MARRIAGE AND ADOPTION (AND LIONS): Maggie replies to Ms Wells 1980

And because we are not animals, who act by instinct, we need social institutions, like marriage--which is the only known context in which human fathers normally and usually develop strong relationships with their children. (The majority of children whose fathers don't get and stay married do not keep warm and close relationships with them. In some studies, the majority haven't even seen their dad once in the past year. More than 60 percent of children of divorce in one white middle-class sample reported as adults that they were not close to their fathers.)

This makes sense.

What is marriage ordinarily a promise to do? It means 1. man will live with his children and their mother. 2. the man's children and their mother will be his principle financial and emotional responsibility and 3. he will not sleep with other women, and so will not have children across multiple households.

For most men, these turn out to be pretty important context for responsible fathering. Some dads outside of marriage do better than others (and some do a pretty good job) and all dads are responsible for their kids. (You are inventing disagreement on this point.) But only married dads do these three things, and these three things end up being a pretty important part of fathering in the real world, as opposed to the hypothetical world, or the animal world.

Lions are a particularly bad example, because as far as I can tell, all they do is sleep, have sex, and fight with other male lions.
posted by Eve at 4:50 PM | Link |

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