Archive for the ‘Marriage’ Category
If You Disagree with Rob Okun, You’re Not a Good Father
Some feminists and feminist organizations have had a long standing animosity to the Father’s Rights movements, culminating with National Organization for Women’s 1996 press release claiming the movement was “using the abuse of power in order to control in the same fashion as do batterers.” That animosity was on full display recently in an article penned by Rob Okun and published by Women’s eNews.
After a lengthy look at the role of father’s in family life — which Okun claims can be “a force for great good in family relations and child rearing, or a force of hostility and estrangement” — Okun informs his readers that father’s need support and a fair shake from the courts unless they are in any way involved in the Father’s Rights movement. In that case, all bets are off. Okun writes,
Many such fathers see their children’s mothers as actively trying to deny them access to their children, and more than few get involved in what are often called “fathers’ rights” groups. It’s not uncommon to see handfuls of men with signs advocating the rights of dads picketing in front of family courts in many states in most sections of the country.
…
Nonviolent fathers deserve support as they look for a fair shake in custody cases in which they have legitimate claims. But others have forfeited any such claims for support if they intimidate their children’s mothers, harass the court or affiliate themselves with groups more interested in fueling conflict than in maintaining the well-being of their children.
Presumably, Women’s eNews would not run an article from a conservative suggesting that women who spend their time picketing at NOW-sponsored events are bad mothers who have forfeited any claims for support, but it had no problem giving Okun’s article the headline, “Involved fathers care for kids, not picket courts.”
Right, and a woman’s place is at home caring for children, not in the work place.
Source:
Involved fathers care for kids, not picket courts. Rob Okun, WEnews, October 31, 2001.
Tags: National Organization for Women
United Nations Highlights Problems of Child Marriage
In March the United Nations Children’s Fund released a report highlighting the continuing worldwide problem of childhood marriage of girls. Childhood marriage is an especially acute problem in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
An extreme case is a country such as Nepal where 7 percent of girls are married before age ten and 40 percent by age 15. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, and other countries, very large percentages of girls are married before their 18th birthdays.
Attendant with child marriage are other abuses such as domestic violence and honor killings. As UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy put it, “Forcing children, especially girls into early marriages, can be physically and emotionally harmful.”
Aside from the domestic violence problems, there are also numerous risks from pregnancy-related complications for these young brides. Pregnancy-related death is the single leading cause of mortality worldwide for girls aged 15 to 19.
Source:
Child marriage ‘violates rights’. The BBC, March 7, 2001.
Even Conservative Women Find “The Surrendered Wife” Nauseating
I expected all of the liberal pundits to deplore The Surrendered Wife, but WorldNetDaily.Com’s Cynthia Grenier managed a pretty good dissection of the book in a recent column. Writing that, “I just about gagged as I began reading all these stories in the press about a new manual for women: ‘The Surrendered Wife’…”
Grenier reports that the book has sold about 100,000 copies, and you have to wonder about the sort of women (and men) who would find the book’s advice relevant to their lives. Taking her cue from author Laura Doyle’s suggestion that women should never attempt to correct men’s driving directions even if they miss the correct off-ramp on a highway and end up driving many miles out of their way, Grenier writes,
I can only wonder what in Heaven’s name any half way intelligent male would think on being allowed to drive miles and hours out of his way just to maintain his strong, manly image.
Grenier concludes her column with advice that applies equally well to men as well as women. “My advice: ‘Soften, yes; surrender, never.’” Now there’s some decent relationship advice.
Source:
What to do about the American wife?. Cynthia Grenier, WorldNetDaily, March 3, 2001.
Tags: Laura Doyle
Utah Begins Crackdown on Polygamy
Ahead of the 2002 Olympics, Utah has begun a crackdown on polygamous marriages. Although Utah agreed to outlaw polygamy as a condition of its statehood, the state has for the most part not prosecuted those who still enter into marriages with multiple partners.
Advocates of polygamy claim the government is persecuting them in much the same way it used to persecute homosexuals, while opponents of polygamy say the practice needs to be outlawed to protect young girls. Who is right?
Both sides are correct. First of all, the government should have no say in how consenting adults choose to live their lives. The Supreme Court in 1879 ruled that polygamy is not a Constitutionally protected exercise of religious freedom, but it clearly erred in that decision in much the same way it erred in ruling that the state had a compelling interest in outlawing consenting homosexual relationships.
In 1972 the Supreme Court ruled that Amish children could not be forced to attend school on religious grounds which is inconsistent with the 1879 polygamy ruling, as one of the dissenting judges pointed out.
Polygamy between consenting adults — just like marriage between people of the same sex — should be legal.
On the other hand, what passes for polygamy in Utah often bears a greater resemblance to child sexual abuse than anything else.
Consider Tom Green, 52, who has had 10 wives and has been charged with bigamy and child rape among other things. Green is accused of having sex with one of his wives, Linda, when she was only 13. As prosecutor David Leavitt told the Dallas Morning News,
…this is a man who has taken 13- and 14-year-old children, deprived them of any education, married them, impregnated them, required the state to pay the bill [Green's family is a big client of the welfare system] and has raped a 13-year-old girl. If we can’t prosecute for conduct like Tom Green’s, we have no business prosecuting crime.
Green’s case is not an anomaly. His prosecution follows on the ground-breaking 1998 prosecution of David Ortell Kingston who was sentenced to up to 10 years for incest and unlawful sexual conduct with his 16-year-old niece who was allegedly his 15th wife.
When his niece fled the marriage that had been arranged by her father, John Daniel Kingston beat his daughter and returned her to David Kingston.
These sort of practices with minors are unconscionable and have absolutely no place within constitutional protections for relationships between consenting adults. Neither, however, should our anger and disgust at the exploitation of these young women allow us to go further and advocate criminalizing consenting relationships between adults merely because they involve more adults than the state deems “normal.” Those sorts of decisions should be left up to individuals rather than the government.
Source:
Trial to test Utah’s 104-year-old ban on polygamy. The Associated Press, November 26, 2000.
Polygamy backers claim Utah bill infringes on religious freedom. The Associated Press, February 13, 2001
The Surrendered Wife Phenomena
Everywhere I turn I seem to run into another profile or interview with Laura Doyle, the author of The Surrendered Wife. I haven’t read the book, but Doyle is kind enough to post the first chapter on her web site.
After describing the problems she initially confronted in her marriage, Doyle writes what she learned from talking to other women about her marital difficulties.
One friend told me she let her husband handle all of the finances, and what a relief that was for her. Another one told me she tried never to criticize her husband, no matter how much he seemed to deserve it. I decided I would experiment with doing things differently in my marriage and hoped that it wasn’t too late for us. I desperately wanted to save the relationship, and I also hoped to save my self-respect, which was fading with each episode of anger and frustration I unleashed on John.
Fortunately, the steps of surrendering helped me with both marital tranquility and self-respect. Today I call myself a surrendered wife because that’s what’s helped me have the marriage I’ve always dreamed of. The same thing will happen to you if you follow the principles in this book.
And what does a surrendered wife do? Let her husband be in charge. More precisely she seems to be advocating that women should aim for an almost child-like trust in their husbands. How does this manifest itself in every day life?
For instance, I thought I was merely making helpful suggestions when I told my husband that he should ask for a raise. When I urgently exclaimed that we should have turned right instead of left while riding in a friend’s car who knew perfectly well how to get to our destination, I reasoned that I was trying to save time and avoid traffic. When I tried to convince my brother that he really should get some therapy, I justified butting into his life as wanting “to be there for him.”
All of these justifications were merely elaborate covers for my inability to trust others. If I had trusted that my husband was earning as much money as he could, I wouldn’t have emasculated him by implying that I found him lacking ambition. If I had trusted my friend to get us to our destination in a reasonable time, I wouldn’t have barked out orders about where to turn, leaving a cold frost on the inside of the car. If I had trusted my brother to make his own way in the world, he would’ve felt more inclined to continue to share the emotional milestones of his life with me.
…
Today I try to relinquish control as much as I can and allow myself to be vulnerable. Unfortunately, I still don’t do this perfectly, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Just making intimacy my priority rather than control by practicing the principles described in this book, has transformed my marriage into a passionate, romantic union.
To be fair to Doyle, she is explicit that women should immediately leave or seek help if they are involved in relationships with men who are abusive, unfaithful, have substance abuse problems, etc. At the same time I can’t help but think that her advice is horrible regardless of whether her advice is taken by men or women.
Her financial advice is extremely wrongheaded. Somebody who feels emasculated and unable to participate in a relationship because his partner suggest he might want to ask for a raise or consider the possibility that his wife might be better at managing the finances sounds like a real control freak (one of Doyle’s core ideas is that men should always handle the finances and that they don’t feel in control if they don’t).
The same thing goes for the bizarre example of Doyle attempting to correct her friend, who while driving made a right turn when he should have made a left. According to a Time magazine profile, in her book Doyle recommends never telling a husband, for example, that he just missed the correct exit even “if he keeps going in the wrong direction … past the state line.” That’s just bizarre.
What strikes me most about Doyle’s advice is that she seems to think that in order to have a healthy, productive relationship a man must be convinced that a woman blindly worships him and always thinks he’s right. Forcing that sort of relationship strikes me as not only demeaning to both parties, but also psychologically unhealthy. People need others to act as a sort of “reality check” and saying that a wife should simply act as a mirror for her husband’s views misses the point of why people enter relationships. Certainly people try to avoid relationships with nagging, disagreeable people, but the alternative of marrying a sycophant seems unappealing as well.
The thing that really amazes me is that such simplistic pop advice is so popular. The Surrendered wife has been selling like crazy, cracking the Top 10 best sellers on Amazon.Com and Simon and Schuster upped the print run of her book to 100,000 which is an extremely high figure for a non-fiction book. That’s a little scary.
Sources:
Wives surrender all to cult of obedience. John Harlow, The Sunday Times (UK), January 7, 2001.
I Surrender, Dear. Tamala M. Edwards, Time Magazine, January 22, 2001.
Tags: Laura Doyle
Taking No-Fault Divorce a Bit Too Far
In November 1995, David and Christine Alexander decided to get a divorce and David helped Christine move her things out of the couple’s home in Canada. In the middle of the moving process, Christine Alexander pulled out a handgun and shot her husband point blank in the face once and then repeatedly bashed him on the head. David Alexander survived.
Christine says she’s not sure why she tried to kill her husband, but it definitely wasn’t for self-defense. She was convicted of attempted murder in 1997 and paroled in 1999. Since her husband was fortunate enough to survive, she is now suing him in divorce court to obtain part ownership of the former couple’s house as well as temporary financial support.
And she’ll probably get it. Canada has a strict “no fault” divorce law that precludes any testimony about a married couple’s prior behavior, possibly including details about a murder attempt. According to family lawyer Philip Epstein, “Her conduct isn’t admissible under the Divorce Act. Technically speaking, the fact that she shot him in the face doesn’t bar her from a support case.”
If she wins such support, it would likely be the first time in Canadian history that a victim of a murder attempt was forced to compensate his attacker. That’s taking the principle behind no fault divorce a bit too far.
Source:
Victim is sued for support. Martin Patriquin, The Toronto Star, January 23, 2001.
Covenant Marriage and Pre-nuptial Agreements
A few years ago the idea of covenant marriage was all the rage, but some people are finding out the idea might not have been the panacea they hoped for.
In a covenant marriage there are strict, legally enforceable limits on the circumstances under which either partner can obtain a divorce. Convenant marriages are currently available only in a handful of states.
In Louisiana, for example, a covenant marriage can be dissolved only if a spouse is convicted of a felony or sentenced to prison or death; if a spouse is physically or sexually abusive; or if a spouse is habitually intemperate. That’s it. Couples wanting to get married under the covenant law are required to undergo pre-marriage counseling and go through a long counseling session before divorce even if one of the above conditions applies.
The idea was that making it more difficult for couples to divorce each other would ensure that people would be more likely to work hard to preserve a faltering marriage. An alternative view might be that a marriage so troubled that it requires such strong legal intervention might not be the most desirable marriage to begin with.
So far, though, no covenant marriage in Louisiana has ended in divorce, although there are some pending.
A University of Virginia study of 700 couples entering into covenant marriages found that for the most part it is the woman who tends to be the dominant partner, while in traditional marriages the man is the dominant partner. This fits nicely with speculation by those who pushed covenant marriage that women would use it to gain the protections that marriage had traditionally afforded prior to the rise of no fault divorce.
The biggest problem with covenant marriage, however, is that it only offers one option. Either couples enter a standard no fault marriage, or they enter an extremely Draconian covenant marriage. A better solution would be to allow couples to craft whatever agreement they want prior to marriage and give that the force of law.
Thanks to the Michael Douglas/Catherine Zeta-Jones marriage, pre-nuptial agreements are back in the news. The rumored pre-nuptial agreement between Douglas and Zeta-Jones is an excellent example of using contract law to solve difficult problems.
Douglas, who is much wealthier than his new wife, didn’t want to lose a good deal of his wealth in a divorce settlement if their marriage turned out to be a short one. Zeta-Jones, on the other hand, was apparently concerned about Douglas’ notorious womanizing and concerned about their daughter. According to rumors, the solution the couple arrived at was a clause in the pre-nuptial agreement giving her a small one time payment (well, small by Hollywood standards) in the event of a divorce. If, however, Zeta-Jones can prove that Douglas cheated, then the whole of his assets are exposed to a traditional divorce settlement.
Whereas the options of a standard or covenant marriage wouldn’t have satisfied either party’s concern, by explicitly contracting the terms of their marriage complete with penalties for early withdrawal, they’ve crafted a mutually agreeable way of addressing their respective concerns.
Unfortunately pre-nuptial agreements still tend to exist in a quasi-legal area in the United States, where it’s not always certain that such an agreement will be upheld by a court.
Australia recently amended its laws to explicitly give pre-nuptial agreements the force of law provided that some minimal requirements are met. Specifically, each party must obtain independent legal advice on the agreement before signing. As long as they meet the requirements, if the couple gets divorced they bypass traditional Family Court and instead the property settlement agreed to in the pre-nuptial agreement is enforced.
The United States would do well to follow suit and make it clear that pre-nuptial agreements can be enforced in this country provided they meet some minimal standards.
Sources:
No-cheating clauses in pre-nuptials. Bruce Butler, The Sunday Times (Australia), December 31, 2000.
‘God hates divorce’. Siobhan Roberts, National post, December 30, 2000.
Did Harvard Reject Book Because of Its Pro-Marriage Viewpoint?
Stanley Kurtz wrote an interesting summary of the controversy surrounding Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher’s book, The Case for Marriage: Why Married People are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially. The book was originally scheduled to be published by Harvard University Press, but at the very last moment Harvard dumped the book and it went on to be published by Doubleday.
What gives? The book passed vetting by Harvard’s normal review process but got killed by the press’ Board of Synics which claimed Waite and Gallagher hadn’t adequately backed up their claims with enough evidence.
I haven’t read The Case for Marriage, but according to Kurtz the evidentiary problems are the sorts that are endemic to any book in the social sciences in that it establishes a lot of interesting correlations that don’t necessarily establish causation. For example, statistical studies and polls demonstrate two conclusions about married people: they tend to have higher incomes and they report having better sex lives than single people.
This certainly debunks claims to the contrary by feminists that marriage harms income and/or isn’t very sexy, but does it prove that marriage causes better sex and higher incomes? Of course not — it could simply be that people with higher potential incomes who are better lovers are more likely to get married. But that sort of objection is inherent with any study of social trends.
What irks Kurtz, however, is that at the same time Harvard rejected The Case for Marriage for its supposed lack of evidence and too strong of tone, it has had no problem publishing four books by Catharine MacKinnon which make grotesque claims that MacKinnon never even tries to back up with evidence.
In fact MacKinnon pretty much concedes that there is no evidence for her claim that pornography causes violence against women and retreated in one of her books to the ridiculous position that “there is no evidence that pornography does not harm,” which is about a vacuous claim as anyone could hope to write (in fact, as Kurtz notes, MacKinnon actually argues that even controlled social experiments to find the effects of pornography are useless since most men are prone to rape and there is no way to get a control group).
Similarly, Kurtz notes that Harvard press’s Board of Synics was apparently offended by the pro-marriage sentiments of Waite and Gallagher, but had no problem publishing a book by MacKinnon in which she wrote that, “What in the liberal view looks like love and romance looks a lot like hatred and torture to the feminist” among other things.
In fact in the Harvard-published Only Words, MacKinnon actually agreed with the legal theory put forth by a serial rapist that he should be set free since he had no free will to choose to rape or not — pornography programmed him to rape and he had no choice in the matter. Given the heightened awareness at most college campuses about rape issues, it is stunning that Harvard Press found MacKinnon’s legalistic defense of rapists uncontroversial while Waite and Gallagher’s defense of monogamous marriage is simply too much for it to stomach.
Source:
What Harvard Finds Unfit to Print. Stanley Kurtz, The Wall Street Journal, October 18, 2000.
Tags: Catharine MacKinnon
Marriage Isn’t A Recent Invention
Laurie Essig is a lesbian with a message — marriage, whether
between gay or heterosexual couples, is wrong. And Essig isn’t about to let
tiny details like historical facts get in the way (Same-sex marriage).
Essig’s argument against marriage is the typical radical feminist
view that was borrowed from Marxism — marriage is an inherently
oppressive social institution. “Although we like to pretend that marriage is
natural and universal,” Essig writes, “it is an institution founded in
historical, material and cultural conditions that ensured women’s
oppression…”
The logical fallacy here is jumping to the conclusion that any
social institution created by an oppressive culture must itself, by
definition, be oppressive. Taking this argument at its face value is what
leads some radical feminists to condemn things like science as inherently
oppressive to women.
But Essig really drops the ball when she bizarrely claims that
“Monogamous, heterosexual marriages were an invention of the Industrial
Revolution’s emerging middle-class.” This claim is so absurdly wrong that
it’s unbelievable the Salon editor’s let it pass.
Monogamous, heterosexual marriage didn’t exist until the Industrial
Revolution? That assertion would have come as a shock to the Romans,
the Hebrews, the Greeks and a whole host of other societies that
practiced monogamous, heterosexual marriage. Has Essig really never noticed the
numerous proscriptions against adultery in the Old Testament? Or read
any of the tedious Church writings on marriage in medieval Europe?
Even in cultures where monogamous marriage was not the rule, some
form of marriage institution is pretty much universal (anyone who
disagree is more than welcome to name a single culture that had absolutely no
marriage-like institution).
In fact, although clearly most Westerners today might not want some
of the sexist excesses of medieval or even Victorian marriage, marriage
survives as an institution precisely because it appeals to something
very deep in the human psyche. Essig finds this impulse to marriage
appalling.
What annoys me is that no one, not even queers, can imagine anything
other than marriage as a model for organizing our desires.
Essig does have a point that the state shouldn’t favor (nor
penalize) marriage over other forms of personal relationships. Someone who
wants to remain single shouldn’t be penalized for that decision (although
today it is married couples, not single individuals, who are penalized
by the tax code).
Other than that, though, Essig’s attack on marriage as a social
institution is historically inaccurate and absurd.
‘Alienation of Affection’ Lawsuits A Backward Relic
ABC News’ 20/20 show recently reported (Thief of Hearts) on a phenomenon that should have died at the end of the 19th century — the alienation of affection lawsuit. Alienation of affection is a common law legal remnant of a period when women were considered little more than property of their husbands. Since a wife was property, stealing a wife was theft, and hence alienation of affection allowed aggrieved men to sue a man who lured his wife into leaving him, thereby depriving him of his rightful property.
A lot has thankfully changed in the past 200 years, but unbelievably alienation of affection remains in the law codes of 9 states — and people are suing each other using it.
In the case 20/20 reported on, a man left his wife after 9 years of marriage after a woman he met at a business convention pursued him by writing him letters. The aggrieved ex-wife, Candie Vessel, sued her husband’s new flame, Cathy Nolen and won a half million dollar legal judgment from a Utah jury. In an infamous 1997 North Carolina alienation of affection lawsuit, a woman won $1 million from her ex-husband’s lover. And don’t think it’s just women using the law. In 1997 a North Carolina jury awarded Jacques Moryoussef $250,000 after he sued another man for alienation of affection after Moryoussef’s wife left him — part of that included a $50,000 award for acts of adultery committed by the other man with Moryoussef’s wife.
That these sorts of laws are still on the books anywhere in the United States is an outrage. They encapsulate a view of women, men, and marriage that deserved to die. It is ironic that some conservative elements in places like North Carolina and Utah have championed these laws as protecting traditional marriage, when in fact they champion a very bizarre view of self responsibility which holds external forces responsible for the philandering spouse who is, under this sort of law, a victim when he or she abandons his or her mate.
Alienation of affection laws should be repealed in every state where they are still in force.