Since the 70s marriage has declined by 60%, so it seems marriage is becoming optional. I found this interesting and I decided to put this in the race forum because of a persistent right-wing myth about Blacks and out of wedlock births. Yes, the statistics are bad, but the reason may not be in accordance with your tidy biased thinking... The reason for the rise in out of wedlock births favored by the right is generous welfare benefits, but benefits fell in the 70s and 80s while out of wedlock births rose most. The left's favorite reason for out of wedlock births is lack of marriageable mates due to joblessness and lack of education, but it has been estimated that reasoning accounts for between 3% and 20% of the decline in marriage rates. This paper argues that it is due to the fall of the shotgun wedding. Before the pill and liberalized abortion both participants in making a baby had equal responsibility for making that baby. The man and this family had social pressure to support the woman and baby. After available contraception the woman became responsible for not getting pregnant. If she wanted, abortion was available. She decided whether to keep it or not. That freed men to blame the woman and her choices while refusing to take any responsibility for the pregnancy. The death of shotgun weddings.
many men no longer want to marry, as the risks of divorce have a heavy hit to the wallet how many baby moma's did our last President create, people today are more likely to divorce than in the past, sad but true
The decline of shotgun weddings, as a corollary to the rise of single motherdom, makes sense as far as a correlation, but what's the causation? That skips the reason why. You say (and I assume the paper says) that the decline in shotgun weddings is a result of the rise of available birth control, but if that's the case, why didn't the rise of the single mom effect all races equally? And how exactly does birth control effect the rise of single mothers? I can see how it would reduce shotgun weddings, but why would birth control lead to the rise of out of wedlock pregnancy? Shouldn't it have reduced them? There seems to be some big gaps in this thesis.
Actually I think the rise of the “blame game” where women are targeted for being “irresponsible” is largely down to christo-fascism and the rise of religious right. There has always been an element of “blame the women” only in previous years they would shave their heads and put them in the stocks. Young women were “hidden away”. In my own family I have a distant relative who was raised as a child of my great grandparents when in fact he was my grandmothers sisters child. It devastated him when he finally saw his birth certificate and realised the woman he was raised to believe was his sister was in fact his mother. The whole “blame the woman” mantra is supported by deeply embedded cultural biases. Have you ever wondered why there are multiple methods for contraception for women but really only two for men?
All your questions are answered in the hyperlink. Speaking of correlation does not imply causation, unless you are a right-wing racist and then the causation is the social safety net, which caused Black out of wedlock births, so it needs to be dismantled. That would be the humane thing to do....Right right? Would you trust a player to conscientiously take his birth control pill? In the past there was a social agreement that if she "put out" and got pregnant he would marry her. It was conditional. If he did not keep his end of the bargain the baby could be adopted by a relative or stranger to save face. That broke down after the introduction of birth control. Premarital sex was normalized, pressuring women to have more risky sex. Single parenting grew and adoptions declined especially by income and education.
I admire the way you called me a right-wing racist while not quite calling me that. Well constructed! But that's because you need some truth to your accusations, and you don't really have that. For example, I can freely refer to you as a segregationist, because you are, and have stated so on this forum, and I can pull up the quote if need be. I would just say it's a shame that I thought you wanted a serious discussion on the issue, when the real point of this thread was just to scream "RACIST!" Anyway, no. The paper didn't answer the questions I raised, so let's try it again: Why would decline of shotgun marriages lead to more single moms when that decline also correlates with the rise of available birth control? Why wouldn't birth control lead to a decline in single moms? Why didn't the rise of single mom's affect all races equally? You brought a chart breaking down the rise by race, so what made the difference?
Maaate! Condoms have just a 1-2% failure rate but “typical use” is 18% failure rate. If the ones with the ding dong can’t work out how to put a raincoat on the right way up it is more than doubtful they would take a daily pill. As for forced marriage - I cannot accept that premise and the reason is that sex without consequence has been a long long tradition. Look up droit du seigneur
I was not calling you in particular a right-wing racist, but if you agree with their logic then you are. You read it, but comprehension must play a part. Post the Pill the per capita birth rate did go down. Women were not having 10 kids anymore, but the rate of premarital sex went way up. As premarital sex became more common and expected, women would take more chances with getting pregnant in order to stay in that relationship, so the premarital pregnancy rate went up. With the collapse of the shotgun wedding more single women went to term and abortion rates went up. Out of wedlock births no longer carried the stigma it once had, so adoptions fell, further increasing the number of single parents. As you see from the graph, "non-whites" had higher unmarried births well before modern birth control. Why that is may be the subject of another paper not addressed in this one, it could be cultural, less marriageability due to poverty/joblessness, but as the graph breaks into racial divisions the least in wealth are the highest in unmarried births. That may be due to in part by lack of available healthcare and education. With Blacks, the paper states the shotgun wedding fell sooner along with the single parent stigma and that welfare may have added to the decline of the shotgun wedding as much as the loss of stigma did because of the higher poverty rate.
birth control allowed more to have sex for pleasure, thus if one was abstinent, the odds of dating were slimmer, so they played (without birth control) those that did not teach their children birth control, often got pregnant because of this (look at Palin as an example) that could be one reason, also the reason Christians get the most Abortions in this country by far "Religious school grads likelier to have abortions" https://www.nbcnews.com/health/heal...l-grads-likelier-have-abortions-flna1C9437875
It's a cultural shift. The way non-white rates have been higher, but the overall pattern has been the same for all groups, shows a cultural shift in how people view marriage. Basically, people see it as less essential now than before. It's never meant much to me. Yeah, it's a legal contract. But the real commitment is having kids. Then your relationship affects other people, and if you don't keep your relationship strong you still can't escape them.
Well I'll give you credit for giving a stab at it, and at acknowledging that the paper didn't address the higher out of wedlock birth rate of non-whites, which makes your stab at my reading comprehension fall rather flat. "With Blacks, the paper states the shotgun wedding fell sooner along with the single parent stigma and that welfare may have added to the decline of the shotgun wedding" So welfare huh? Let's go back to your OP: It sounds like on a second read, you've altered your positions slightly. Now you are acknowledging that welfare played a role, because that's what your study says. So in what way are you disagreeing with what you are saying the right's position is?
Still not getting it? The right's long standing cause for fatherless children has been welfare, as seen here many times. That has been the only reason and the only cure would be doing away with it, as inhumane as that sounds. This piece is saying no, the cause is the rise of available contraception and abortion that caused a shift in culture that precipitated an increase in premarital sexual relations.
Your OP seems to be more about the battle of the sexes, as it is called. If I can inject more of a racial element, in keeping with this forum: I think it is either grand hypocrisy, or ignorance, on the part of those who point to a weaker family tradition, among U.S., African-American citizens. I usually refer to black people as just "black," but for my point, the "African" part, is very relevant: for the many generations of slaves, in America, they had no choice in the matter of their families. Wives, children, fathers, were all split from their families, through their being sold to different owners (forgive the offensive but, unfortunately, accurate word). So the "tradition," as it developed in America, was against the idea of a nuclear family. And the reason for that tradition, cannot be attributed to anyone but slave owners-- that is, by & large: to white Americans.
So basically it's other people's fault that black men are notorious for impregnating women and then abandoning them. Specifically it's white people's fault because.... slavery well over a century ago..
So what you are actually doing is making a strawman argument, saying, that the right's argument is, "long standing cause for fatherless children has been welfare, as seen here many times. That has been the only reason and the only cure would be doing away with it." This would be a better argument on your part if you had actually whipped that study out on some rightie who was actually making the argument that welfare, and ONLY welfare, is the cause of single moms. I have not made that argument (yes please use the search function to confirm). I actually mostly agree with the studies conclusions. Now what?
All I did is point out, where & how, the tradition was begun. It's called conditioning. If you do not believe that ideas and behavior can be socially conditioned, within not only different societies, but for particular groups w/in those societies, then there is a huge hole, in your understanding of human group behavior.
You see the thing that I don't think you understand here, is I actually think that people are individually responsible for their own actions and choices. People need to be conditioned to understand that.
has nothing to do with it. Did you ever think that it might be an issue of people taking responsibility for their own actions? Of course not because black people aren't responsible for anything it's all the white man's fault
Gee, did I say you made that argument? I said the right made the strawman argument that I quoted from the paper and that argument has been seen here many times peddled by your friends, the right-wingers. ....and available healthcare. The US had a horrible history of unavailable healthcare for the poor that has since improved after ACA or Obamacare, which the Republicans tried to overturn over 60 times. I remember one episode when there was fear it would be overturned women lined up to get IUDs.
You want to by a boat. It helps to have a little knowledge about boats. Will it float, is there rot, how's the engine, is the prop bent? And then there is the price. Can you afford it. All considered before taking the action that you are responsible for.
Of course, there is still individual responsibility for one's actions-- I never said there wasn't. Can you only think in such a limited way, that you cannot attribute more than a single influence to any result? Yes, we're all responsible for our own behavior; but there is a context to that behavior-- the conditions under which those choices are made, play a role. To pretend that one's circumstances are irrelevant, and that all come to every decision as a blank slate, is simply a denial of reality. A person's being responsible, does not negate the presence of (to hopefully not misuse the legal term), "aggravating factors." If two people are in different positions, relative to a specific decision: that makes their decisions on that matter, different decisions. IOW, a decision involves the weighing of possible options, and of the factors incumbent with each of these. If those factors are different, in two people's cases, then their choices, are not equal. And, like it or not, one of the factors which affects all people, to various degrees, is social conditioning. But it is not merely "character" which sets apart those who are influenced by societal expectations, from those who are more resistant to them. That has to do with individual psychology, which is a combination of genetic and experiential factors, over which the individual child has little if any control. The result is that the vast majority of people do not truly realize why they have the perspectives, attitudes, & opinions, that they hold. A lot more than just "reason" goes into each of our views of the world, and of every aspect of life, within it. Living in a society, brings with it, varying degrees of complicity, in being part of the creation or maintaining of that society. If you would answer, that you have no control over the way that things are in society, and that you have no choice but to go along with certain things, well then you should understand that there is more than just "personal responsibility," behind each person's actions. The next advancement in your understanding, would be to realize that "society" has numerous subsets; that its image and influence are not the same, to people in different positions, in that society. Again, this is not to excuse personal choices; it is only to include consideration and mention of contributing factors, the creation of which, you seem inclined to want to excuse. Those factors, though, started with individual decisions, which were perpetuated by the acquiescence of all those in society who hadn't decided, themselves, to own slaves, or to divide their families, but who'd accepted this, in their society; who'd failed to act, individually, to reject this practice. Just because you are looking at a single stream, does not mean that it has not been formed through a confluence of multiple rivulets (each one of which, in part, is responsible for the resultant stream).
