Reaction to these growing statistics have focused in on how men are supposedly being discounted as husbands and fathers. http://www.acfc.org/study/childstat.pdf Most of this criticism seems to come from so-called "father's rights" groups whose efforts have been primarily focused on getting fathers equal rights in custody matters. http://www.acfc.org/missn.htm These objections are certainly not novel, although they ultimately miss the point.

Patriarchy is a social hierarchy where men predominate numerically. All nations have patriarchies in place, with the percentages varying greatly. All pre-existing organized societies have also manifested patriarchy. Contrary to popular opinion, there have never been any matriarchies. Those who honestly look at the patriarchal systems in place realize that these are inevitable and are based upon biological realities and not culture. S. Goldberg, Why Men Rule (Open Court 1993).

What about these unmarried women choosing deliberately to have children with no father in sight? Doesn't this "endanger" patriarchy?

On the contrary, the above statistics evidence that the United States is becoming even more patriarchal. It's just the establishment of patriarchy though means that are unfamiliar. These means should be examined not for what the advocates of single parenthood proclaim, but what the outcome is likely to be. In the future, women will be even more tied to the home and be less capable of competing with men in extra-familial pursuits. In other words, servile. Where this will eventually lead will be a likely return to a more traditional form of patriarchy. It will just take some time.

WHY MARRIAGE?

Marriages are a relatively common site throughout the world. Regardless of the culture, the concept that men and women should raise children in the context of a committed relationship is fairly well accepted. Although the stigma of single parenthood has been removed somewhat, the predominant cultural view continues to be that marital relationships are valuable.

Who does marriage protect? All three parties, husband, wife and child, but the most pragmatic protections are for women and children. J. Campbell, The History and Philosophy of Marriage, 45 (1869). Examining the situation in the wild, this can be seen played out among many different species. The response of the male chimpanzee, on of man's closest relatives, is to kill the offspring of other males in order to continue his germ line in an available female. This sort of preservation of the individual's germ line is a critical component of natural selection. D. Geary, Male, Female, the Evolution of the Sex Differences, 74-77 (Amer. Pysch. Ass'n 1998).

Marriage ameliorates this rather horrible scenario, providing to females a means of protecting themselves from intruders and also preserving their efforts in bringing forth and raising offspring. It is a cultural means of controlling what is today a morally unacceptable consequence.

But if women are protected by marriage, why would they want to destroy it? The honest answer is that men largely tricked them into doing it.

CAREER GALS

I have come to the conclusion that the women's liberation movement is a cruel conspiracy devised by a bunch of men to extort more labor and sexual favors from women.

With the so-called "sexual revolution" this is pretty evident just from the history of how things happened. Instead of being an intellectual break though emerging from the Women's Studies Department at Wesleyan, it was an idea fermented in the mind of Hugh Hefner in the Playboy mansion.

The paradigm that women should be free to sexually express themselves is a constant source of humor amongst males. For umpteen years, men have tried all sorts of ways to get women to put out. It has only been recently that the off-the-wall idea that if men can persuade women that sexual abandonment is part of a feminist liberating experience and a right of self-expression that there will be plenty of tail to be had. And not just that, there's no longer any obligation to respect her in the morning, such respect being just a form of patriarchal condescension.

Women crave relationships; men crave sex. Don't believe me? A fairly recent study asked a group of men and a group of women to look at various photographs of the opposite sex and pick out the most likely mates. The photos contained people of various ages, sizes and attractiveness dressed in a wide array of clothing. The clothing itself reflected the employment of these individuals, with some wearing crisp designer business suits, others McDonald's uniforms. The men in the study ignored the clothing and picked out the hottest looking babes, while the women were far more likely to pick the dumpy looking businessman instead of the burger flipping blond surfer dude. D. Geary, Male, Female, the Evolution of the Sex Differences, 123-28 (Amer. Pysch. Ass'n 1998).

Want even more proof? Another study asked both men and women if they would be willing to go to bed with someone even if they didn't know anything about the person other than looks. Some 60% of the men were willing, 0% of the women would consider this. L. Paul & L.R. Hearsch, Human Male Mating Strategies, Ethology and Sociobiology 17 (1996). There's a reason why gay men and not lesbians are arrested at highway rest stops.

What about the rest of the feminist revolution? What happened to the so-called economic liberation of women? In the 1950s, author Betty Friedan and others found a thicket of depressed house wives who spent their days in cute suburban ranches popping valium. Well, why not? Modern conveniences such as washer/dryer combos, self-cleaning ovens and vacuum cleaners had made the housework women had previously been assigned a relative breeze compare to the generations before. http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/american_quarterly/48.1horowitz.html

Well, if there's nothing to do at home except mope and medicate yourself, why not venture out into the world? Friedan and her cohorts decided that women should be fully entitled to seek fulfillment outside the home and, thus, the feminist revolution commenced. Of course, this would also insure that there would be an ample supply of ready females at the work place. Thus, the conspiracy theory comes into play again.

Well, that was in the fifties. After nearly half a century, what do women have to show for all their efforts?

Women have always lagged men in terms of income. This has remained largely unchanged. In fact, the United States Census Bureau reports that the median income (adjusted for inflation) for female headed households has gone from $16,327 in 1969 to a whopping $18,000 in 1996.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/mednhhld/ta8.html

Looking at this from the position of single wage earner females with no children reveals some better numbers, with $15,929 being the median in 1969 and $21,423 in 1996. http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/mednhhld/ta13.html

Even so, what is being reflected in the numbers for single women without children is that the median age of women staying unmarried has increased substantially. Another way to look at this is to contrast the statistics for men who are unmarried. In 1969, such men were earning a median income of $23,893 while in 1996, that figure was $26,898. http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/mednhhld/ta12.html

It is noteworthy that in 1996, single women have not yet caught up to where single men were in 1969. This is despite the fact that a substantially higher percentage of women have college degrees than they did in previous years.

For example, in 1969, some 8.1% of women had completed four or more years of college (compared to 13.6% of men). In 1996, the figure for women had increased to 21.6% while men were at 26.0%., a substantial percentage increase. Even more stunning is the fact that more women are now graduating from college than are young men, a statistic that has existed for more almost ten years now. http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/education/tablea-02.txt

It is questionable whether the leaders of the feminist movement intended these results. But things will be even worse in the future. With so many more women are electing the single household with children, rather than the more lucrative alternatives, the lot of women is about to decline precipitously. Some 40% of single parent households with children are below the poverty line. This has held steady for years and is not likely to change.

Children are a blessing, but they are also a burden. This is evidenced by the income statistics. In looking at how these newly formed single parent families will look like in future years, the outlook for these women is anything but rosy (or "Rosie" to cite one of the leaders of this movement).

The real world dictates that people get ahead in business and other occupations through investments of time and energy. In ten years, contrast the lives of these single mothers with that of the absent fathers. Who is going to be the ones to stay late into the evening, to put in the hours necessary to get the job done and get that desired raise and promotion? It is not likely to be the woman whose child has a cub scout meeting to attend or a dance recital to perform. More than likely it will be the man who has been advised that his presence is not needed. In the super-familial area, men are about to reverse the small gains women have made over the last several years and then some.

Acts such as the Family and Medical Leave Act are a bureaucratic means of trying to lessen the inevitable impact. So too is the entreaty that employers should be "more understanding" and attempt to use "flex-time" alternatives. Unfortunately for women, there is only so far anyone or any system can stretch. The bottom line will dictate the extent of any understanding.

As that bottom line is reached, men will be the ones who succeed in business, women will be left behind in their wake. Patriarchy triumphs in the business world. The next question is what happens back in the familial world?

ONE STEP BACK, TWO STEPS FORWARD

The greatest concern being expressed by those shocked at the growing number of single mother families is the lack of male role models and the apparent message being sent that fathers are unnecessary. Both of these points are valid. A recent University of Pennsylvania survey found that young males were more than twice as likely to be incarcerated if they were raised in homes without a father.

http://www.nando.com/newsroom/ntn/health/082098/health16_4326_body.html

What do you do with these boys who are obviously being neglected? Here's a suggestion: nothing. When push comes to shove, there is nothing anyone is going to be able to do. These women made the decisions and they are going to have to suffer the consequences. Those that choose to have kids without the benefit of a father in the home will suffer accordingly. It should be the responsibility of everyone concerned about this situation that the outcomes should not be lessened through intervention. Grandpa, you're a man and not acceptable.

Instead of ten years, what will the situation look like twenty years from now? Based upon statistics, women will be substantially less well off than they are today, careers will be stalled after years of neglect and their sons will be soaking an increasing amount of their resources for reasons attributable to their youthful misconduct. There will be no where for these women to turn.

Women are being told that they are better off without husbands to boss them around. In rap music, a primarily African-American form of music, the lyrics tell the tale. In a community where being raised by a single mother for over a generation has been the prevalent model, instead of being celebrated or revered, women are being told that they are "bitches" and "hos." More women can now look forward to this same level of gratitude.

These children of single parent homes will see that their lives are in sharp contrast to the lives of kids with intact families. They will see that, contrary to the propaganda they have been fed, fathers are not indispensable to a healthy family life. Assuming that society stops lying to itself by that time, the men who do form the cores of nuclear families will be the role models for the next generation. Better late than never.

For years, women have been told that they can have it all. They are about to find to their chagrin that many are about to lose it all. Hubris is not a quality specifically reserved to men and you can only add so many ornaments to the tree before it comes tumbling down. In the end, women will find that they could have succeeded by surrendering their lives to men and that the choices that they made, while politically correct, were simply wrong.

Then no one will question who really rules.