GLAAD CAMPAIGNS FOR NEWSPAPERS TO ANNOUNCE GAY ENGAGEMENTS, CIVIL UNIONS: From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

here
posted by Eve at 6:00 PM | Link | 0 comments

New York Assisted Reproduction Case

A few weeks ago, a New York judge issued a decision in a case involving a divorce agreement that freed the husband from support of a child born to the wife as a result of artificial insemination. The husband had not given his consent in writing as required by law but the wife argued that he had consented nonetheless. An earlier decision had established that an agreement that absolved a divorcing party of the duty for child support violated public policy and was void.

In the recent decision, the court held that since the child was born during the marriage, the husband was presumed to be the father. In addition, strict compliance with the parentage statute (that requires written consent for a husband of a recipient of artificial insemination to be considered the resulting child’s parent) was not necessary so since there was evidence that the husband agreed with the procedure, the husband could still be considered the father. The court also held that the husband was legally prohibited from denying his parentage because he had established a relationship with the child and severing that relationship could be harmful to the child.

The key paragraph in the court’s paragraph says: “The bottom line is that Defendant may have been reluctant to have another child, but he vacillated and never clearly and unequivocally said ‘no’ to his wife. In her testimony she said he said ‘yes,’ and the Court finds that testimony believable. Defendant has now made a commitment to his wife and child Alyssa. That commitment must be honored. Since he participated in bringing Alyssa into this world, however reluctantly, he should be held responsible as her father for child support.”

This article by Professor Helen Alvare provides a very good introduction to the legal questions surrounding assisted reproductive technology.
posted by William Duncan at 2:25 PM | Link | 9 comments

South Carolina House to Vote on State Marriage Amendment

The State:

HOUSE TO VOTE ON AMENDMENTS

Bills to ratify constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and limiting government’s eminent domain powers are heading to the House floor.

The House Judiciary Committee approved the bills Tuesday, a week after the Senate Judiciary Committee sent its ratification bills to the floor. Voters approved the constitutional changes in November

posted by maggie at 11:15 AM | Link | 0 comments

Latest on U.K. Adoption

According to this story, the idea of any religious liberty exemption infuriated Blair's whole Cabinet. Jan 25 Telegraph:

"Blair retreats over opt-out for gay adoption"

"Tony Blair said this morning that he will announce proposals to resolve the gay adoption row next week after a Cabinet revolt forced him into a climbdown.

In an unexpected move, the Prime Minister issued a brief statement which all but confirmed that he had bowed to his Cabinet ministers and ruled out giving Catholic adoption agencies an opt-out from new laws that would make it illegal for them to refuse to deal with gay couples.

Instead, he is expected to introduce proposals - which will be voted on by Parliament next month - for a “transition” period of around a year to allow the agencies adapt to the new gay rights laws. . ."

posted by maggie at 4:31 PM | Link | 11 comments

Archbishops' Letters on U.K. Gay Adoptions

The Catholic Archbishop makes a plea: www.catholic-ew.org.uk/cn/07/070122.htm

Archbishop of Canterbury's letter (Anglican) supporting him (sort of, I guess):
www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/42/25/acns4239.cfm

The Guardian's take on Jan 24, 2007,"Anglicans back Catholics in gay adoption row":

". . .Ruth Kelly, the communities secretary, said she was confident that the eventual solution would promote "dignity, respect and fairness for all".

Mr Blair and Ms Kelly are trying to broker a deal that could include a transition period for Catholic agencies, or the merger of Catholic and non-Catholic agencies. The Department for Education and Skills believes it can fill the gap if the Catholic agencies disband. They accounted for 4% of the 2,900 adoptions last year.

"This is an issue with sensitivities on all sides and the prime minister recognises that and that is why it is worth having some discussions in government before we come to a decision," Mr Blair's official spokesman said.

In a letter to Labour MPs, Ms Kelly said it raised "difficult issues about how to reconcile potentially competing rights and freedoms" of sexual orientation and religious expression.

"There are, for example, strongly held and conflicting views about the position of religious adoption agencies which are a small part of the sector but have a long and successful history with some of the hardest to place children.

"It is argued that if they are brought within the scope of the regulations these agencies would close. This, it is said, would have a damaging impact on the size of the pool of potential parents who might adopt vulnerable children and thus reduce their chance of adoption."

Ms Kelly added: "On the other hand, it is argued equally forcefully that, as a matter of principle, no adoption agency should be allowed to discriminate and that a Labour government has to tackle every form of discrimination."

Other ministers believe, however, that gay couples are just as likely as Catholic couples to take in difficult children.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: "The Catholic church must not be permitted to control our legislature through this kind of blackmail. It did the same thing over the faith school quotas proposed last month. If it manages to achieve the same result with these regulations, we need to ask who is running this country - the government or the Vatican?"

The archbishops' letter concluded: "It would be deeply regrettable if in seeking, quite properly, better to defend the rights of a particular group not to be discriminated against, a climate were to be created in which, for example, some feel free to argue that members of the government are not free to hold public office on the grounds of their faith affiliation."

posted by maggie at 1:51 PM | Link | 1 comments

New Study: The Cost of Child POverty $500 Billion

". . .The report on the price of child poverty was commissioned by the Center for American Progress, a liberal group here that plans to issue detailed antipoverty recommendations in the spring.

A Republican scholar and former official who testified at the hearing, Ron Haskins, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, called the study superb and said that while economists might quibble over details, the $500 billion cost estimate costs “might be in the ballpark.”

Mr. Haskins noted that the authors had not specified the high cost of eliminating child poverty, which census figures show affected 12.3 million children in 2005, or 17.1 percent of those younger than 18.

“Do not think that if we suddenly gave a bunch of money to poor people, everything would change,” he told lawmakers, adding that behaviors, neighborhoods and parents’ actions need to change if children’s life paths are to change.
Mr. Haskins said it was important to continue work requirements for most welfare recipients, along with government support for programs like child care and tax credits. Promoting the economic benefits of marriage is also important, he said, because a disproportionate number of single-parent families are poor.
In the only flare of partisan discord, some Democratic lawmakers questioned the effectiveness of promoting marriage, a favorite initiative of the Bush administration. But Democrats voiced no inclination to reverse the transformation of the welfare system into more of a work program.
Mr. Holzer and others said that although various proposals to ease poverty needed more research, some efforts, especially the earned-income tax credit, which benefits low-income workers, and quality prekindergarten education had been shown to justify their cost and deserved to expand.

Poor schooling, lack of employment and the high arrest rate among poor young men, especially black men, have emerged as major concerns of liberal and conservative experts alike.

David R. Jones, president of the Community Service Society of New York, testified that 16 percent of people in New York City ages 16 to 24 were neither in school nor employed and that nearly 40 percent of all black men in the city were jobless, defined as unable to find work, unable to perform manual labor because of health problems, not looking for work or in prison.

Mr. Jones joined the growing chorus of experts who call for extending the earned-income tax credit, which supplements the low wages of poor working parents, to single men and women. . ."

posted by maggie at 11:20 AM | Link | 0 comments

New Study: Children of Married Parents Like School the Most

From the Census reported in the January 24 NYT:

"Which children like school the most? Asians and girls and the children of parents who are married, make the most money, have advanced academic degrees and live in the suburbs of the Northeast. Those are also likely to be the same students who say they are most interested in their schoolwork and often work hard in school.

Which are most likely to be enrolled in programs for gifted students? Children of better-educated parents. If one imagined a category combining the leading factors, it would be the daughters of married couples from the suburbs in the South whose parents’ income was above the poverty level.

Those are some of the findings in the Census Bureau’s analysis, "A Child’s Day," released this month. The report surveyed parents nationwide to analyze benchmarks of well-being for 73 million children under 18 from a 2003 review of income and participation in various government assistance programs. . ."

posted by maggie at 11:05 AM | Link | 0 comments

REUTERS: U.K. Set to Force Catholic Charities to Do Gay Adoptions

A report from Reuters, "Churches Set to Lose Appeal on UK Gay Adoption Law." The body of the story seems somewhat less certain than the headline:

"A bid by the Catholic and Anglican Churches to exempt Catholic adoption agencies from being forced to place children with gay couples under a new British law looked set to fail on Thursday.

The Equality Act, which comes into force in April, is designed to stop discrimination against gay and lesbian couples wishing to adopt a child, but the Church leaders called for an exemption for Catholic adoption agencies on faith grounds.

The emotional battle between Church and state involved even British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was said to have favored an exemption, risking a revolt by most of his ministers.

But on Thursday Education Minister Alan Johnson, who has responsibility for adoption, said the government, including Blair, saw no case for special treatment.
"I don't see a case for exemption and I don't think the prime minister does," he told BBC radio.

"The case for no exemption has been made very eloquently. The strength of that argument suggests that we cannot introduce legislation to protect gays and lesbians against discrimination and at the same time allow that discrimination to continue."
Blair later told reporters a final decision would be taken next week and that while he favored the right of adoption by gay couples he also wanted to ensure the Catholic agencies felt able to continue their good work.

"I have always personally been in favor of the right of gay couples to adopt. Our priority will always be the welfare of the child," he said. "Both gay couples and the Catholic agencies have high levels of success in adopting hard to place children."

"I am committed to finding a way through this sensitive and difficult issue."

On Wednesday, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans, and Archbishop of York John Sentamu wrote to Blair backing a call by the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor for the special exemption. . .

The 12 Catholic adoption agencies in England and Wales handle around one third of all voluntary sector adoptions."

posted by maggie at 10:30 AM | Link | 0 comments

New DLC Chairman Gets Flak for Opposing SSM

Jan 22, NYT:

"Tennessee Democrat Harold E. Ford Jr. can never quite get on the most opportune side of the culture wars.

Last year, he gave up his Memphis congressional seat to try for the Senate, and lost after the release of perhaps the most notorious attack ad of the 2006 campaign, which suggested that Ford fraternized with Playboy models and pornography producers. Now that he’s on course to become chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, Ford is getting flak from the National Stonewall Democrats, an advocacy group named for the Greenwich Village bar where the modern gay rights movement was launched in 1969, for his opposition to same-sex marriage."

posted by maggie at 3:13 PM | Link | 0 comments

Student Conference at Princeton

Featuring yours truly, mentioned over at First Things online:

An Anscombe Society Conference
By Ryan T. Anderson

Living a chaste life on a college campus is difficult. Defending your commitments to chastity, whether to your friends in the dorm room or to your professors in the classroom, is even more difficult. If you haven’t been a university student for a while, think back to what the sexual climate on campus was like when you were in college. Now imagine what it’s like with official university LGBT offices pushing for same-sex marriage and gay rights. Not only the practice of chastity but the institution of marriage itself is called into question. Ask yourself this question: would a student invite more scorn if he penned an op/ed for the campus newspaper supporting same-sex marriage or defending sexual chastity?

But students are beginning to push back. And at Princeton they’ve organized the first-ever intercollegiate conference defending the dignity of human sexuality and marriage. Not just rebelling against the administration, one organizer explained the conference to me in this way: “We are having this conference because we sincerely care about our peers, our future families, and our society. This conference is not only to combat the challenges faced on campuses such as Princeton but also to provide a better understanding of what a healthy and meaningful relationship is, what marriage is, and what sex can be.”

They’re dedicating the conference in honor of one of First Things‘ own: “Making Love Last: Finding Meaning in Sex and Romantic Relationships: A Conference of the Princeton University Anscombe Society in memory of Professor Elizabeth Fox-Genovese.”

As Joseph Bottum wrote last week, Professor Fox-Genovese, a long-time board member of First Things, recently passed away. A leader in the field of women’s studies, she became one of the fiercest critics of the modern feminist movement with her 1995 book, Feminism Is Not the Story of My Life. In it Fox-Genovese sought to reclaim authentic feminism from modern feminist leaders–leaders who espoused an ideology detached from the real-life experiences and aspirations of the women on whose behalf they claimed to speak. She also was unabashedly pro-life.

The conference seeks to honor the vision of sexual and familial life that Fox-Genovese defended over the course of her career. Had she been in better health, the organizers were hoping she’d be a among the conference speakers, as she was a founding member of the academic advisory board of Princeton’s Anscombe Society. Instead, they have decided to dedicate this inaugural intercollegiate conference in her honor.

The Anscombe conference is intended to equip students from other schools with the academic arguments (from a variety of disciplines) that support committed marital love, a feminism not at odds with motherhood, and an ethic of chastity that seeks to integrate the entire person (rather than only focus on the sexual part of the person) within romantic relationships.

The schedule includes an all-star line-up of speakers:

Princeton professor Robert P. George and Princeton alumna Christine Whelan (author of the recent book Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women), keynote address.
Maggie Gallagher, president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy: "The Case for Marriage"
Steven Rhoads, UVA professor of politics: "Why Taking Sex Differences Seriously Would Be Good for Men and Better for Women"
Patrick Fagan, Heritage Foundation research fellow: "A Sociological Defense of Chastity"
Chris Tollefsen, USC professor of philosophy: "Chastity, Integrity, and Marriage"
There will also be instructional workshops detailing how best to establish and run an Anscombe Society on your own campus.

University faculty–let your students know. University student–make plans to attend. The first of its kind, this conference promises to be a wonderful opportunity for anyone looking to emerge from the sexual ruins and promote a more excellent way. It will be held at Princeton University on Friday night, February 16, and all day Saturday, February 17. It is open to all university students (registration and a small fee are required). Please contact anscombe@princeton.edu as soon as possible for more details.

posted by maggie at 2:23 PM | Link | 4 comments

UK Catholics fight gay adoption rules

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Britain's leading cardinal said on Tuesday the Catholic church may be forced to close down its adoption agencies if the government insists they consider placing children with gay couples.

Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair urging him to exempt Catholic adoption agencies from new anti-discrimination legislation, or risk reducing the chances for some 4,000 children across Britain waiting to be adopted.

He said the Catholic church in England and Wales, which he leads, would have "serious difficulty" adhering to the law which is due to come into effect in April and which outlaws discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.

"We believe it would be unreasonable, unnecessary and unjust discrimination against Catholics for the government to insist that if they wish to continue to work with local authorities, Catholic adoption agencies must act against the teaching of the Church and their own consciences," the cardinal wrote. He said it would be "an unnecessary tragedy if legislation forced the closure of these adoption services." More

posted by Margaret Nell at 10:23 PM | Link | 1 comments

Iraqi "Temporary Marriage" Rising/WaPo

What's the difference between this and a concubine or prostitute? The children are considered legitimate under Islamic law and entitled to their fathers' support. Sunnis do not recognize these temporary marriage contracts:

". . .According to Shiite religious law, a mutaa relationship can last for a few minutes or several years. A man can have an unlimited number of mutaa wives and a permanent wife at the same time. A woman can have only one husband at a time, permanent or temporary. No written contract or official ceremony is required in a mutaa. When the time limit ends, the man and woman go their separate ways with none of the messiness of a regular divorce.

Although the temporary arrangements are becoming more common, they are still controversial, and people usually conduct them secretly.

Ali had a normal marriage once. It lasted only three months because the couple did not get along. Her chances for another permanent marriage, she said, were slim. Men often prefer virgins over widows and divorced women, she said.

She welcomed Rubae's proposal because he was a well-known sheik in her neighborhood. Her family was fond of him. "He was a good guy, and he was a religious man," she said.

Rubae had been in 15 mutaa marriages before. A year ago he entered into a permanent marriage with a woman who had been his mutaa wife for a day. When she became pregnant eight months ago, she suggested he take a temporary wife but asked him not to tell her if he did. She does not know about his involvement with Ali.
"As a pregnant woman, she cannot give me my needs," Rubae said. "She treats me real good and she wants me to be happy."

He chose Ali partly because her blond hair, light brown eyes and petite figure had always attracted him. "When she puts makeup on, it destroys her beauty," he said.
He also liked that she was religiously devout, and he said he wanted to keep her from a relationship outside of marriage.

Ali didn't think of him in a romantic way at first. "After we got married, I started loving him," she said.

The money he gave her helped. Her father owns a bakery but money has always been tight, so much so that she had to end her education after elementary school. But money wasn't her only reason for entering the enjoyment marriage. "I have needs just like any other woman," she said.

Both Shiite and Sunni Muslims allow men to have more than one permanent wife, but they disagree over mutaa.

Most Shiites believe that the prophet Muhammad encouraged the practice as a way to give widows an income. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric, has sanctioned it and offers advice on his Web site.

Um Ahmed, a 28-year-old woman from Najaf, lost her husband in 2005 when he was caught in the crossfire of a fight between two Shiite militias.

Soon after his death, she had her first mutaa relationship, with a man who was in a permanent marriage. He paid her 50,000 Iraqi dinars upfront -- or $38 -- and gave her money whenever she needed it during their six-month relationship.

She said she needed it often. She is a tailor and the only one in her family of 10 who works.

"When a human being needs money, the need will make a person do anything," she said. "It's better than doing the wrong things. This is religiously accepted."
Many Sunnis believe that the practice is outdated and ripe for abuse. They also see it as more evidence of Iranian influence on Iraqi life. Mutaa is widespread in Iran's Shiite theocratic state.

"It is a big insult to women," said Ibtsam Z. Alsha, a Sunni lawyer and the head of the organization Women for the Common Good of Women.

Women's rights activists also bemoan what they say is an increase in mutaa on college campuses. Some female students do it for money. Others do it for love when their parents forbid them to marry a man from another sect.

Amani, a 22-year-old Baghdad University engineering student, said she is a Sunni but agreed to enter into a mutaa relationship with her Shiite boyfriend because her parents disapproved of him. "I hated my family because they did not allow this marriage," she said. "I did this to spite my family."

Still, she has not told them about the relationship. "If they find out, it will be my end," she said.

A woman cannot terminate a temporary marriage before it expires unless the man agrees, said four sheiks interviewed for this article.

Once the marriage is over, she has to wait at least two menstrual cycles before she can have another relationship so that paternity can be easily determined if she becomes pregnant, they said.

Most mutaa contracts stipulate that no children be produced. If a woman were to become pregnant anyway, Islamic law would require the man to support the child, the sheiks said. But the clerics disagreed over how much power they have to impose that rule.

Rubae said the man who refuses his child would be whipped or even killed. "We as the sheiks should be sure this thing will stay legitimate," he said.

Shareef, the sheik from Hilla, said some men take advantage of their rights under religious law but refuse to accept their responsibility when a child is born. In some of those cases, he said, a sharia court, using Islamic law, is not as effective as a secular court in enforcing the rules.

"I am supporting the idea of the government regulating mutaa marriages, just like the permanent marriages, so these man cannot run away," he said. "Otherwise the women are losing their rights." . . .

Ali and Rubae agreed not to have children. They simply wanted to enjoy each other.
On the days he could see her, he gave her flowers, perfume, clothing and a watch. They had meals together. Sometimes he could spend the whole day with her. Other times, just five or six hours.

Ali said she cried when the marriage ended early last week. "It's just like a permanent marriage," she said. "When he leaves, I become sad."

Her sorrow did not last long. Rubae said Jan. 12 that he had decided to marry her again. This time, he said, he would marry her for a year, enough time for his wife to fully recover from childbirth.

posted by maggie at 6:21 PM | Link | 3 comments

U.K. Gay Adoptions Rise Sharply/Those Who Object Not Permitted to Adopt

Jan 19, 2007:

"One in every 20 [U.K.] children adopted from care goes to live with a gay couple, official figures revealed yesterday.

The number of adoptions by same sex couples is rising by more than 50 per cent a year in many parts of the country, encouraged by social workers.

One in every 20 children adopted from care goes to live with a gay couple, official figures revealed yesterday.

The number of adoptions by same sex couples is rising by more than 50 per cent a year in many parts of the country, encouraged by social workers.

In some towns where councils are most sympathetic to the gay rights cause, the likelihood of a child in care being adopted by a same sex couple is as high as one in five.

The figures - obtained from local authorities under freedom of information rules - show that gay adoption has become common in the four years since Tony Blair's reforms first made it possible for homosexual couples legally to adopt a child. . .

Under Labour, social workers have been pressing for more gay adoption.
Advice from the councils' umbrella body, the Local Government Association, has praised authorities that encourage gay adoption and instructed social workers to strike off from their list of potential adoptive parents anybody who disagrees with gay adoption. . ."

posted by maggie at 9:51 AM | Link | 5 comments

Wyoming Seeks to Strengthen State DOMA

365gay.com has an alternate view of what the measure does, see below:

"Wyoming GOP Seeks To Make Out-of-State Gay Marriage Illegal
Posted: January 22, 2007 - 12:01 am ET

(Cheyenne, Wyoming) Wyoming Republicans have introduced legislation that would void same-sex marriages performed in areas where gays and lesbians can legally wed. If passed it would mean Wyoming gays could not travel to Canada or any of the European countries where same-sex couples can marry.

Massachusetts, the only state where gay marriage is legal, has limited it to couples from that state and from Rhode Island.

But the Wyoming measure would also mean that couples from areas were they were allowed to marry could not come to the state, which calls itself 'The Equality State' and have their marriages recognized either by the state or by private businesses.

Wyoming already has a so-called Defense of Marriage law that mandates marriages conducted in the state must be between a man and woman. The new measure would strengthen that act.

"If a couple came from Massachusetts, or wherever they allow same-sex marriage, we would not have to recognize it here," said Sen. Gerald E. Geis (R) one of the bill's sponsors. . ."

posted by maggie at 9:45 AM | Link | 13 comments

THE FEW. THE PROUD. THE MALE TEACHERS.: From the St Petersburg Times

...It's no easy task to get there. The percentage of males in teaching has hit a 40-year low, the National Education Association reports, at slightly fewer than one of every four teachers in U.S. public schools. Florida logs in lower than the national level, and Hillsborough County below that. The state ranks Hillsborough 64th of 67 counties when it comes to the percentage of men in the classroom.

The vast majority of them teach in middle and high schools. Elementary schools, which serve 47 percent of the school district's students, employ just 21 percent of the county's male teachers. Twenty-four of the 130 elementary schools have just one or two.

There is little to no hard evidence that this affects student achievement. Male teachers can be just as good, or as bad, as their female counterparts.

Still, there remains a general sense in some corners that kids should be exposed to both genders as teachers.

"I just think it makes a big difference when there is a father in the home and a male in the classroom, for some of the students," says Lewis Brinson, assistant superintendent for administration. "Some boys respond better to males than females. Some boys don't see men until they get to school."

more
posted by Eve at 10:13 PM | Link | 3 comments

The Marriage Gap Grows

The NYT makes amends for its last marriage story, with some more stats and a new focus (Do we have David Brooks to thank?) on the "marriage gap" between educated and less educated women:

". . ."Educated women used to have a difficult time," said David Popenoe, co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University. "Now they're the most desired." . . .

The difference extends across race lines: black women are significantly less likely to marry than white women, but among blacks, women with a college education are more likely to marry than those who do not.

Among women ages 25-34, 59 percent of college graduates are married, compared with 51 percent of non-college graduates, according to an analysis of the Census Bureau's June 2006 Current Population Survey by Steven P. Martin, a sociologist at the University of Maryland. The same is true at older age groups: the difference is 75 percent to 62 percent for those ages 35-44, and 50 percent to 41 percent among those 65 and older.

. . .According to the census, 55 percent of men are married, down from 69.3 percent in 1960, and 51.5 percent of women are, down from 65.9 percent in 1960.

The number of women living without a spouse is greater largely because women live longer, leaving them more likely to be widowed. Older men are also more likely to remarry. To control for these variables, consider 35-44 year olds. In 2005, according to the census, 66.2 percent of men in this age group were married, down from 88 percent in 1960; 67.2 percent of women were married, down from 87.4 percent.

. . ."Marriage is more difficult today than it was in the past," Mr. Popenoe said. "The people who excel in one area probably excel in that area, too. And people who are high school dropouts probably have a higher propensity to drop out of marriage."

The last 30 years have seen a huge shift in educated women's attitudes about divorce. Mr. Martin, who has written about women and divorce, said that three decades ago, about 30 percent of women who had graduated from college said it should be harder to get a divorce. Now, about 65 percent say so, he said.

But for less educated women and for men, the numbers have not changed; only 40 percent — a minority — say it should be harder to get a divorce.

"The way we used to look at marriage was that if women were highly educated, they had higher earning power, they were more culturally liberal and people might have predicted less marriage among them," Mr. Martin said. "What's becoming more powerful is the idea that economic resources are conducive to stable marriages. Women who have more money or the potential for more money are married to men who have more stable income."

All this leads to a happiness gap, too. According to the Marriage Project, the percentage of spouses who rate their marriage as 'very happy' has dropped among those without a college education, while it has risen or held steady among those better educated. . ."

posted by maggie at 8:51 PM | Link | 0 comments