Melanie McDonagh: Admit it – marriage is best for families

There’s a curious non-sequitur running through all this. Everyone ”“ agony aunts, civil servants, government ministers ”“ agrees that parental break-up has profound, damaging effects on children. Everyone agrees that a great deal of money must be spent on providing some sort of panacea for those children.

But no one at any point addresses the notion that the underlying causes of the problem should be dealt with. Or indeed that there is an underlying cause.

In fact, the underlying premise of the Cabinet Office report is simply untruthful. The legal form of the relationship in which children grow up does matter, very much.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, * International News & Commentary, England / UK, Law & Legal Issues, Marriage & Family

3 comments on “Melanie McDonagh: Admit it – marriage is best for families

  1. perpetuaofcarthage says:

    A report this year by researchers at the University of Essex, based on an analysis of 10,000 households over 18 years, confirmed that cohabiting relationships are less stable than married ones. According to Professor John Ermisch, who analysed the data, only 35 per cent of cohabiting couples stay together until their children reach 16, compared with 70 per cent of married couples.

    Given the plain fact that married relationships are more stable and therefore better for children than any other sort, you’d think that the Government would conclude that marriage is a legal arrangement that it ought to be promoting, on purely pragmatic grounds.

    That’s a significant difference!!!
    Of course in the USA, our Census Bureau has decided to finesse the problem by changing the definition of “parent”.

  2. Undergroundpewster says:

    [blockquote] No one is going to marry for benefit advantages alone. But it might, just, make people entertain the possibility. Government intervention can’t be a cure for the fractured family, but at least it would address the problem, not just the effects.[/blockquote]
    In my humble opinion, Government is part of the cause for the fractured family in the U.S.

  3. Larry Morse says:

    Well now, here’s yet another epiphany. Marriage is good for families! Standard, everyday, middle of the road, onemanandonewoman wedded is good for the family. Who would have guessed? This piece of research belongs in the same astounding category, reached after enormous inquiry, that men and women are significantly different.
    I know sarcasm is pointless here, but one reads things like this and…what can you do except shake your head. This is like saying, with a profound and scholarly emphasis, that people shouldn’t buy houses and go deep into dept if they cannot pay for either, and that if they do, the economy and the home owner will be in deep youknowwhat. Larry