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Saturday, November 08, 2003
TOP TEN REASONS WHY DAVE SHOULD GET MARRIED: David Letterman is a hugely successful entertainer. Millions of people admire him and appreciate his work. He has made enough money to live well without having to work another day in his life. And now the 56-year-old has begun a new chapter in his life, the most important of all. He has become a father. Wouldn't it have been a fantastic message to send to young, impressionable adults if he and his longtime girlfriend had wed? Do you realize how many lost souls who have never experienced the joy of putting a ring on their partner's finger could have gotten a little dose of inspiration if David Letterman and Regina Lasko had legitimized their little baby instead of rendering him illegitimate? Instead, another pop culture legend trashes one of the great moral foundations of America by refusing to marry the mother of his child ... For the sake of Harry, do the right thing, Dave. Get married before your child is old enough to realize what you've done. It's the best gift you could give him. FROM MADISON, WISCONSIN: "Gov. Jim Doyle has vetoed a bill that would define marriage in Wisconsin as solely between a man and woman, saying state law already clearly prohibits same-sex marriage and the legislation was 'mean-spirited.''' FROM THE MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE: Psychologist Bill Doherty, a national leader in the movement to take back family time, told the meetings that while the time kids spend on structured sports activities has doubled over the past two decades, time devoted to family dinners has dropped by a third and family vacations have declined 28 percent. "Childhood used to revolve around the family, and now the family revolves around childhood activities," Doherty said. "Healthy, Wealthy, & Wed": The University of Chicago Magazine has a feature on Linda Waite and her research on marriage. FROM THE DETROIT FREE PRESS: A story on Healthy Marriages Grand Rapids, which just received a five-year, $1.5 million grant from HHS to promote marriage. "The theme of the event is: "Submitting yourselves one to another...." Ephesians 5:21. Its purpose is to help couples strengthen their marriages and relationships by addressing the issues that may be creating conflict and, through scriptural-based instruction, learning to overcome those difficulties." "A majority of teenagers � often considered more progressive and gay-friendly than older generations � do not approve of legalizing marriage between gay couples, a Gallup poll released last week suggests." FROM INDIA: Stories of grooms walking out of marriage mandaps protesting against inadequate dowry or improper treatment of baaratis are dime a dozen. However, Hyderabad on Wednesday witnessed an instance wherein the bridegroom walked out of the marriage hall so as not to �ruin� the life of the woman he was to marry. Incidentally, this was an arranged marriage and the boy had met the girl only once before, at the time of the engagement ceremony. Rajasekhar (24), an engineer by profession, was scheduled to tie the knot with Radhika (22), a final-year MBA student, at a city marriage hall. Both the families finalised the marriage after the usual horoscope-matching route. The arrangements were complete and the priest was ready to solemnise the bond when the young man stood up saying he would not marry.The bewildered parents from both sides as well as community elders tried to prevail on him but he refused to budge. FROM ISLAMABAD: The Federal Shariat Court has issued notices to Attorney General of Pakistan and advocates-general of provinces to assist the court if the family court has powers to dissolve the marriage of Shia couples. The petitioner, Ali S. Sheikh, stated before the Federal Shariat Court that as per Fiqh Jaafria, a marriage could be dissolved only through pronouncement of Talaq by reciting of "Seeghas" in the presence of wife or her representative/s and two witnesses, and the family court had no jurisdiction to pass a decree under the Dissolution of the Marriage Act, 1939. The petitioner's wife has obtained a decree of dissolution of marriage from the family court by filing a suit for the dissolution of marriage. The petitioner stated that the power of the court to dissolve the marriage, was in violation of the holy Quran and Sunnat. "If a married woman has sex with another woman, is that adultery? The New Hampshire Supreme Court, ruling in a divorce case, says no." TROUBLED DIVORCE: "People think there is trouble in marriage, but this play is about troubled divorce," said Phyllis Elfenbein, director of "Gun-Shy," which opens at the Island Players Thursday. IT'S HOW YOU DO IT: I'm just back from a meeting of scholars in Chicago, discussing new research on the inner lives of the children of divorce. One of the basic implications of this work is that all divorce, no matter how the parents transact it, deeply changes childhood in ways that typically lead to problems, loyalty conflicts, and fears. Then I see this article today, actually only one of zillions, suggeting yet again that what's important is how the parents transact divorce: If the parents focus on the children's needs more than the property settlement and related issues, and keep spousal conflict away from the children, the children's stress will be minimized. On the other hand, if children are exposed to frequent heated arguments, fights, threats and hateful comments between their parents, it could lead to behavior problems, loyalty conflicts and fear.This idea, so deeply ingrained in our culture today, is due for a fall. E-COURTSHIP?: David Brooks writes on internet dating. If you're dating in the Age of the Hook-Up, sex is this looming possibility from the first moment you meet a prospective partner. But couples who meet through online dating services tend to exchange e-mail for weeks or months. Then they'll progress to phone conversations for a few more weeks. Only then will there be a face-to-face meeting, almost always at some public place early in the evening, and the first date will often be tentative and Dutch. Friday, November 07, 2003
DIVORCE.COM: "Last year, an about-to-be-divorced friend remarked that anyone thinking divorce was too easy had never been through the process. Maybe he should have tried getting divorced online." "PROTECTING" MARRIAGE: The Wisconsin Senate debated a bill that would define marriage as between a man and a woman. Tim Carpenter, the only openly gay member of the Senate, argued against the bill in part because it ignored "the real threat to marriage--divorce." He even offered up an amendment that would have limited marriage to those who haven't been divorced. Senate Minority Leader Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, said one-third of the Senate has been divorced or are in the process now, including himself.The bill passed, but was vetoed by Governor Jim Doyle. THE KIND OF MARRIAGE COVERAGE FOUND ONLY AT SALON: "Education of a call girl: What I learned about marriage while working as a Manhattan prostitute"At first the "marriage insights from a hooker" lead made me laugh for being quintessential Salon (ooh, we're trying to shock you with our carefree attitudes toward sexual taboos!)--but it's really a profoundly sad piece. Look again at her first sentence: "Prostitution seemed...an ideal profession for a jaded child of divorce, like me." Thursday, November 06, 2003
In Crisis magazine, a strong exchange (scroll down) in the letters to the editor section between Stephen Baskerville, the fathers rights guy, and Wade Horn, the marriage guy at the U.S. Department of Healt and Human Services. An ad at New York's La Guardia aiport: "We're helping fathers become better dads ... And you can too. Call NPNFF at 800.346.7633." I'm amazed at how widespread this message has become. I'm sure you'll be surprised to learn that the current issue of People magazine has a cover story on celebrity marriages. The cover asks: "Will Love Last?" Well, that's an interesting way to ask the question. To see how it could be asked differently, consider a remark made decades ago by the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who once told a young man about to be married that, from this day on, it won't be your love that makes your marriage last, it will be your marriage that makes your love last. ME, MYSELF, AND I: Richard Curtis, the 47-year old writer of charming films such as Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral, was interviewed about his new try at directing. In the interview he mentions his companion of 13 years and their four children together, the oldest of whom is 8. Curtis says they have not married because, �between the ages of 25 and 35, I worked out that I went to 72 weddings. I couldn�t think of a way to distinguish my wedding from all those other weddings. But we might do it when I turn 50.� I�ve become accustomed to marriage-talk that sees marriage only as a private, love relationship between two people, something that has nothing to do with children or a larger public commitment. I�ve also heard of plenty of women delaying marriage because they are waiting until they can afford the big fairy-tale wedding. But this is a new twist. A self-absorbed, successful male writer-director who doesn�t want to get married because he can�t figure out how to make his wedding his most original production yet. The thought that getting married, say, before or shortly after the birth of his first child doesn�t seem to strike him as a good idea for their sake. Maybe, he thinks, he�ll keep that wedding possibility open as a consolation prize when he hits 50. After all, wouldn�t it be cute to have all those kids as little co-stars? Wednesday, November 05, 2003
EVERYTHING'S CHANGED. WELL, EXCEPT IT HASN'T -- During a lunch yesterday with U of the South - Sewanee students (yes, I'm back home now, so the Sewanee anecdotes will soon end) we continued talking about the hook up culture. One woman said that women who hook up a lot get a bad reputation. "Does it last?" I asked. "Oh yeah," she said, "it lasts a long time. Some girls leave the school because of it." The conversation continued, then one of the woman's friends said, breezily, "Well, men get a bad reputation too. Women warn each other about the guys who hook up a lot." In fact, I hear comments like this a lot from some young women who try to argue that bad reputations are at least an equal opportunity endeavour these days. So I asked her, "Do any of the guys ever have to leave the school because of it?" Immediately she and her friend shook their heads, dismissing this as a ridiculous question. "Oh no," they said. The older adults around the table, including me, winced; one administrator even exhaled like she'd been hit in the stomach. But the students, at least on the outside, didn't seem moved. It was just the way it was. Tuesday, November 04, 2003
HOOK UP CULTURE CLOTHING: Yesterday I heard a Planned Parenthood activist discuss "the pernicious web" of President Bush's "War on Women." (Yes, I complained that the war metaphor wasn't a good one. Many agreed. Yet I found that some doves who think the "war on terror" is a misuse of the term "war" also think it's just fine to assert that Bush has embarked on a "war on women.") The speaker held up a shirt that a Yale women's group wore last year to educate students about the availability of emergency contraception (EC). The shirt said, "EC at Yale. Get laid. Not screwed." HOOKING UP, ANOTHER REASON WHY -- More good talks here at Sewanee today, including a dinner tonight with freshman students in a class called "Ethics of Everyday Living." In talking with them I finally hit upon something I've wondered since the early days when we began researching the hook up culture on college campuses. I've felt, all along, that there was some connection between the hook up culture and the attempts to educate college students about safe sex and date rape, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Well now I have, and here's my hunch. College administrators, bless them, are trying as best they know how to protect college students from the fall out of casual sex and alcohol-fueled hook ups. They tell students that they should talk before they engage in sex, discussing what they're going to do, assuring that they both consent. They tell students that a drunk person can't consent to sex. They tell students to use contraception. Their biggest point, though, is this business of "clear communication" -- that two people engaging in sex must communicate prior to the sex in order to ensure that both people are being respected and the sex is consenual. Why the big emphasis on communication? I think it stems from the fact that there are no longer shared norms when it comes to sex and relationships on campuses, as we discussed in our report. Each student feels he or she has to make up their own, personal sexual rules. So communication is necessary in order for both people to determine whether their personal sexual rules are in sync with each other. The problem? Almost nobody does this. It's about the most awkward conversation you can imagine. It also seems like a real erotic damper. ("Hi, lets talk about AIDS, getting pregnant, and the explicit details of the sex act before we fall into bed with each other.") Indeed, have people in human history ever had long conversations in advance of sex about they were about to do? I doubt it. Instead, what they had were shared social norms that gave them some sense about the likelihood they would or would not have sex. Sometimes these shared norms were transgressed terribly. But often they served to help people know what they were doing together without having to put every detail into words. So college students today find, not surprisingly, that it's really awkward and weird to try to talk about sex before you do it. So what do they do instead? Engage in an activity that is defined by *not* talking -- they hook up. They get drunk, then get sexual, neither of them acknowledge what they're doing, and they ignore each other the next day. One could hardly think of a behavior that runs more directly counter to the safe sex/date rape prevention instructions. Something's not working. "A national Christian organization is seeking to mobilize 50,000 pastors against same-sex "marriage" and has set up a website for the effort. ChurchCoalition.com, a website of the American Family Association, was launched in late October with the goal of lining up thousands of pastors across the country to defend the traditional definition of marriage ... Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said he has been pointing people to the website. The ERLC is part of a coalition of more than 20 likeminded organizations that have joined together in support of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex "marriage." Known as the "Arlington Group," it includes such organizations as the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family." THE 'M' WORD: I'm down here at University of the South -Sewanee talking about hooking up for two days with students, faculty, and staff. There's a lot of fantastic people down here and the students are really bright (parents, this place is worth checking out for your kids). Lots of good conversations, but one of the most interesting so far was last night at dinner. It was a small group of about ten of us, mostly faculty and a few students. The faculty were from diverse fields -- political science, anthropology, math, English, philosophy. We spent much of the two hours talking about a radical idea: marriage. I was interested that they were interested in talking about it -- and we really talked. There was not uniform agreement, but there was nothing like pot-shots either. People were really interested and concerned about the meaning of marriage and its possible decline. At one point, one of the faculty said, "Well, married people *are* happier." There was a pause, then another said, "And healthier." Another short pause, then a third one piped up, "And better off financially." Everyone was silent for a moment, lost in thought. But in my head I was screaming "Bingo!!!" I let a moment go by, and then I said, "You know, two or three years ago those would have been fighting words. People would have said how could you discriminate like that? How could you berate single mothers like that?" They looked at me, a little puzzled. The moment passed. But inside I sent my silent congrats to Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher, authors of "The Case for Marriage: Why Married People are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially," and to all the Institute and other marriage movement folks who have supported this research and other research like it, and gotten the ideas out there. It's working. THE FALL OUT OF FAMILY CHANGE: I spent this past weekend at a conference center in Illinois and ordered dinner to go in the restaurant, where a very friendly 50-something hostess, who was obviously new on the job, took my order. When my order was ready she came out to find me in the hallway where I was supervising my one-year old attempting to master a set of stairs. She smiled warmly at my daughter and said, "My grandbaby is that age, and I have one a little older." Then she confided in me, "I had a good job in Mississippi, a really good job." I pictured a comfortable desk job with good pay and benefits. "But one day," she said, "my daughter called me up and said, 'Mom, I need help with my kids.'" She smiled. "So here I am." Now it's possible, quite possible, that her daughter is married and she and her husband, like some married couples, are just having a really tough time making ends meet. But I suspected it was more likely that a daughter would call her mother away from her life and a good job states away because she's pretty desperate, probably single and trying to raise two kids on her own. I looked at this 50-something grandmother, hostessing evenings and taking care of her grandchildren during the day, and thought about the fall out of family change. A single mother trying to raise two kids alone. Two kids being raised on the margins. And a young grandmother building no retirement savings, probably working without health insurance, as she herself enters a newly vulnerable time of her own life. Maybe in this case I've got it all wrong. But it's a story you see often enough, and it makes me wonder if those who celebrate family diversity and change ever talk to real people, young and old, who are trying to raise happy, healthy children almost entirely alone. FROM CAPE TOWN: The Human Science Research Council (HSRC) has embarked on a project to encourage men, especially fathers, to get involved in their children's lives. The Council said during a media briefing in Cape Town yesterday that the Fatherhood Project would help highlight the plight of children ahead of this years National Children's Day, tomorrow. Through its research programme called Child, Youth and Family Project (CYFD), the HSRC aims through the 'Fatherhood Project' to sensitise men that their involvement has an effect on children. FROM LONDON, "SPIDERMAN": A protester dressed as Spiderman today vowed to continue his Tower Bridge sit- in, threatening traffic chaos ... Today Mr Chick appealed to his former girlfriend to "stop denying our child a loving father". Via a walkie-talkie, he told the Evening Standard of his bitter battle with his former partner for access to his four- year- old daughter. Mr Chick, who overcame a fear of heights to hold down a job as a window cleaner before abandoning it when he became depressed over the dispute, said: "She knows I love my daughter to death ... "I was there at the birth. I fed her, I bathed her, I played with her for the first 10 months. She suddenly wipes out my life and there is nothing I can do about it and the courts assist it all. It is an absolute scandal. The corrupt family law needs exposing for more and more children are losing their fathers and some of these fathers top themselves or kill their former partners and sometimes kill their kids. It could all be changed so easily but who cares about fathers and children? My ex thinks she is going to provoke me into going round and losing my rag and doing something bad to her which I have never done. I have got to the end of my tether - this is my cry for help." He said he wore a Spiderman suit because he is his daughter's favourite superhero.He's absolutely right that sometimes these guys try to kill the mother and their children, and sometimes try to kill themselves. So in that sense, dressing up as Spiderman and stopping traffic in London may not have been such a bad choice for this guy. One more point, though. Notice that he says "my ex." But he means a former girlfriend, not a former wife. I really run out of sympathy pretty fast for these guys who impregnate a woman, don't get married, and then act as if the world has done them wrong when no one treats like a responsible man who has made a real commitment. "JUST A WALLET": A divorced fathers says: One issue for me is that during all of those years, I was just a wallet to the court system. I fail to understand how the courts can limit a father's time with his own biological children, yet allow the mother to date and have in the household any other man she chooses. That's fair? And before anyone brings up "joint custody," I had that. Guess what, it is a sham. Until the courts begin to think a little differently about a biological father's rights to visit his own children, at any time, especially when any other man can be in the house unrestricted, then fathers will continue to feel like just a wallet. Many will skirt payments because they are treated so unfairly by the courts.Having Mom's boyfriend come and go at will, and be a play daddy to the child, while the actual father has to make an appointment, ask permission, and stand in line -- what a humiliation and, probably in many cases, what an unfair thing. Yet whenever I hear these stories, the idea I keep coming back to is that what we are seeing here are the terrible consequences of the collapse of a marriage, the death of what Pat Conroy calls "a small civilization." It's a great, sad tragedy, but I'm just not sure that something called "fathers rights" is going to fix, or even make partially better, what is broken. FROM COLORADO: Dads were definitely outnumbered in the sea of mothers at Greeley's parenting conference Saturday. However, those who did show up had nothing but praises for the daylong conference sponsored by the Greeley Mother's Center. "It's given me some things to think about that maybe I have been doing," said Carson Honaker, who admitted he only went because of his wife.I hear you, pal. Monday, November 03, 2003
MARRIAGE BONUS: What is the explanation for the consistent research finding that married people earn more than similarly situated unmarried people? Some recent scholarship sheds some more light: Two main reasons are thought to drive the phenomenon, say Hyunbae Chun and Injae Lee of the department of economics at New York University. First is the "productivity hypothesis": Having a partner to support, encourage and motivate makes the other partner more productive. Second is the "selection hypothesis": Women tend to marry men with characteristics that make them more successful in the workplace, and avoid men who don't. Analyzing 1999 survey data of about 2,700 men, Chun and Lee found married men earned an average of 12.4 percent more per hour than unmarried men. After adjusting for age, work, experience, education and other factors, the researchers concluded the productivity theory -- having a supportive partner -- is the reason behind married men's financial success. TAXING DIVORCE FILINGS (CONT.): Commenting on this item, a readers says: In our county, a percentage of the marriage liscence fee goes to domestic violence services. I think it would be better to allocate that fee for healthy marriage programs and take the DV (victim advocacy) money out of divorce filings.Nice point. To me it's rediculous, even perverse, to tax marriage in order to fund domestic violence programs, as if marriage was a health hazard, like cigarettes or alcohol. Taxing divorce filings, where the link between the action and risk to society is genuine, is at least conceptually valid. Plus, I seem to recall that the median cost to taxpayers per divorce filing is far higher than the fees paid by the typical divorcing couple. If that's true, then there's also a simple "you want it, you pay for it" logic to increasing the fees for these filings. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, cont.: Last week, I asked, "What have conservatives done to combat domestic violence?" I only received one reply. Maybe that's because conservatives haven't done much, or maybe it's because nobody reads this blog. Either way, the reader wrote: I would agree that political conservatives aren�t strong on this issue. But it is worth noting that religious conservatives are less likely to experience domestic violence in their own marriages. So, if the personal is the political than religious conservatives are �doing something� by eschewing violence in their marriages.And that's part of the reason why feminist criticisms of Promise Keepers didn't gain much traction. Sunday, November 02, 2003
HOOKING UP � I�m headed to University of the South � Sewanee tomorrow morning to spend two days talking about the hook up culture on college campuses (drawn from our Institute report co-authored with Norval Glenn). Sewanee held a faculty forum last week discussing our report and some of the comments are posted on their blog (click on �Comments� at the bottom of the page). The ones by Elizabeth Outka � the fifth posting in the list � form the most consistently argued critique. FROM TEXAS: A $15 Family Protection Fee was added to the cost of a divorce in Williamson County. County commissioners added the fee to help fight domestic violence and said it will generate about $22,000 each year. "It allows the commissioners court to assess an additional $15 filing fee for divorces and to put that in a special account called a Family Protection Account. And then distribute those funds to nonprofits in their county that serve victims of family violence and sexual assault," Theresa Leftwich of the Williamson County Crisis Center said.I think I like the idea of taxing divorce filings, and there certainly is a connection socially between marriage breakdown and violence against women. FROM BRITAIN: A Civitas pamphlet published on Monday argued that "families based on marriage are, on average, healthier, wealthier, and more stable than other family forms". "Marriage is an important social good, associated with an impressively broad array of positive outcomes for children and adults alike," the research based on a review of social science studies claimed.The publication discussed in this story is based on one of our recent publications Why Marriage Matters: Twenty-One Conclusions from the Social Sciences. Civitas is a good group, and we were glad to work with them to bring this publication to the other side of the ocean. FROM GEORGIA: This event is to introduce pastors to a new program called MarriageNet, a program that will unite the churches in Duluth and Norcross for the purpose of strengthening marriages, supporting families and improving community health. MarriageNet will equip pastors with the resources needed to strengthen their church's marriage ministry, and help reduce the divorce rate in their community. This type of program has been successful in several other cities, reducing the divorce rate by as much as 50%. Randy Hicks, president of Georgia Family Council states that "the vast majority of Americans want to marry and 81% of Americans believe that marriage is for life. If that's true, and because the health of one's marriage often determines personal and community health, we should as a society, do everything we can to increase the likelihood of marital success. It's clear that it's not a lack of belief in marriage that undermines our marital unions- it's our lack of skills to deal with modern marital challenges".I think that Randy Hicks and the Georgia Family Council do good work. Clarice Doyle has a few things to say about the growth of domestic partner laws and benefits: Domestic partners. That's the latest description of unmarried couples, both straight and gay, who hope to cash in on the benefits that heretofore were reserved for married couples. The most recent news on the subject comes from California where outgoing Gov. Gray Davis signed a bill that will require companies doing business with the state to provide full benefits to the unmarried partners of employees. This is absurd ... Tamar Lewin in a New York Times article stated the dilemna quiet clearly: "While marriage is a clearly defined status, there is no consensus about what constitutes a domestic partnership. Do the partners have to live together? And, if so, for how long? Must they contract to be responsible for each other's support? Or is a simple affirmation of a committed relationship enough? And should there be a formal process for dissolving the partnership?" There are no legal answers as of yet. But for now, the marriage benefits extended to spouses and children have become the the golden grail that so-called DPs seek. They want to, and perhaps in some instances should, be treated equally with men and women who embark on legal, emotional and spiritual commitments. But lowering the status of married couples and placing them on equal standing with transitory live-ins and sexual partners is mockery. Nothing less.For SS couples, who can't marry, the issue is more complex. But regarding heteros, I think she's right on the money. It's another way in which the SS debate -- and much of the drive behind domestic partner benefits is the SS issue -- may end up, regardless of the intentions of many of the actors, end up being less about redefining marriage than deconstructing it for all couples, at least as a legal and public policy matter. |
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