Discussion
Marriage denotes the relation between a man and a woman who have entered wedlock. It concentrates upon the association of husband and wife, while the family relays the idea of a more complicated level of adjustment in which husband, wife, and child each has individual importance. Santorum’s views reiterate that marriage promotes the common good of by building families and rearing children. This paper examines contemporary threats to marriage and family, how government contributes to these problems, and its role in solving them; and refers to readings from Skolnick, Marshall, Graglia, Hymowitz’s Crittenden, Santorum, Parker, and Horn.
Marriage and family institution faces a myriad of contemporary threats. In general, these contemporary threats include: problems of sustaining a family amidst major shifts in gender relations, particularly due to infiltration of feminism; problems of divorce; family problems such as poverty among unmarried women, delays in marriage, young adults moving back with their parents, unable to launch themselves into adulthood, and growth of economic inequality and insecurity; welfare; child poverty, single parenthood, and many others. Skolnick’s reading addresses some of these contemporary threats associated with the breakdown of the family structure. These threats include: family problems due to poverty among unmarried women having children, growth of economic inequality and insecurity among women, and problem of young adults moving back with their parents, unable to launch themselves into adulthood; and marriage threats such as, the problem of sustaining family in the midst of a major shift in gender relations. These views justify the increased rates of divorce and single motherhood in American society. Getting children outside wedlock encourages social anarchy which is directly associated with the disintegration of family structure. The rates of divorce and single motherhood have implications for children in any country. Levels of poverty, crime, juvenile violence, and poor performances in school by children are linked to divorce and single parenthood. Marriage has also faced over poverty, welfare, sexuality, gender, race and homosexuality rights.
Government has contributed to these threats by emphasizing on incentives to encourage marriages without addressing the problems that are rooted in economic inequality and insecurity. Many Americans worry about family problems related to delays in marriages, dependency by young adults who are unable to launch themselves into marriage due to economic constraints, and poor unmarried women having children. The government does not also address the growing gap that exists between the middle class income earners and top class income earners. This is an economic insecurity that is increasingly affecting the middle class society. The American government advocates the principle of free market which has a tendency of weakening the social institutions, such as, perpetuating inequalities among classes; a consequence that directly affects marriage and family.
The government has an active role to play in solving problems that threaten marriage and welfare. At all levels, government had to engage itself in a range programs that promote marriage. Such programs included; provision of high school courses articulating the gains of marriage, provide counseling on premarital engagements, providing poor married couples with bonuses, among many incentives. For instance, welfare reform was reauthorized by Congress in 1996. This welfare reform provided a bill of $750 million to promote ‘healthy family’ and ‘responsible fatherhood’ over the period of five years.
Strober’s perspective stresses on the importance of alleviating child poverty to enhance marriage and family institution. Children form family pillars. Children should be nurtured by families who are equipped to provide them with the care and opportunities necessary to be responsible citizens. Parents have the responsibility of adequately satisfying the needs of their children. Later in life, parents and society tend to benefit from children who have been well reared. Strober notes that women provide for their children’s’ emotional and physical care, and therefore, they need economic empowerment to be able alleviate child poverty. Their role of providing money income needs for their families has become necessary. Families get little assistance from government for reasons that children are considered a public good and child rearing a private activity. Parker posits that working mothers with better income are a positive influence to their children. With mothers in the labor force, and with fathers as equal parents, children’s attitudes become positive thus stabilizing a family. Government policies seem to address only child education and child care. Its efforts to address marriage and family through negative tax proposals in the 1960s and early 1970s did not work on child care.
Hymowitz’s perspective is more concerned with increase in children in the proportion of children growing up in single parenthood. It’s also concerned with problems of marriages ending up in divorce and children being born to unmarried mothers. Santorum notes that children living with both parents are better of compared to those in single parenthood. Children growing up from single parenthood face many problems in life. For instance, they don’t perform well compared to children from married families. They are also more likely to be poor and are susceptible to about every social problem, such as, delinquency, school failure, crime, drug abuse, emotional difficulties, drug abuse and many others.
Horn reiterates that children raised in homes without fathers are far more likely to experience social problems, such as, being expelled from school, develop emotional or behavioral problems, fall into drug problems, or at worse commit suicide. The males who grow in such arrangements are also more likely to become criminals. At the same time, single mothers compared to married mothers tend to be less child-centered. For instance, their children are less likely to attend education, and when they do attend, they are less likely to attend an elite school. Government needs to train parents on those jobs that are high paying to keep their children out of poverty. Government can also solve these problems by raising the wages of women’s exclusive jobs, and ensuring pay equity for women.
Graglia’s readings reiterate feminism as a contemporary threat to marriage and family. Feminism forms one of the earnest threats to the institution of marriage and family. Successful agitations have been waged by feminists against the traditional family. Traditional family respects husbands as principal bread winners and wives as primary homemakers. This crusade by feminists undermines the position of women as homemakers in families and society in order to engage them in the workforce. The long term mantra of feminism is to create a society in which women view themselves and behave like men, spend much of their time and efforts pursuing male related careers, so that they eventually have equal political and economic power with men. Feminists also encourage women to mimic or ape sexual patterns of men and engage in promiscuity freely as men do. This attitude cannot work in a marriage and family; as women who follow such dogma end up suffering a lot.
Government has contributed in encouraging the phenomenon of feminism by enacting legislations advocated by feminists such as no-fault divorce laws that have undermined house wives social and economic security. Government also consented to the application of affirmative action requirements to women as a class, providing educational and job preferences for women and undermining the ability of men who are victimized by this discrimination to function as a family breadwinner. Marshal perspective on the hand, establishes poverty as a link to lifestyle issues such as unwed births, fatherless ness, and erosion of work culture. It points out the problem to be that of the family structure. Government focus on welfare reforms to ensure that children are born in families that are intact. Crittenden’s views are more concerned with the problems experienced by working mothers in their lives. Every mother understands the needs of her child. Advocates of female equality have always encouraged women to go out and join the workforce to derive happiness. However, this is detrimental to the fulfillment of the needs of their children.