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This is probably the greatest cause for the increase of bastard (i.e. out of wedlock) children. The large social services available to single mothers and the public subsidizing of illegitimacy naturally leads to an increase in it. Add in the fact that popular culture no longer stigmatizes it but instead often glorifies it and it really isn't that hard to understand why it has increased so much.
Why is it that responsible people have to subsidize the irresponsible?
Contraception and the breakdown of sexual morality are much bigger contributors to illegitimacy. Social services just follow the problems around.
Society can handle a small percentage of single mothers, however they got that way, and I think they should be helped. This is an important point. We'll get nowhere by removing social services for single mothers or their children in need.
But society can't handle a situation whereby illegitimacy has become "the new normal". That has to change. We have to incentivize marriage and chastity, and disincentivize promiscuity. Restricting access to contraception will be an essential component of this effort.
Last edited by WesternPilgrim; 02-15-2012 at 01:15 PM..
My suspicion is that these changes are primarily economic in nature. In the "modern" American economy, people move around a lot, they meet a lot more people overall than they ever would in a rural/agrarian world, and they have more sex.
Abstinence throughout history has largely been a function of people's options. When you are "down on the homestead," and you live a good eight miles down a rutted dirt path from the next family, then traditional sexual mores are a lot easier to police and enforce.
Going back in time to the America of the later 1700's, you would find the great majority of people living on farms, homesteads, or other non-urban environments. But within the cities, you would indeed find plenty of brothels and bars and other "dens of iniquity."
Things like the temperance movement and other social battles picked up intensity as more of America urbanized, and people who had previously been accustomed to the moral structure of the rural farm life were introduced to the cities.
My suspicion is that you can call for a return to abstinence all you'd like, but unless the country goes back to its old agrarian/urban composition, it won't work.
It's also worth pointing out that many American social indicators have actually improved since 1965 - for instance, people live markedly longer, and the murder rate is actually slightly lower.
Quote:
Restricting access to contraception will be an essential component of this effort.
Contraception will only get easier over time. If you think about it, the current contraception structure is actually quite crude. But now that various technologies are emerging on the male side of the equation (pills, ultrasound, and other methods that don't involve surgery or condoms), it will become more precise and probably even more common.
My suspicion is that you can call for a return to abstinence all you'd like, but unless the country goes back to its old agrarian/urban composition, it won't work.
America was plenty urbanized in 1965, when illegitimacy was at 5.3%, so I really don't think this argument holds water.
Also, let's take a look at Indian reservations today, which are largely rural and suffer from 70% - 90% illegitimacy rates.
We have to incentivize marriage and chastity, and disincentivize promiscuity. Restricting access to contraception will be an essential component of this effort.
"We" (as in, I'm sure you're suggesting - the government) don't have to do anything. Why don't you work to convince people of your position that they shouldn't have sex with anyone but whomever their married to OUTSIDE of involvement of the government? If you can't convince people to do it on your own, don't expect the government to enforce your idea of morality.
BTW: There is already plenty of incentive to marriage in the form of a financial and tax benefit. What do you propose? HOV lanes on the highway for married people only? Oh, and restricting access to contraception is asinine. MORE contraception will help reduce out of wedlock births, not LESS contraception!
Your solution doesn't even make logical sense. By definition people using contraception are 99% of the time NOT going to have a baby after having sex. People NOT on contraception aren't operating under the assumption of "sex without consequences"... because they AREN'T USING CONTRACEPTION to have that attitude!
You also seem to gloss over a few things: "Out of wedlock" births were less back in the day because society (not LAWS or the GOVERNMENT) pretty much forced the couple to marry.
AND, being born "out of wedlock" doesn't mean that two parents aren't present. It is also a conscious choice on some couple's (and even some single's) parts.
Who cares if the parents are married? Marriage has its historical founding in inheritance rights, so one knows that they person getting your stuff is your child. The peasants rarely had formal marriages.
In the 1960s, the child was conceived out-of-wedlock and the parents quickly got married because of fear of stigma (then, the father disappeared) -- or, the woman put the child up for adoption.
In Europe, marriage is the minority and there is nothing wrong with it. People have children and take care of them. There is nothing magic about marriage.
Ask Sarah Palin's daughter if out of wedlock birth is a problem. It has earned her millions.
The US in 1940 was only 56% urbanized (and that includes people living in areas that we'd consider "rural" today, but happened to be within a certain distance of a city). That had shot up to over 70% by the mid-1960's (it is around 83% today).
Social morality is a bit of a lagging indicator, since it takes time to adjust. But we can see that a lot of the disruptions of the 1960's were probably pre-ordained: a large youth bulge in the population, rapidly-increased urbanization, and new technologies such as the birth control pill.
Enovid - the first iteration of "the pill" - wasn't approved for contraceptive use by the FDA until June 1960.
Birth control by itself didn't change things as much as economic circumstances did. The modern American economy is largely incompatible with the kind of marriage-based high-fertility families we used to see in the agrarian age.
We also had separate drinking fountains in many states and segregated schools.
Perhaps we have evolved in many ways and you refuse to board the train?
what afoi said. This is a complete non-sequitur.
The world record for the marathon was 2:12 in 1965, now down to 2:03:38. Your statement is like saying that since the marathon record improved during those 47 years, everything else that happened was also an improvement.
Yes before around 1965, if you brought a child into the world w/o the wherewithal to raise it, you knew it was going to be a tough row to hoe. So people largely avoided doing that.
Now you can have a kid regardless of your capacity to care for it. The tooth fairy in DC will take care of all.
You just stated the main reason for these numbers today. Having that money tree in DC has been a heavy reason for all this.
Yes before around 1965, if you brought a child into the world w/o the wherewithal to raise it, you knew it was going to be a tough row to hoe. So people largely avoided doing that.
Now you can have a kid regardless of your capacity to care for it. The tooth fairy in DC will take care of all.
Yes and that's a major incentive for deadbeats not to find employment just to have babies and live on the dole.
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