MND Roundtable Discussion on
Fathers' Rights and the Marriage Movement

The decline of marriage is a major social problem in America.  One-third of all births occur to unmarried parents.  About half of marriages end in divorce.  The result is that too many children grow up without both parents, particularly without their fathers.  Social science research indicates that, on average, kids who grow up outside of an intact family don’t do as well as kids who grow up with their two, married parents.  So that’s the general problem.

Let me roughly sketch out four responses to the situation above:

“Embrace Family Diversity”

Defenders of family diversity don’t think that we should worry much about family structure, unwed childbearing, or divorce.  None of my fellow discussants hold this view, so there’s no need to detail its weaknesses.

“Promote Responsible Fatherhood”

The “responsible fatherhood” field believes that fathers need to get more involved with their kids, whether they are married, never-married, or divorced.  The root problems, according to this view, include the idea, held by both men and women, that fathers aren’t necessary; joblessness and underemployment; and the lack of services for single fathers.  Some in the “responsible fatherhood” field emphasize cultural factors, while others emphasize economic factors.  Also, the relative importance of marriage can be a touchy subject here.

“Marriage Movement”

The so-called “marriage movement” wants to strengthen marriage as a social institution and help couples form healthy, lifelong marriages.  Key activities include public education about the benefits of marriage and relationship-skills education for couples.  The pro-marriage camp has received attention lately because the Bush Administration plans to spend some welfare funds to experiment with “healthy marriage” initiatives.

“Fathers’ Rights Advocacy”

Fathers’ rights advocates see anti-father judicial bias the “divorce industry” as the root cause of widespread fatherlessness.  I’ll defer to Stephen Baskerville and Roger Gay for a more detailed description, since they are, well, prominent fathers’ rights advocates.

Among these four camps, there are various areas of consensus and disagreement.  (Personally, I straddle the “responsible fatherhood” field and the marriage movement.)  But since we’re focusing on fathers’ rights and the marriage movement, I’ll get right to it.  Here’s my tentative thesis: While they agree that fatherless families are a problem, fathers’ rights advocates and “pro-marriage” advocates are not allies.  In fact, the marriage movement should steer clear of fathers’ rights advocacy.  The fathers’ rights argument is fundamentally flawed.

How so?  Well, I’ll get into that in the next round.

Tom Sylvester