanding of this relationship.

I did not mean to suggest that widespread promiscuity has no effect, only that it is not the driving force in any observed "marriage strike" by men.

One theory we have seen expressed here is that the only reason men ever got married was for sex, and that where sex is freely available, they will have no reason to marry and will not do so.

According to this hypothesis, the "marriage strike" is no strike at all, but simply men being their usual deplorable sex-driven selves, taking advantage of freely available sex to shirk their responsibilities... which now include marching into a financial slaughterhouse operated by the state of behalf of its female citizens.

If men turn out to be intelligent enough to see the slaughterhouse coming, and refuse to march in, then the solution is to compel them to do so, which will be easy to do since they are simple creatures totally driven by their sex organs.

Before going on, stop and think about what is going on in the heads of the people advancing this idea. Men are just these stupid sex-driven animals that marry to get sex, won't marry if they don't need it to get sex, and can be compelled to march into a slaughterhouse that they know is there by depriving them of sex. This is their view of you. Why would any sane man marry a woman whose view of men is this corrupted by her own sense of herself as the only human in the deal, the only one who matters, and who views sex as a bludgeon with which to herd men around like goats?

It is a measure of how successful feminist activists have been in getting our culture to view men as sub-human animals that people will post this stuff in public with no shame. They honestly do not see anything wrong with talking quite openly about herding men around like goats, compelling them into a financial slaughterhouse that drives many of them to suicide, and labeling as "whiners" and "woman haters" those who call them on it.

Whatever effect widespread promiscuity may have on the fundamental relationship between the sexes, the feminist poison that has seeped into our culture is worse. Huge numbers of people have bought into this feminist notion that men are just these things to be managed by the state on behalf of women, the way the state manages the national forests. They aren't human, they don't matter, we can take their children away from them, we can take their financial lives away from them, we can imprison them at whim, and none of that matters. Men should just accept that because, well, they just should, and if they don't it's because they're Peter Pans and whiners and they must not be getting laid.

I have heard about as much of that as I want to hear. I don't know about you, but I'll worry about promiscuity's effect on the culture when we've dealt with the feminist bigotry that now frames so much of what we hear in these discussions.

As an aside, you state that "instead of making men adher to a standard, women have simply become just as promiscuous as the men." Women are not the moral cops. Women have never been the moral cops. That idea is an artifact of the Sugar And Spice hypothesis, and has no reality. Women are no more or less moral than men. They are human beings just like us. You are not a sub-human animal, and they are not pristine vessels of virtue. The moral cop in almost every human society is and has been what the feminists call "patriarchal religion." It is men who set these standards, and it is men who have enforced them on each other.

There is a telling subplot in Pride and Prejudice concerning a young couple who violate society's rules; instead of going through the elaborate courtship rituals that the society imposes, these two go off and have a little fun. She winds up pregnant. It falls to a male relative in this culture to hunt this guy down and make him "do the right thing." The only force holding this man to a higher standard is his fellow men. It has always been thus.

[FreedomFriend]

I give that perfect thought. I want a good, Christian woman of whom will be my friend, love the children, and stay home if she desires. This is for the children's sake, of course.

[Lorianne]

I have to disagree. Many people are extremely critical and picky. The single people I know who say they are looking all extremely critical of others and less willing to give others the benifit of the doubt.

Most are also extremely cynical and overly critical of the opposite sex ... similar to the theme of this article, demonizing the opposite sex. (This goes for both men and women). A person with this type of negative attitute would have a hard time finding someone to date and/or marry.

The bottom line is that these types of people are simply less interested in commitment/marriage.

Like I said, that's fine, there have always been these types of people, always will be. Nowdays there is less social pressure to marry, so people don't feel they have to pretend to want to be married, or marry out of social pressure. So, some men and women who truly don't want to be married don't marry.

The thing I wonder about is, without the social pressure to marry, why do people feel the need to justify their decisions all the time with such cynicisms as "There are no good men/women out there" and "marriage is a trap", etc. Why don't they just admit they don't want to be married and all that entails.

[Lorianne]

The idea of sex as a commodity it not new and feminists certainly did not invent it. Your so-called "religious patriarchy" (I wouldn't label it that) and many of the rules of society for eons have set those traditions, rules and regulations.

Sex rules have been unfair from the get go. We see that even today in many "traditional" cultures which stone women and barely sanction men for the exact same offense, sex outside of marriage. We see that in prostitution laws which for eons prosecuted the prostitute but not the client (this has only recently been remedied in small areas of some countries).

So, moral/sexual laws and assumptions have always commodified sex and been uneveny applied. They still are, such as with the writer of the article just ASSUMING that women who are living with men want to be married, instead of assuming that both parties are adults and capable of running their own lives.

Instead, it has to be presented as women are getting pay back for "giving away the milk for free" ... in effect a moral proscription or sanction against women in the form of a marriage strike. Did it ever occur to them that adult women are capable of making their own decisions? That women may not WANT to get married themselves? No, it always has to be presented in terms of retribution against women. These are lame moral parables intended to shame women and sanction their autonomy, especially sexually, while not dishing out retritubion for men who "give away the milk for free". This theme is as old as the earth itself.

I agree that the idea that every man is lead around by his penis is disgusting and insulting to men. But the concept of every woman as a prostitute who must "sell" sex to for marriage is equally insulting and degrading to women.

Both women and men want sex and have always had sex, even illiciti sex at great personal risk. The idea that the sex drive is exhalted in men and deplorable in women should be put to rest. God gave men and women a sex drive for a reason, and that reason is not commodify sex or incite retribution and insults on women for their God-given sexual nature or incite insults on men for theirs.

[Nick Danger]

Thank you for the interesting and thoughtful reply.

it has to be presented as women are getting pay back for "giving away the milk for free" ... in effect a moral proscription or sanction against women in the form of a marriage strike. Did it ever occur to them that adult women are capable of making their own decisions?

Please notice that none of that sort of thing appears in the article. There is no discussion whatsoever in the article concerning sex, or the lack of it, having anything to do with this. The entire article is about the harm that can come to Dan as a consequence of the way divorces are administered by the government in this country.

Kathleen's behavior is not discussed at all, except in terms of how the divorce laws are administered and how this might affect her in different ways than it affects him.

It is therefore an unfair criticism of the authors to suggest that they are attempting to shame women or to sanction their autonomy.

The whole business about "giving it away for free" was introduced to the thread in Note 6 by one of the female participants, who also suggested that "what he's going to do now is just use women and throw them away."

So here is an article about how this guy feels that he cannot get married because the risks of getting screwed over six ways from Sunday are just too high these days, and he thinks that is a shame. She reads this and instead of having any empathy whatsoever for what this guy feels, announces that what Kathleen needs to do is stop giving it away for free, and what he's about is using women and throwing them away. In other words, never mind him, it's all about her.

It is probably true that things went downhill from there, but let me suggest that that is entirely due to the efforts of a certain segment of the population that has a quite bigoted view of men and -- as you have pointed out more explicitly than I chose to -- not the highest opinion of themselves.

The issue concerning the divorce laws and the way they are affecting the society's ability to maintain family structures -- and for men to even have what we used to call a "life" -- is fundamentally about government and law. It is a topic of legitimate concern to conservative activists who care not only about overbearing government, but also about the bag of issues I'll call "slouching towards Gomorrah."

As one who cares about these things, it greatly annoys me that we are cursed with a contingent of extraordinarily shallow people who cannot see past themselves and their own narrow interests, and who must therefore continually intervene in these threads to turn them into "gender wars" because that is how they see them. It's all about them.

The article was not about them at all. It wasn't about sex. It was about law, and the need for reform. That the thread could be so twisted by them so as to stimulate the comments you made is a shame. Frankly, none of that should have ever come up.