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.
What concerns me is that some of the positions advocated by men's rights movement will actually be even more destructive to marriage and children than the current arrangement.
You're right.
Carolyn
What, like fairness and equality before the law?
Oh yeah.. That's awful.
IMHO, that's not possible. First, ditch all the no-fault divorce laws. That will solve 80% of the problems we're discussing here. You cheat on your spouse, you get squat. Sounds harsh? That's the idea. If Mom and Dad are both parent of the year and Mom has a proven affair, then Mom leaves without the children, the house and the cash. You play, you pay. Any guesses on the divorce rate under such a scenario?
No guesses, but I completely agree.
You should start seeing another kind of woman. Maybe you're looking in the wrong places.
please expound.
i would think that throwing more light on the male perspective would strenthen initiatives to encourage more fathers to accept social and financial responsibility for their children, both by law and social pressure.
Yes, but they won't listen to us. Hmmm, maybe that's part of the problem.:)
In society marriage is a contract. So yes, I do think little things like "fairness" and "equality" matter a great deal.
I bet you wouldn't argue that these things don't matter in your rental contract.
I have a good male friend who has continually talked for the last 7 years about how profoundly selfish his ex-wife is -- and he's right. However, when I point out that this woman's grotesque selfcenteredness never would have escaped his noticed if he hadn't been looking at her through the hormone colored glasses he put on when he started shacking up with her, he says I'm crazy, and he's back to square one trying to bed all his dates.
How can someone fail to see something so obvious?
How do I break through to him?
Well if that were the case then we wouldn't have this thread.
It's all about one sex getting way more than they are entitled to and the other sex "Whining" about it.. Remember?
PS: Congratulations on your marriage. May it last till death do you part.
No doubt in my mind. The entertainment industry is built around the beautiful people. If you let that go to your head, you're going to be dissapointed your whole life. I would love to live in the "Friends" universe where my house stayed spotless, but no one ever did housework. Or where everyone spent more time in the coffee shop than they did at work.
Then again the movie universe where all the middle aged women look like Sharon Stone and Rene Russo ain't bad either.
Don't even get me started on children in the real world compared to the cute little suckers on TV.
Thank you. I'm sure it will be till death do us part. Of course when she finds out that I dropped my bicycle off to have $1100 worth of parts put on it, death might come sooner than I hope.
So little things like fairness and equality can be dismissed.
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
When it's you and your stuff to lose, then you want fairness and equality. But when you stand to benefit it changes to screw justice and equality..
That says allot more about you than you might realize.
That's probably very true, if a woman doesn't like her father she's not apt to like or trust any man except in rare cases.
wallpaper his house with all the paperwork from his divorce. use any depositions from his ex for the bathroom.....
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