When I went out to my truck today, I found a business card on it advertising that I could earn $150 by being a sperm donor.Later in the day, one of the blogs I routinely check happened to have this story about how more single women are using sperm donors.
As recently as the early 60's, a "respectable" woman needed to be married just to have sex, not to speak of children; a child born out of wedlock was a source of deepest shame. Yet this radical social change feels strangely inevitable; nearly a third of American households are headed by women alone, many of whom not only raise their children on their own but also support them. All that remains is conception, and it is small wonder that women have begun chipping away at needing a man for that - especially after Sylvia Ann Hewlett's controversial 2002 book, "Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children," sounded alarms about declining fertility rates in women over 35.
I then came across this article:
With the Pill and easy abortion came the illusion of sex without consequences. Pregnancy could be avoided or readily undone. Men didn't have to marry women they impregnated; women didn't have to reserve themselves for men who were committed or whose intentions were honorable. With the devaluation of sex came the devaluation of fatherhood. Men got used to the idea of sex without strings. So did women, many of who also got used to the idea of motherhood without husbands.
Is this the kind of world we know live in? Whoever said ideas don’t have consequences?
From an economic standpoint, a lot of these trends make sense. Lowered risk of out of wedlock sex causes more of it to happen. More out of wedlock sex leads to less incentive for some people to get married. Fewer marriages lead to more single people and higher age of first marriage. Easier sex leads to men less willing to commit. Fewer committed men leads more women to consider having children outside of wedlock. Like I said, from an economic standpoint, this all makes sense.
From a human standpoint, however, this is a tragedy. The weakening of the family, more heartache in relationships (which also contributes to delayed marriage), smaller pool of people seeking to get married, etc. The biggest tragedy of all is for children who are born out of wedlock. What I mean is not that it is a tragedy they are born – every life is precious, with value beyond measure. What I mean is that they have an incredibly higher chance of living in poverty, not receiving as much attention as children in two parent homes, etc. I salute single parents who fight the battle to raise and provide for their children. I have many friends who are heroes in this way. However, it is their stories that convinces me that this is not what one should hope or plan for. I am 100% certain they would all agree.
Someone who finds themselves in a tragic predicament and has the determination to make the best of it is a hero. Someone who plans on putting themselves in a tragic situation is just plain stupid.
What ever happened to notions of marriage like this?
Questions: Do you think this is a trend that will continue and do you see this as a problem for our nation? From and economic standpoint, is there anything that can be done to eliminate perverse incentives that encourage people to have children out of wedlock? What about changes in social norms?
1 comment:
"From and economic standpoint, is there anything that can be done to eliminate perverse incentives that encourage people to have children out of wedlock?"
I know I'm the last person you expect to bring this up, but... [/end sarcasm]
One word: Government.
More specifically in a phrase: seperate sex from state.
Local, state, and federal governments could stop doing all they do to modify those incentive structures - think of abortion clinics being propped up by tax dollars (thus, as you know, lowering the costs of abortions to would be users of the service), all those "Planned Parenthood" associations which disseminate "free" contraception (also propped up by tax dollars).
Moreover, I daresay, I hope the incident in which a pharmacist was forced to carry the "morning-after" pill even though he objected morally/religiously to its use (I'm sure we all heard about that) was not the beginning of a trend.
(To me, I found it scary that some social-democrats started, almost quite literally, claiming that women have a "right" to buy something wherever they damn well please.)
Etc., etc.
Not to mention that governments do so much, by nature of their existence and operation, to indirectly undermine traditional morality - specifically I'm thinking of Hans Hoppe's arguments about how states change people's time preferences - with an entire gamut of, shall we say, "interesting" results - as he argues in his book Democracy.
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