You aren’t making any sense here. Boycotting marriage will not prompt legislators to repeal no-fault divorce laws nor will it cause judges to re-think their bias against men in divorce cases. Of course, no one is required to get married. But those who choose not to marry are not entitled to have sexual relations.
Moreover, while no-fault divorce laws and a biased judicial system have weakened marriage and family life in this country, society’s tolerance and approval of sex outside of marriage has done more to weaken those institutions than those things have done. Therefore, by urging men to have sex but not to marry, you are contributing to the further weakening of these institutions.
Finally, neither marriage nor the family are dead because there are many sound, intact marriages and families. My husband and I have been married for 26 years and this is the first and only marriage for both of us. As long as both spouses agree that divorce will never be an option, it doesn’t matter how easy the government makes it to divorce. Government policy doesn’t have to dictate the behavior of individuals.
I don’t believe the suggestion is intended as a political demonstration. It’s a direct response to the extremely high risk created by government policy. After years of data gathering, analysis, and careful thought; he’s saying that there is no way around the problems. The best advice he can give - unfortunatly - is that the government has made marriage and children far too risky for men. The only sure way to avoid the total destruction of one’s own life (self preservation) is not to get married and not to have children.
Well, I misspoke in my last post. Even if a guy doesn’t have children and doesn’t get married, it is not 100% certain that the system will not reach out and destroy his life. There are many men out there who have been ordered to pay child support for children that are not theirs - some never even met the mother - let alone had sex with her. Even after they prove the child isn’t theirs with DNA tests, the laws are such that they must continue to pay is if they are. This can be even more tragic when the guy is married, always faithful, but it leads his wife to believe he has been unfaithful.
Most of these problems arise as a result of requiring the “cooperation” of single welfare mothers in identifying fathers of their children. Many of them end up taking names and addresses out of phone books to fill the requirement. Some of those end up with default judgements. In some cases, a guy with the same name as a suspected father is put in the system; and sometimes there is no logical explanation at all. It’s my impression that most often, the problem starts with the mother lying about the possibility that a child might be someone else’s - someone she’s been dating steps up and “does the right thing” - and only finds out too late that it actually wasn’t right - she lied. But the system just tells the guy that it’s too late - gotchya.
“Government policy doesnt have to dictate the behavior of individuals.”
—These are opposing views, no?