Sorry! I should have looked at the URL when I linked to it. The image showed up on my box but I didn't realize it was a Tripod hosted image until you mentioned it.
Let me try again. Is this you?
Posted on 08/01/2002 11:41:08 PM PDT by RogerFGay
To rescue marriage, address divorce
The federal government has recently claimed an interest in encouraging marriage on the grounds that children who are raised in a two-parent home seem to do better emotionally, intellectually and socially than those who are not.
There are a number of reasons, however, why marriage won't become more attractive until the rules and regulations pertaining to divorce are revised. The administration will have little success with one until it properly considers the other.
The White House has chosen to emphasize the advantages of marriage in a kind of splendid isolation. In its proposal to reauthorize and strengthen the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, the Bush administration points out that children reared in a two-parent family are more likely to complete high school and are less likely to be poor, commit crimes or have mental health problems.
That may be completely true, but if the benefits for both parents and children are so obvious, why aren't men and women across America rushing to the altar?
The reason, which is is rarely cited either by the government or anyone else, is that being married and having children has become risky business. Although the rate at which people marry is at or near historic lows, the divorce rate is unchanged, hovering around 50 percent. Half of all first marriages end in divorce. The rate for second and third marriages is higher.
These facts are impossible to hide and it is thus very likely that many young men now considering marriage and raising a family will opt not to do so because they instinctively recognize that the risks outweigh the benefits.
Family courts across the country have contributed mightily to reinforcing the fears that surround marriage and child rearing. Aided by state laws that require decisions to be based on the so-called best interests of the child" standard, judges routinely award custody of children to the divorcing mother. In many states, the breakup of marriages with children means that mothers are about nine times as likely as fathers to be awarded primary custody. For most men, divorce simply means a long-term child-support obligation and limited opportunities for seeing their children.
It's no wonder, then, that men may be avoiding marriage.
A recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer by Glenn Sacks and Dianne Thompson speculated that there is, in fact, an ongoing marriage strike. Men, they said, are behaving like Peter Pan. They refuse to commit, refuse to settle down and refuse to grow up." The authors of this piece quote a 31-year-old man who said, 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? 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."
What has been proposed in a number of states, including Colorado, is a law that would establish a presumption where, when a marriage with children breaks up, that the parents should share the resulting responsibilities equally. Other reforms have included lawsuits. One such lawsuit in Colorado directly challenges the best interests of the child" standard on equal-protection grounds because the standard so often favors the mother.
Meanwhile, a number of states have taken smaller steps to address a perceived inequity in the enforcement of the divorce laws. In Montana, for example, it is no longer possible for a judge in a custody action to simply declare custody on the basis of the "best interests of the child." He or she must make specific findings of fact.
These steps, by themselves, won't be enough to alter the culture or make marriage more attractive. What would help is for federal and state officials to take notice of the fact that one of the reasons men are running from marriage is because they are also running from the legal beating they will take if they marry, have children and later divorce.
Al Knight (alknight@mindspring.com) ) is a member of the Denver Post editorial board. His column appears Wednesday and Sunday.
Sorry! I should have looked at the URL when I linked to it. The image showed up on my box but I didn't realize it was a Tripod hosted image until you mentioned it.
Let me try again. Is this you?
Kidding. Who is that dude?
Plus, there is this thing in guy culture where you're almost supposed to be a "skirt-chasin', booze-guzzlin', remote-clickin' hombre".
Yeesh.
Personally, I've always said that real men are committed family men. Of course, many of those are scared off by the prospect of being robbed of their own children, and their house, and their incomes, by the divorce courts.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
To deny the commitment runs against male nature, pop culture portrayals thereof notwithstanding.
Why would women endure the compromises that a marriage entails when they can get all of the same parenting rights, and finances, and property in a divorce?
Good. Because getting married so that you can have sex is a bloody stupid reason to get married, which is what you seem to be implying.
I am only acknowledging the biological fact that men are attracted to many different women, and that monogamy is not natural for them. Absent societal controls and a desire for a higher existence, men will readily engage in casual sex, because this is indeed their nature. This is common knowledge to any intellectually honest male.
I personally believe that men can elevate their lives above their animal nature, that committed, lifelong marriage is best for our physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being, and that real men control their baser instincts, and are true to their commitments. Popular culture does not distort the true nature of men, but rather mis-labels it as healthy.
Please don't look in the mirror and call the reflection "the nature of men". What you describe is the nature of unevolved apes.
The nature of men IS monogamy.
I'm not implying, you're infering. Sex is only one component of marriage, having a partner in life, raising a family, etc. are others, but channeling one's sex drive into a relationship where it can have more meaning than whacking off used to be a much larger factor than it is today, and for decent men who didn't want to just use women as masturbatory recepticals, marriage was the only societally acceptable outlet. Now that women agree to be objectified, the incentive to marry is diminished.
LOL! AND human males.
We ARE talking about the human species, aren't we? Men aren't grossly promiscuous by nature, but they definitely have a natural inclination for the occasional casual "liaison".
The nature of men IS monogamy.
Is this what your husband told you?
There was this little thing called liberalism .... which mutated into a monster of a cultural meme.
The good news is that it is so self-destructive that it should kill itself off in a couple of generations.
The bad news is that it might take Western civilization in its death throes.
After the inevitable collapse, things will get back to normal.
Are you female? The set of all women a man will happily have sex with is a superset of the women a man loves. Just because I am in a committed and explicitly monogamous relationship doesn't mean it not in my nature to engage in the occasional casual fling. It IS in my nature, but I choose not to for other reasons. My monogamy has nothing to do with my "nature". I'm monogamous because it is rational in my specific case, though it is not necessarily true in all cases.
You'd better go back do more research. 75% of divorces are filed by WOMEN.
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