It’s About Making Babies!

The Heritage Foundation website, The Foundry, reports on how the failure of marriage has caused all these out-of-wedlock babies.

Most of the poverty in America can be intrinsically linked to the decline of marriage. When cash assistance programs were first introduced in society during the War on Poverty, less than ten percent of babies were born out of wedlock. For decades long, this well intentioned program had the unfortunate consequence of encouraging single women to have more children out of wedlock and penalized them if they got married or found employment. Not surprisingly, the welfare caseloads exploded and the out of wedlock birth rate steadily rose.

So what is the solution? Why did the existing laws on adultery, polygamy, and statutory rape stop being enforced? Today one popular song is about spending a summer with a 17 year old girl, drinking and having sex, and singing “sweet home alabama all summer long.” “I wish I could see that girl again.” How romantic. How honorable.

The issue is not that the institution of marriage broke down. There is no block of stone, no construct of concrete and glass, no surface of asphalt or section of forest that embodies “marriage”. Not even a book.

Marriage is a heritage of culture. The founding fathers of America mostly shared a common culture, mostly English, with other European influences. As waves of immigrants arrived in the US, that culture ruptured, abscessed around the newcomers – and eventually healed into the “melting pot” of a generally common culture. A culture that recognized family, the influence of the Christian church (in one form or another), the authority of the state and federal government, the consequences of law, and a mostly tolerant relationship with fellow citizens.

What we see when we allow children to be born out of wedlock is mostly a breakdown in culture. We are not raising our sons and daughters to embrace the culture, the faith, and the patriotism of their parents. So they do not grow to expect to raise children to serve their faith, their nation, or their community. Between government subsidies and lack of moral and cultural consensus, a child is often seen as a responsibility, or an object of affection, a duty to “law,” instead of the opportunity and responsibility to carry our traditions and beliefs into the next generation.

I see vinyl coated magnets proclaiming, “I support our troops.” I wonder how many call themselves patriots – that have not raised a child or three to serve their nation? How many proclaim a true and abiding faith, yet haven’t formed a family and raised a child or three to honor and live in that faith, in the next generation?

We take a kid, send him/her to school, tell them, “I don’t care what you want to do, you are going to college, to get a good job.” Wow. How much culture, faith, and character do you instill in your child, when you pose their life plan as “take the state’s definition of education, accrue debt, then decide what profession you will work at.” Where is the emphasis on family, when kids are forced to fend for themselves when they get to age 14-18, and the parents can’t afford to keep them any longer?

Marriage didn’t just decline. We stopped teaching each and every child to form a family, to avoid all intimate contact with those not engaged in forming a family.

Every time a couple makes a sacred, solemn vow to God and state, in front of witnesses, then has a divorce court partially unwrap that vow, we teach kids what honor and vows really mean.

We don’t need more church education in schools, we don’t need laws tracking down divorced men for child support or courts undoing the wedding but binding people to the courts. We need a consensus as a nation, that there is a reason to have babies, then teach our children that reason. That will give them the information to hold onto – that will help them pick a mate rather than a cartoon image of togetherness.

And, we could institute a form of polygamy – make every act of birth an act of marriage. Replace divorce with dissolution of marriage by reason of abandonment – and make it a felony to take any assets of any party when you abandon a marriage.

Divorce is one of the biggest contributors to people entering poverty. We have to address this cruelty, and not by beggaring “divorced” partners (that sure hasn’t worked worth anything).