POST SCRIPTS

Tom, I thank you for your comments. You have poised obviously well considered personal beliefs and there are tens of thousands of people who would readily agree with you! I can almost hear them saying, "Right on Tom!"

I also recognize my view and Tina's are losing popularity. However, if I may respond in the spirit of a reasoned rebuttal, it is absolutely true fewer people are getting married these days because they don't see the need. I understand that people do need nor want this pressure just to accommodate previously accepted societal norms.

However, I would argue that society itself is not improving because of it. If it were I would be on your side.

One has only to look the growing crime rates, drug abuse cases, these new situational ethics that lead us into corporate and political corruption, all the sexually abused children, welfare rates, educational drop outs and the ever increasing dependency on the Nanny State. It all seems very coincidental with the new attitudes toward unwed mothers. Study after study has reached the conclusion unwed mothers are a core factor in the melt down of western society.

Maybe you don't have any faith in statistics when it comes to people, but I doubt you would buy a car where there is a 47% chance of engine failure or a 53% chance of transmission failure in the first 6 months of ownership, right?

You are looking at probable results for a car, not necessarily actual results. So for a car you wouldn't risk it, but for child you would? Statistics matter and you can't dismiss them because they are inconsistent with your beliefs.

Are stats important when it comes to global warming?

With all due respect Tom, and again, only in the spirit of a fair hearing, I believe you are looking at the problems of unwed motherhood through a straw, while I'm looking at the far bigger picture (as is Tina) that is reflected by irrefutable statistical facts in our society.

This straw view might be called anecdotal evidence without laying a solid foundation for why your "opinion" is the right direction for society to subscribe too. Without the foundation your position fails the credibility test. If this were a court trial it wouldn't be admissible and you have to consider "why" it would not be admissible.

Anecdotal evidence or testimonial evidence is the least likely path to the truth.

Next. Marriage was not suddenly created in a vacuum. It was an evolved concept through trial and error and based on need. It has served society well and stood the test of time. Could the same be said of your position a non-marriage union?

As for a non-marriage breakup somehow being less traumatic on a child, I would counter there is absolutely no evidence of that. A break up is what it is. To a child's heart it makes no difference if you were a married father for his first 8 years and left or a live-in boyfriend who played the roll of father. When you go he suffers and he changes in profound ways that are rarely good ways.

The trend toward unwed mothers is increasing, but this
is a failing of human nature that causes us to want to take the path of least resistance and not make the sacrifices and effort needed to achieve things more worthwhile and lasting. Only higher education, strong will, moral discipline and reason can keep the institution of marriage from being swept away by the low forces of base human nature.

Tom,

I think that it's horrible that we as a society are getting to the place to where we begin to plan for disasters. Marrigage is ordained by God as an institution, that is why I belive there is such a moral decay in our societies the important roles that are to be played by both Mother and Father have been severed and now only work on weekend visitation basis. When I Married my wife I looked her in the eye and made a promise to her that though change would come i.e. sickness or health Only death would seperate us. I would not dream of saying divorce isn't the right thing for some cases but to create an ethoes that says I love you till you start to get on my nerves, or until your not attractive anymore is frankly very disturbing. So as for me and my house we will love each other till death do us part. As for my four daughters they will enjoy knowing that both grandparents have been married for 80 years collectivelly and most importantlly that a persons Word or Promise made is a more weighty issue than the selfish lifestyle that our society of broken unfunctional families is subliminally teaching.

Pastor J.M. Perez

Tom, please be assured, I do not need your sympathy…but I do appreciate the thought. I hope you will be "open minded" enough to learn something from your elders, to at least consider that they might know more than you believe they know.

I have explored the path you're on, considered it's many nuances, and found it lacking. The impact that an open lifestyle has on children and society is greatly underestimated and worse still usually never even considered. Young people are, naturally, more concerned with their own individual dreams, desires, and needs than those of others…including their own children and society. Family is the glue that holds civilization together, without intact healthy families we slowly devolve into a jungle culture.

The concepts of "open marriage," as well as "easy divorce" and "living together," were born of a generation that came to define marriage solely in terms of that "piece of paper." They decided the “marriage paper” was worthless because it didn’t guarantee staying together or individual happiness…then came the simpleminded conclusion, “why bother.” Many were driven to this “conclusion” by their own desires to be “sexually free” rather than ideological or intellectual determinations. Selfish desires and putting those desires ahead of the growth and welfare of children was one force behind the embrace of “living together. “Easy and free” were the engines that drove that puppy. Birth control and abortion, the other throw away, played a large part in making the case for a new way.

Many in my generation came from dysfunctional homes so their somewhat tainted position is understandable, but “understanding” doesn’t bring wisdom. Sadly, we failed to notice that the dysfunction was not a function of marriage. Marriages and families were dysfunctional because the individuals involved were unable or unwilling to identify and solve problems or because they failed to make an effort to win as they would with other endeavors in their lives.

Your arguments and assertions:

...we have explained to him on numerous occasions why we do not get married. We have told him that marriage is fine for some, not for others.

I wonder why, if your choice is so great, you must explain "numerous" times?

If for some reason the time comes that we need to separate, we believe it will be far less traumatic than a divorce. There will be no fighting, no custody issues, no property division, no court battles, and (perhaps the best part) no judge telling us that we are no longer together. ** We believe that far too many people stay together "for the kids" or because "it's too expensive to get divorced" and that causes more harm than separating. Separation does not mean no contact and the children are forgotten. It just means that the adults cannot live together anymore.

These positions sound very reasonable and make a show of great maturity but they are also empty. Reading that paragraph is a little like reading math problems from a book or the directions for putting a bicycle together; it lacks life experience and substance. ‘No fighting, no custody issues, no property division…”...unless there is. We are talking about people…people find ways to make messes, even without pieces of paper.

Beatniks, hippies, college professors, intellectuals and everyday housewives watching daytime talk shows on TV in the fifties, sixties and early seventies previously articulated these ideas. The result was a change in our attitudes and laws that spawned throw away marriages…and we tossed them away like so much garbage. Our kids, by the hundreds of thousands…maybe millions…have paid the price for our ways in broken lives, addiction, failure in school and their own broken marriages.

I believe, after experiencing over forty years of marriage and countless friends in broken marriages, that the underlying reason for this shift away from marriage is quite simple. We were a generation looking for pleasure, happiness and instant gratification. We were not tested by world war and depression as our parents had been; we were raised on Disneyland, with food at the table for every meal. We had no sense of there being a cause greater than ourselves...like making a commitment to marriage. Not surprisingly, many of us were constantly searching for something to fill the void.

It just means that the adults cannot live together anymore. There are several reasons for this. People do grow apart. People do develop different looks on life. Marriage often means that people who no longer share common life goals are forced to stay together.

People are not “forced” to do anything…they choose. People grow apart because they seek goals apart from the marriage while ignoring or putting on the back burner the goals and promises they made to each other when they got married. Couples, or persons, that allow this to happen have shown little respect or regard for their marriage. They are not ready for marriage and should not get married or have children, not if they care about the kids.

Your personal experience:

Every single couple in my extended family is divorced. Unfortunately, due to the close nature of my extended family, I was privy to many of the details of the divorces. I made the decision in my 20's that marriage was not for me and there may be a better way to live life with another. So far, I have been right.

One of the reasons my generation went so far off track is that no one was saying: ‘What the heck are you doing” or, “what you are doing is stupid,” or “the things you choose will matter later on.” No one was articulating a larger reason for what you called “clinging to customs and traditions from the past.” So we went ahead and, believing we were the wisest generation that ever walked the planet, continued in our hip, new ways. Another aspect of this “open” lifestyle is ‘self-expression.” Your original extended family, and your knowledge of the broken-ness, is a result of that so called “wisdom.” The tradition of keeping problems private and dealing with them privately would have saved you from a lot of distress. “Letting it all hang out,” means everyone suffers instead of the person, or persons, dealing with the problem.

Well, this is a subject that fills the shelves of bookstores and libraries across the nation. Obviously there is much to say and we won’t be able to resolve the issue here on Post Scripts. One clarification before I conclude. I said:

If you stay in school, get a college degree and a good job (and the maturity that comes by taking those steps) before you get married, you have a much higher chance at being HAPPY and SATISFIED in life...as do your children. DUH...it's a no brainer. Is it really worth the huge risk to play it any other way...that's STUPID, as Jack's statistics reveal. There are no valid arguments against marriage only dumb alternative choices. ** Does that mean their friend is doomed to an unhappy life? No, but the odds are really against her and her child ...why, if other choices still exist, would you roll the dice?

Choosing to make babies out of wedlock and choosing not to get married are “highly likely” to lead to a difficult life and trouble for kids. That’s not an opinion it is what happens more often than not. For those that have yet to make marriage and family choices I am saying, do yourself a favor and make choices that have the best chance for success…it would be dumb to do otherwise. It is my opinion that the arguments against marriage have to do with making dumb choices…and that’s just me. (As an aside let me say that the ways our “new” divorce laws treat men is often grossly unfair. In a “feminized” world it is ridiculous that men lose everything they have worked so hard to acquire.)

In conclusion let me say that I would not presume to tell any individual how to live his life. I respect the individual’s right to make those choices for himself and his family. I would, however, express my opinions and try to move society in the direction I believe to be best both for the society and in particular for children.

This article was an unintentional Christmas gift, but a Christmas gift it has become.