Did No-Fault Divorce Create A “Divorce Culture”?
[A crosspost from Family Scholars Blog.] Douglas Allen, in an interview Karen linked to, said: In the 1960s debate [over no-fault divorce], no one thought the divorce rate would change, but it changed...
View Article“As If Married”
In the 9th Circuit’s recent Prop 8 opinion, the Court noted: “… ‘marriage’ is the name that society gives to the relationship that matters most between two adults. A rose by any other name may smell as...
View ArticlePoor people value marriage as much as the middle class and rich, study shows
The title of this post comes from the UCLA press release: Poor people hold more traditional values toward marriage and divorce than people with moderate and higher incomes, UCLA psychologists report in...
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Adoption is not a woman’s sole decision
Ozy Frantz is a writer I almost always agree with. But in zir excellent article “11 Ways Men Can Be Better Feminist Allies,” zie writes: Support women’s bodily autonomy. On a political level, of...
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The many differences between polygamy and same-sex marriage
Does advocating for marriage equality for same-sex couples require us to also advocate for polygamy — that is, for legally recognized marriages of three or more people? I don’t think so; there are...
View ArticleAre Too-Strong Families Bad For Society?
The ways that too-weak family ties can harm society are frequently noted. But what about the other extreme — can overly strong family ties also harm society? Mark Silk at Religious News Service writes:...
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Single Motherhood And Crime In One Graph
At the Atlantic, sociology prof Philip Cohen provides this graph: Looking at it from the perspective of 1990, it was easy to assume a strong causal relationship between the rise in single motherhood...
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Family Scholars Blog Symposium on Marriage Policy
Family Scholars blog is having an online symposium on marriage policy, featuring responses to their new “State Of Our Unions” report from various folks with an interest in family and policy. One thing...
View ArticleWhat Do Cultural Traditionalists Offer LGBT People And Abused Women?
There’s a teapot tempest going on over this Washington Post column. I basically agree with Conor Friedersdorf when he says “There Probably Isn’t Any Neutral Way to Report on Homosexuality.” A person...
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When Families Destroy Themselves From The Inside
On Tuesday of last week, I helped move my mother to her new house in New Jersey. This means that I am the last member of my family left in New York, and if you had told me fifteen years ago that I was...
View ArticleRape Victims Ordered To Pay Child Support
So a man gets raped by a woman woman rapes a man; the woman gets pregnant and raises the child. Should the father be forced to pay child support? Danny says no; Clarissa says yes. (The question was...
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Increased Incarceration And The Decline In Marriage Rates
From economist Marina Adshade’s “Dollars And Sex” blog: New research published in The Review of Economics and Statistics shows that growing incarceration has contributed to declining marriage rates....
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Political cartoon: Marriage Fixes Everything!
Description of cartoon: The cartoon depicts a young mother and her toddler, in a small and crappy-looking room. The woman is bent double under a load of boxes, trunks and bags, each of which is...
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A few graphs about teen pregnancy and sex
Just putting them out there for reference and discussion. While there was a substantial drop in the pregnancy rate for 15–17-year-olds and 18–19-year-olds between 2008 and 2010, pregnancies among...
View ArticleMother Arrested For Leaving Nine-Year-Old In Park
Lenore Skenazy of “Free Range Kids” reports: Debra Harrell works at McDonald’s in North Augusta, South Carolina. For most of the summer, her daughter had stayed there with her, playing on a laptop that...
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