 |
|
Saturday, December 21, 2002
A moving story (requires registration) in the New York Times about the meaning of father absence. Watch, though, how oddly the reporter, Chris Hedges, treats the topic of marriage. H.R. Vargas, the young man being profiled, whose father left him and his mother before he was born, lives with his girlfriend (who recently left him, but came back), their two children, and her child from a previous "relationship." No marriages anywhere in this story. Yet the reporter tells us that Mr. Varga "fights to hang on" to his role as "husband" and quotes Mr. Varga, as if it were obvious that his statement is relevant to his situation, on the subject of what being married means. Increasingly I notice journalists and others using words like "spouse," "husband," and "marriage" to describe nonmarital relationships. Why are they doing this? Friday, December 20, 2002
Perhaps the most newsworthy, shocking marriage-related story of the year! Seriously, Matt Damon may have a point. Great essay by my friend Anne Manne on the Australian debate on paid maternity leave. She's all for it, but calls it "just a start" and endorses the demand for maternal equity and the theme of maternal feminism. MORE NEWS COVERAGE of Canada's Supreme Court decision on the invalidity of treating married and unmarried couples the same here. Thursday, December 19, 2002
WHAT IS MORE LIKELY TO INCREASE A MAN'S LIFE SPAN, high income or a stable marriage? A recent paper (PDF file) by the economist Andrew J. Oswald from Warwick University in the U.K. concludes that marriage has a large positive effect on mortality risk among males, whereas the positive effects on longevity stemming from income are quite small. Another paper (PDF file) co-authored by Oswald surveys current evidence and finds for both women and men "a genuine protection effect from marriage" regarding risk of a range of physical and psychological problems. Oswald has a lot to say about marriage -- check out his web page. Also, here's another paper from the American Medical Association suggesting that marital separation and divorce are strong predictors of the likelihood of death for men in the nine years following the breakup. NCHS has released the final data for births in 2001. The teen birth rate continued its 10-year decline. Out-of-wedlock childbearing seems to have almost reached a plateau: Births to unmarried women accounted for 33.5 percent of all births in 2001. This percent has been inching up over time as married women are having fewer children and the number of unmarried women grows. The number of births to unmarried mothers increased to a record high of more than 1.3 million in 2001, although the birth rate among unmarried women of childbearing age (15-44) actually declined slightly between 2000 and 2001, from 45.2 per 1,000 in 2000 to 45.0 in 2001. CANADA'S SUPREME COURT decides that a Nova Scotia law requiring divorcing couples to split assets equally does not apply to unmarried cohabiting couples. The Court finds that "the Charter does not require that the legislature treat married and unmarried couples identically." But more importantly (since the law can change) here is the underlying logic: "To extend the presumption of equal division of matrimonial assets to common-law couples would be to intrude into the most personal and intimate of life choices by imposing a system of obligations on people who never consented to such a system. To presume that common-law couples want to be bound by the same obligations as married couples is contrary to their choice to live in a common-law relationship without the obligations of marriage." Well put. The Canadian Court has done a favor for their neighbors to the south by spelling out what is one of the main weaknesses of the recent proposals from the American Law Institute for changes in U.S. marriage law. Imposing marriage-like laws on people who never wanted to marry in the first place not only does mischief to those couples, but also, by insisting that the law treat married and unmarried couples the same, would effectively deny the principle that marriage must be based on free choice -- to be recognized by society as married, two people have to agree, voluntarily and knowingly, to get married. The American Law Institute proposals would radically undermine this principle. Wednesday, December 18, 2002
THE ORLANDO SENTINEL reports that some "conservative" state legislators and their allies are planning to propose changes in the state's divorce law. THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY reviews (scroll down) Barbara Dafoe Whitehead's new book, Why There Are No Good Men Left: The Romantic Plight of the New Single Woman. Tuesday, December 17, 2002
TEEN PREGNANCY PREVENTION AND MARRIAGE: The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy has just released their annual survey of attitudes about teen pregnancy. The survey suggests that both adults and teens largely reject any either/or choice between "abstinence-only" approaches and "comprehensive sex ed" approaches that mention abstinence only in passing. (Interestingly, the Campaign now calls its common sense, middle-ground approach �abstinence-first� instead of �abstinence-plus.�) The report also states that, in the context of teen pregnancy prevention, �Marriage should be discussed.� Eighty-six percent of adults and 84 percent of teens agreed that such programs should teach young people to be married before having children. STEVEN SPIELBERG, TOM HANKS, and Leonardo DiCaprio talk about divorce in the movies and in their lives: Steven, people have always talked about how your parents� divorce has echoed through your movies. You could even make the case that dinosaurs and sharks are metaphors for the threat to the family�but that�d be nuts, right? MATERNAL EQUITY (CONT.): In The American Prospect, Stephanie Mincimer makes the case for major new government expenditures on child care. She makes some good points, and I am not opposed in principle to the idea of more spending on child care, but it's amazing to me that she feels that she can dismiss the entire issue of maternal equity -- treating at-home and employed mothers equally -- first by calling it "conservative" (as if applying the label means that no more discussion is required) and then by blithely (and wrongly) suggesting that at-home mothers are few and far between, so why bother about them anyway. The American Prospect is supposed to be about rethinking and renewing liberalism, but Mencimer's piece is mostly a rehash of arguments that came of age in the late 1980s, the last time there was a major push (led by the Children's Defense Fund) for more federal spending on child care. Taking seriously the issue of maternal equity would have strengthened (not to mention freshened up) her case, without forcing her to give up on what she cares about most. Monday, December 16, 2002
CELEBRITES stand on the pinnacle of an individualistic, over-commercialized culture. How does marriage fare up there? The Washington Post explores why celebrities love to get married...again...and again...and again... IN AN article in The Weekly Standard, David Brooks discusses "hooking up" at elite college campuses. DOES THREE MAKE IT A TREND?: You gotta see Evelyn -- a really wonderful movie about fatherhood, law, and faith. Also, are father-daughter movies the current vogue? There's Evelyn, then The Wild Thornberrrys due out this week, and What a Girl Wants due out next spring. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
