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The
Declining Birth and Marriage Rates
The assumption that undermining the role of the father in the family
would improve any condition, reduce the number of single-mother households,
or even reduce the number of single-father households is not born out by
the data. The application of Fourteenth Amendment “equal protection”
to women in 1971 undermined that role seriously.
Per the US National Center for Health Statistics, the birth rate
in the US had been relatively stable at around 24 births per 1,000 population
for a century until the Fourteenth Amendment “equal protection” clause
was applied to women. It declined chronically since then and in 1994
it was 15 per 1,000 population, a 37.5% declince which resulted in 2,385,000
fewer births in the US in 1994 than there would have been if the birth
rate had remained at its 1961 level. Even with this decline in the
birth rate, there were still 1,280,000 illegitimate births and 1.6 million
abortions each year. Per the Bureau of the Census, during this same
period, fewer and fewer men got married, and the divorce rate more than
doubled (from 2.2 per 1,000 population to 4.8), decreasing the percent
of males who were married from 84% to 63%--a 25% reduction in the proportion
of men who are willing to take on the responsibility of starting a family.
There can be no doubt that the havoc played on society by applying “equal
protection” to families is a key factor which leaves this extra 21% of
marriageable men unmarried. With 96 million total men of marriageable
age, there are now 20,160,000 fewer families than there would have
been if the percent of males who were married had not declined.
This would have been enough families to have avoided all of the
1,280,000 illegitimate births and all of the 1.6 million abortions.
Making marriage a bad deal for men is not a good deal for women and children.
It is also not a good deal for taxpayers, who have to pay the $1 Million
estimated life cycle cost of each single-mother household which can’t sustain
itself.
This clear evidence of obvious social pathology is the direct result
of a transition in our society from a matriarchy to a patriarchy.
Prior to 1961, the father was presumed to be the “head of the family” in
accordance with basic Biblical principles. The application of “equal
protection” to women in 1961 switched responsibility for children from
fathers to mothers (and therefore to the courts as mothers proved unable
to meet the challenge). The policy of the courts since that time
of placing 92% of the children of divorce with their mothers caused a dramatic
increase in the number of children whose biological mothers cohabit, where
the children are 73 times more likely to be killed and 33 times more likely
to suffer serious abuse than children in families. David Blankenhorn
in “Fatherless America” estimates that 39% of America’s children will go
to sleep tonight without a biological father present compared to 3% who
will sleep in a father-only home.
This greater incidence of abuse in single-mother households an
indicator of why children from these environments are 8 times more likely
to go to prison than children from families, and 16 times more likely than
children from single-father households. To accomodate this expansion
of criminal activity the prison incarceration rate quadrupled since 1961,
which has robbed vital resources from education, which further increased
our economic problems.
The benefit children, women, and society derive from placing the
father at the head of his family is not the creation of single-father households,
but the preservation and creation of families. Every society which
has attempted to establish “equality” in family affairs has produced the
same result--family breakdown, rising illegitimacy, rampant juvenile delinquency
and crime and prison populations, decreasing education quality and standard
of living, etc, etc, etc. As the following chart shows, there is
a distinct difference between societies with mother headed families and
father headed families:
Sources: International Monetary Fund, UN Statistical Summary, & Census Bureau Country Divorce Rate National Budget Matriarchy per 1,000 Pop. as %of GDP or Patriarchy? Sri Lanka 0.015 6.7% Patriarchy Brazil 0.026 13.9% Patriarchy Italy 0.027 40.4% Patriarchy Mexico 0.033 7.2% Patriarchy Chile 0.038 11.5% Patriarchy El Salvador 0.041 6.3% Patriarchy Japan 0.042 15.2% Patriarchy Ecuador 0.042 4.5% Patriarchy Mauritius 0.047 7.0% Patriarchy Thailand 0.058 6.9% Patriarchy Syria 0.065 11.6% Patriarchy Panama 0.068 16.4% Patriarchy China 0.079 16.8% Patriarchy Tunisia 0.082 16.0% Patriarchy Korea 0.088 12.9% Patriarchy Trinidad 0.097 15.4% Patriarchy Barbados 0.121 28.2% Patriarchy Finland 0.185 49.6% Matriarchy Canada 0.246 19.9% Matriarchy Australia 0.252 27.1% Matriarchy New Zealand 0.263 28.7% Matriarchy Denmark 0.281 58.3% Matriarchy United Kingdom 0.308 40.9% Matriarchy Russia 0.336 44.4% Matriarchy Puerto Rico 0.447 41.0% Matriarchy US 0.495 41.0% Matriarchy
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