ROUND TWO

MND Roundtable Discussion on
Fathers' Rights and the Marriage Movement

Round 1 has raised a few concerns for me, which I hope Roger and Stephen will address. First, do fathers have rights (and duties) only if they are or were married to their children’s mother? I’ve had this discussion with several social conservatives who argue (as I understand it) that this would reward men for irresponsible behaviour (sex outside marriage). I have not yet been convinced of this argument, principally because I think it focuses on legal rights & duties rather than moral rights and duties. To me, the very act of sexual intercourse entails a moral duty, if not always a willingness, to become a potential parent. Whatever else happens, the resultant child will carry the genes of both a mother and a father. But fathers’ rights advocates seem to focus on the injustices surrounding (no-fault) divorce, which leads them to view marriage as a contract within which individuals (fathers) have rights which have been infringed upon by the state. But this misses half the point. Even if fault-based divorce were re-instated and the child support regime were made more ‘fair’ to divorced fathers, unmarried fathers still would be in the same unprotected position. Perhaps I’ve completely misread the fathers’ rights position, but if so, then why is there such a strong focus on marriage as a contract which the state should enforce?

Second, I’d suggest that marriage is not now, nor has it ever been a contract. Rather, it is a status shaped and regulated by culture and law and entered into voluntarily. It is not a contract, because the parties involved are not in control of the legal implications of their status, before during or after the marriage. Marriage has always been one of several possible arrangements for getting by and for raising children. Society, often but not always through the government, has always shifted expectations and consequences of marriage without consulting individual spouses. In some times and places in the past, stigma ensured that few people had children outside marriage, and the public played a part in continuously defining and re-defining what constituted a fault worthy of divorce.  Today, one can still define marriage as a commitment of spouses to each other and to their community to stay with each other for life (notwithstanding the fact that many people fail to uphold this commitment). However, modern marriage is also characterised by its focus on companionship and by the interesting fact that it is entirely optional. If this is the case, and marriage can be separated functionally from parenting, then I think that the vocal group of marriage supporters (busybodies?) are doing us a service by trying to ‘persuade the heart.’ Indeed, some in the marriage movement trying to ‘coerce the body’ through reintroducing fault actually advocate this step for the softer, heart-felt reason that it might create more trust within the marital relationship.

The marriage movement (as well as the responsible fatherhood movement mentioned by Tom) is grappling with modern marriage and parenthood. I’m not sure that the fathers’ rights advocates are doing the same.

Rebecca O'Neill