Phillipines Mull Bill Discriminating Against Children from Larger Families

Catholic Philippines Mulling Limits on Family Size

By Patrick Goodenough, CNSNews.com, December 27, 2005

". . .The House of Representatives has agreed to hold a plenary debate, starting around mid-January, on the "Responsible Parenthood and Population Management Act," known locally as House Bill (HB) 3773.

Proponents say the bill is urgently needed to curb population growth and fight poverty in the Southeast Asian nation -- a country of 84 million people, an estimated 40 percent of whom live below the poverty line.

. . .HB 3773 also promotes what the text calls an "affordable level" of two children per family.

While couples who choose to have more than two children will not be penalized, incentives are offered to those who conform to the "ideal."

"In order to attain the desired population growth rate, the state shall encourage two children as the ideal family size," the text says.

"Children from these families shall have preference in the grant of scholarships at the tertiary level taking into consideration the financial need and academic aptitude of the grantees."

. . .In the Philippines, the TFR estimate for 2005 is 3.16.

Lagman, the bill's author, puts the "desired" fertility rate for the Philippines at 2.5.

United Nations figures show that the Philippines' TFR has already fallen considerably, from 7.29 in the early 1950s to 4.5 in the mid-1980s, and dropping below four in the mid-1990s. . ."
posted by maggie at 7:16 PM VOTE 1 comments

Maggie Gallagher and Jon Rauch on U of Calif, San Diego TV

http://www.ucsd.tv/schedule/index.asp?summary=show&keyword=9865

The Controversy Over Marriage with Jonathan Rauch and Maggie Gallagher
Jonathan Rauch and Maggie Gallagher present differing views on the definition of marriage. Jonathan Rauch is a senior writer and columnist for the National Journal. His latest book is "Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America." Maggie Gallagher is President of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy and a co-author of "The Case for Marriage."
posted by maggie at 2:11 PM VOTE 3 comments

American Exceptionalism: Babies

A last thought from Allan Carlson in Touchstone:

"Lesson Six: American exceptionalism is real and social creativity remains possible here. Europe is dying. So is Japan, also being done in by a broad rejection of children. However, unlike forty years ago, when America was leading the global retreat from marriage and children, something different is now happening here. The United States is the only developed nation in the world that recorded an increase in its total fertility rate between 1981 and 2000: from 1.81 in 1981 to 2.13 in 2000, an increase of 18 percent, to a point slightly above the replacement or zero-growth level.

This was not, as some suggest, only a function of a rising number of births out-of-wedlock. Between 1995 and 2000, even marital fertility rose by 11 percent, the first sustained increase in that number since the mid-1950s. Nor was this a function of America’s greater ethnic diversity. Fertility among Americans of European descent actually climbed by 21 percent after 1981, to a total fertility rate of 2.114 in 2000."
posted by maggie at 12:01 PM VOTE 0 comments

The Importance of Pro-Family Tax Reform

From Alan Carlson's essay in Touchstone, here.

"Tax reforms implemented in the 1940s reinforced marriage and full-time homemaking through the policy of “income splitting” on joint returns. These same tax reforms encouraged larger families through generous per-capita exemptions for children.

The results were striking. For the first time in over a hundred years, three things happened in America at once: The marriage rate rose; the divorce rate fell; and the marital birthrate soared. These were the celebrated “Marriage” and “Baby” Booms of the 1945–1964 era, a time unique in American history. I believe that federal policies favoring the breadwinner/homemaker/child-rich family model helped create the material conditions that made this family renewal possible."


My Family in Statistics: The Catholic Baby Boom

[I'm the third of four kids, born to a Catholic family between 1957 and 1964. But the only Catholic left standing in my nuclear family (except my kids).]

More from Alan Carlson's essay in Touchstone, here.

"Witnessing, it seems, to this steadfastness in doctrine, the 1945–1964 era produced a “heroic” flowering of Catholic family life in America. Although fertility rose for all American religious groups, it rose far more rapidly and stayed high longer among Catholics. Indeed, there are signs that the American Baby Boom was largely “a Catholic thing.” The total marital fertility rate for non-Catholics averaged 3.15 children born per woman in the early 1950s and 3.14 in the early 1960s. For Catholics, the respective figures were 3.54 and 4.25.

More dramatic was the return of the large Catholic family: In a survey conducted in the early 1950s, only 10 percent of Catholics under age 40 reported having four or more children, a figure very close to the 9 percent for Protestants. By the late 1950s, the Protestant figure was unchanged, but the proportion of Catholics with four or more children had more than doubled, to 22 percent.

. . .Violating a law of sociology that the more education a woman receives, the fewer children she has, Catholic women who had attended college were bearing more children than Catholic women without a high-school degree. Large families flourished among the best educated."
posted by maggie at 11:55 AM VOTE 0 comments

Julian Sanchez on Polyamory at AndrewSullivan.com
[He doesn't seem to see any difference between polygamy and polyamory, but let that pass]

Excerpt:
"It's a little hard to suss out, because for all the reams of paper and gallons of ink folks like Kurtz and Maggie Gallagher have expended warning us that gay marriage will have the same effect on hetero couplings that water does on the Wicked Witch of the West, they've never been wholly clear about the actual mechanism by which this is supposed to happen. Kurtz hints that it has something to do with decoupling marriage from the idea of parenting. That makes very little sense in the context of gay marriage: There are thousands of gay couples raising children now, and polls suggest that as many as half who don't currently have kids would like to (either by adoption or artificial insemination). It makes still less sense in the context of polyamorous groupings involving both sexes. Recall, after all, that statistically speaking, the most "traditional" form of marriage is polygamy—and they seemed to have the "reproduction" thing down OK.

Of course, as Dahlia Lithwick has argued, cultures that endorsed polygamy have often manifested coercive or otherwise exploitative forms of it. But if that alone is a basis for condemning polyamory, you can make the equivalent case against marriage per se. I went to see Lucia di Lammermoor before Christmas—a tragedy about a woman whose brother forces her to marry a powerful noble instead of the man she loves, a family enemy. (The Met production's mediocre, by the way; save your money and stay home with the Berlin Callas recording.) What's abberant for the period, though, is not the brother's insistence but Lucia's resistance. What once was a mechanism for establishing trade between tribes, or cementing political alliances, or setting up household division of labor has become an institution deserving of the reverence it's now afforded: It turned out that marriage didn't inherently require treating women like chattel after all.

There's no more reason to think that this is an intrinsic feature of polyamory, which is why Kurtz's argument that polyamory will undermine norms of fidelity won't fly: He's using as a point of comparison polygamous societies whose high rates of infidelity, even on his own account, seem clearly bound up more tightly with background assumptions about the dominance of men than about anything inherent in the marital form. As it stands now, of course, polyamorists in committed relationships must either eschew marriage altogether, or if they are married, play havoc with those norms of fidelity. If you want to reinforce those norms, it seems to make more sense to let the married couple who're de facto living as part of a trio formally add their third partner."
posted by maggie at 10:04 AM VOTE 0 comments

Incredible Shrinking Italy Asks: Should Motherhood Pay?

[From the Population Research Institute.]

PRI Weekly Briefing 29 December 2005
By Joseph A. D’Agostino

. . . Yet the situation in Italy, a country once known for a strong family-oriented and Catholic culture, has become so dismal that a parliamentary proposal made this
month to pay women not to abort their babies has gained considerable support. On average, Italian women have about 1.2 children each in their lifetimes--far, far below the minimal replacement rate of 2.1. Italy is a nation rapidly committing suicide. . .

There is evidence that in the past year or two, Italy's birthrate may have
bumped up to 1.4 children per woman due to the greater fertility of
immigrants. This is death by another method—-replacement of a country’s
native population with unassimilated, largely Muslim foreigners.. . .

Perhaps to deflect pressure to change Italy's permissive 1978 abortion
law, leftist parties in Italy have proposed paying lower-income women not
to abort their children. Also, a general election is likely to be held
early next year, and this may be a way for left-wing parties to attract a
few Catholic votes. Some conservatives have welcomed the idea. The
payments wouldn’t be much--$250 to $350 or so for three to six months of
pregnancy—-but have a private precedent. "It is the same method used by
the pro-life movement, funded by contributions from volunteers," noted
Msgr. Elio Sgreccia of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

. . . .The payments would be restricted to single women, but
in Italy, married women have most abortions.

. . .In the meantime, a Spanish government report says that abortion went up by
73% over the last decade in that country, which has a birthrate on par
with Italy’s. In Germany, ideas to increase that country’s low birthrate
are gaining steam as France considers financial incentives aimed at more
affluent couples to raise her birthrate, already second-highest (after
Ireland) in the 25-member European Union. But France's birthrate, perhaps
as high as 1.9, is raised by Europe's largest Muslim population."
posted by maggie at 7:16 PM VOTE 0 comments

But What Does He Really Think?

From John Haskins on World Net Daily, a rare, scathing critique of Gov. Mitt Romney's performance on SSM in Massachussetts, from the hard right here.

Excerpt:

"Surely someone in the conservative establishment knows that Massachusetts' homosexual "marriages" remain illegal and cannot be legal unless the Legislature passes a new law. Here is the stark reality that conservatives patting Gov. Mitt Romney on the back can't grasp: In one of the greatest executive blunders in American constitutional history, placebo-"conservative" Romney violated the state constitution and personally conjured up sodomy marriages by ordering state officials – in effect – to pretend that the Legislature had actually passed such a law. Mitt Romney, out of ignorance and sheer terror of being branded "homophobic" by the media, violated his oath of office, struck down constitutional democracy and saved our legislators their responsibility of voting..."
posted by maggie at 7:06 PM VOTE 12 comments

OK, So What's a Girl to Do?

Meghan Clyne in the NY Sun reviews Kate O'Beirne's new book, an attack on orthodox feminism.

Clyne raises a good question: "And what's to be done with the women?"

".. . . At this point women - particularly young women - would be better served by a serious analysis of where we go from here.

And what's to be done with the women? Under the current
regime they are urged from day one to pursue challenging careers.They
follow that path through college, through graduate school, and into
their early professional years, often acquiring significant debt along
the way. When they marry and, as Mrs. O'Beirne encourages, decide to
become full-time mothers, they are forced abruptly to give up what
society has asked of them for their entire lives. . .

Mrs. O'Beirne became a lawyer because she found the profession
complementary to motherhood, and managed to stagger career and family
obligations so as never to neglect either. There are many young women
who would benefit tremendously from the insights she gained from her
experience as they seek to do the same thing. Today's articles and
books about feminism, like Mrs. O'Beirne's, would be more useful if
they were more forwardlooking. We have come a long way, baby - and we
don't like what we see. What we need now is a roadmap for getting back
to sanity."

Any thoughts?
posted by maggie at 2:17 PM VOTE 0 comments

Religion and Abortion in Jeff Hart's Mind

Off-topic, but on my mind, Jeff Hart's talked about essay on the state of conservatism:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/ac/?id=110007730

Hart: "Religion is an integral part of the distinctive identity of Western civilization. But this recognition is only manifest in traditional forms of religion--repeat, traditional, or intellectually and institutionally developed, not dependent upon spasms of emotion. This meant religion in its magisterial forms."

Jeff knows more about the distinctive identity of Western civilizaiton than I do. But if you are speaking of America then attempting to read out spasms of religious emotion as part--and often a driving part- of our history and identity is foolish.

He is right that, unless institutionalized, even great waves of religious emotion tend to pass with little permanent effect. (cf. Promise Keepers). But religion that is only institution, without a capacity to touch human emotion, is dead.

Faith and reason must be reconciled, ultimately, because truth is truth. But so must (and this is particularly an issue in my own Roman Catholic tradition) reason and emotion. Concieving of either of these pairs as opposites is a life-stabbing error.

On the abortion issue, about which I assume many of us disagree, Jeff points to something called "American social processes" that make an end to abortion unlikely:

Hart: "abortion as an issue, its availability indeed as a widespread demand, did not arrive from nowhere. Burke had a sense of the great power and complexity of forces driving important social processes and changes. Nevertheless, most conservatives defend the "right to life," even of a single-cell embryo, and call for a total ban on abortion. To put it flatly, this is not going to happen. Too many powerful social forces are aligned against it, and it is therefore a utopian notion.

Roe relocated decision-making about abortion from state governments to the individual woman, and was thus a libertarian, not a liberal, ruling. Planned Parenthood v. Casey supported Roe, but gave it a social dimension, making the woman's choice a derivative of the women's revolution. This has been the result of many accumulating social facts, and its results already have been largely assimilated."

The women's movement Hart says, etc. It seems to me the social processes that lead to abortion have a lot more to do with the sexual revolution than the women's revolution. If people are going to run around having lots of non-marital sex, single women are going to get pregnant at inconvenient times pretty often, and often with grossly inappropriate males. And people (including parents) are going to want to be able to do something about that fact, to protect the daughters they know and love from the consequences, even if it means sacrificing grandchildren they haven't yet met.

Jeff Hart's unwillingness to name the actual social processes involved seems a telltale sign. Our continuing moral discomfort around abortion (and the rising opposition to it among the young) despite its status as a constitutional right is to me the most notable social fact. Thinking that our mothers may have the right to terminate us in the womb, is something children have a hard time swallowing. At least until puberty kicks in.

History and anthroplogy teach us that there is no evil that human being cannot be brought to endorse by group consensus: slavery, mass killing, certainly outright infanticide if it seems necessary to make one's life or society "work."

But there is something in us that still recoils from the idea of killing our own unborn. If Americans do accept it, they accept it grimly as a necessary evil and want to think about it as little as possible.
posted by maggie at 2:00 PM VOTE 0 comments

Where You Find Gay, Australian, Catholic, Public Intellectuals Who Oppose SSM

And a whole bunch of other stuff. Eve Tushnet's blog.
posted by maggie at 1:43 PM VOTE 2 comments

FIRST COMES MARRIAGE: Jennifer Roback Morse

...Let me be blunt: There is no right to a child, because a child is not an object to which other people have rights. If that were true, then parents would be owners of their children, rather than their stewards or guardians. The well being of the child could be, and would be, sacrificed to the "rights" of the parents. If we are born as objects to which other people have rights, when do we become persons with rights of our own, and why does the woman's "right" to have a child trump the child's right to have a father? ...

To put it another way: Every individual is sterile. No one can have a baby by himself. Each human infant has two parents, one male and one female. Therefore, any right to have a child should be held by a couple, not by an individual who wishes to be a parent. ...

Every known society has developed some social institution for defining the appropriate types of reproductive couplings. Whatever the specific rules, formal and informal, all societies limit the appropriate context for both sexual activity and childbearing. As long as a couple meets a society's criteria, as the natural parents of the child they obtain the rights to exercise the full complement of parental rights it grants.

This universal social institution is, of course, marriage. Nobody grants a married couple the right to make babies; it is inherent in their marriage.

It does not follow that the natural right of a married couple to have babies extends to random couplings of individuals. Nor does the entitlement of married couples to procreate naturally generate a right for anyone to be artificially inseminated. No one, married or otherwise, is entitled to the assistance of others in becoming a parent.

The virtue of recognizing the natural right of a married couple to procreate is that this arrangement best protects the rights of the most vulnerable, namely, the child. What is owed to the child? The child's most basic entitlement is the right to be born into a home with both a mother and a father who love him and each other. This gives the child at least the possibility of a relationship with both parents.

In the vast majority of cases, this basic right of relationship will involve provision for the child's material needs because the natural parents have the greatest incentive and opportunity to meet those needs. The right of relationship is widely viewed as more fundamental than the right to material support in this sense: Being poor is not ordinarily grounds for removing children from their natural parents. The state will not remove children unless the parents are grossly negligent or abusive. ...

So who has a natural right to a child, a right that the state should recognize and support? The most compelling candidate is the child's pair of biological parents, who have committed themselves to creating a common life together for the sake of their child as well as themselves. In other words, married couples. They may be said to have a right to a child (though not one that gives them a right to the aid of others or of technologies like artificial insemination), but no one else.

more
posted by Eve at 9:11 PM VOTE 42 comments

EARLIER PUBERTY FOR GIRLS: William Saletan

[Btw, having an unrelated adult man in the household (i.e. mother's boyfriend or stepfather) also correlates, in at least some studies, with earlier puberty for girls. --Eve]

A new implant can delay female puberty. American girls are hitting puberty earlier than ever: The average age of onset was 12.75 in the 1960s, 12.5 early in the 1990s, and 12.3 early in this decade. One reason: Girls are getting fatter, which triggers menstruation. But a new implant can suppress puberty-promoting hormones for at least a year. The implant was designed to thwart extremely early puberty (age 7 or 8) that threatens to halt a girl's growth. Whether it could or should be applied for other reasons hasn't been addressed.

link
posted by Eve at 9:07 PM VOTE 0 comments

NORTHERN VA. TOWN CHANGES DEFINITION OF FAMILY: From the Washington Post

[I'm reminded of PJ O'Rourke's line about the population-control mentality: "Just enough of me... way too many of you." --Eve]

...That is because a zoning ordinance adopted this month by the city of Manassas redefines family, essentially restricting households to immediate relatives, even when the total is below the occupancy limit.

The rule, which has alarmed civil libertarians and housing activists, is among a series of attempts by municipalities across the nation to use zoning powers to deal with problems they associate with immigrants, often illegal, who have settled in suburbs, typically in shared housing to help with the rent or mortgage. ...

Under the city's old, broad definition of family, just about any group of relatives, however distantly related, was allowed to share a single-family house, along with one unrelated person.

The problem with that, Smith explained, was that when inspectors responded to a complaint, they often found houses full of aunts, uncles, cousins and extended relatives but no violations, because the total number was below the occupancy limit.

"We were stymied by families who met the existing definition," Smith said. And so the city changed the rules to break up more households.

Under the city's old zoning ordinance, there were three definitions of who could share a house: three unrelated people; two unrelated people and their children; or any combination of relatives, however extended, plus one unrelated person. It is the third definition that was changed under the new law.

"What we tried to do is define it in a way that was traditional, to make sure these peripheral people start to be winnowed out," Smith said.

According to the new definition, one unrelated person is still allowed. But everyone else must fall within the "second degree of consanguinity" from the person declared to be the head of household. Significantly, relationships are traced through the parents.

Thus, in Chavez's case, her nephew is three degrees: He is her parents' son's son and thus is considered unrelated. Under the old rule, Chavez had two unrelated people living with her -- the tenant and his girlfriend -- and one would have had to go. Under the new rule, though, she has three unrelated people under her roof.

The Chavezes have 30 days to comply. If they don't, they face escalating fines and, ultimately, court. ...

"We have a form for you to fill out," Purchase said to Cortez. "If you lie to me, we're going to prosecute you."

Cortez filled out the form as Vallenas explained who could live in the house he owns.

"Your brother, mother, father," she said. "No uncles, no aunts, no cousins, no nieces, no nephews."

more
posted by Eve at 8:59 PM VOTE 2 comments

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER: Miss Manners

Dear Miss Manners:

Is it appropriate for the first wife to take back the name of a former spouse?

My husband's ex-wife is now going through her second divorce, and is planning on dropping his last name and taking back my husband's. My husband and his ex had two children from their marriage, and she claims she wants to have the same last name as her children. He and I are very uncomfortable with this.

He and I have a child together and all the children attend the same small school. I think it will be confusing at school and I am wondering if people will assume my husband and his ex are now back together.

I realize she can legally change her name to anything she wants, but, out of courtesy, should she consider our feelings? She says it is common for women who are divorced twice to go back to a former last name of an ex if they share children. What are your views on this topic?

Before we get to Miss Manners's view, let us have another look at the ex-wife's view.

Yes, it is common for divorced mothers to want to share their children's surnames, regardless of whom they married or divorced subsequently. Ah, but in this case, you say, confusion will arise from your and her children all being in the same school.

Don't you think that confusion has already arisen? You share a surname with her children; don't you think that you should consider what the assumption that you are their mother has been doing to her feelings?

Miss Manners's view is that this is more important than your discomfort. As for the gossipmongers you fear, they would only be risking their own reputations for reliability. A rumor that a husband has left his second wife for his first wife is far too interesting to go unchecked.

link
posted by Eve at 8:56 PM VOTE 0 comments

Marriage as a Sexual Regulation/Maggie Gallagher

[I can't get into the comments section, so I'm shifting my remarks here]

I knew this would happen. All the long ride over the mountains and through the snow (Hi grandma!) to Bend Oregon, where I am now sitting and looking at the Deschutes river flow through a canyon towards the Bend town lights, I said to myself: I should have made it clear.

I was speaking of opposite-sex relations. For relations between men and women, a marriage culture regulates sexual unions by declaring some unions better than others. Gay couples at this juncture stand outside this kind of marriage regulation. You can't tell anything about a gay couple by the fact they are not married, because marriage is not possible (by definition).

But for opposite-sex couples it is clear that other kinds of relationships are "second-best" or "not the ultimate" or "less than the ideal" or "you haven't gone about as fer as you can go."

I'm not sure what grounds society or the law has to tell gay people that their relations are less than ideal unless they are faithful, exclusive twosomes sharing bed, bank and board. Why not threesomes? Who are you to say that commitment comes only in two?
posted by maggie at 8:49 PM VOTE 1 comments

One Gay Man against SSM

He gives his reasons here. Warning: Language definitely not suitable for a family newspaper.
posted by maggie at 2:57 AM VOTE 2 comments

From the Archives: the Voice of Research on Polygamy

(Recognize any of the arguments below? From an op ed published in 2000 posted on a pro-polygamy site. Maggie).

Psychological Study Suggests Polygamist Relationship Same as Others
by Principle Voices of Polygamy at 10:10AM (AKDT) on September 1, 2005 | Permanent Link | Cosmos
By Irwin Altman
Salt Lake Tribune
Op-Ed Column
May 30, 2000

I wish to present a different voice on the issue of modern polygamy than those in previous articles by Scott Howell, Boyer Jarvis, Laura Chapman, Douglas White, and Randall Larsen.

These writers either condemned the practice of polygamy, and called for vigorous legal actions and enforcement of existing laws against practitioners of plural marriage, or they suggested decriminalizing or otherwise formally acknowledging the rights of people to practice polygamy. Unlike these writers I do not take a stand on political, legal, public policy, or alleged criminal behavior of plural family members. Instead I wish to comment on aspects of the lives of modern polygamous families from the perspective of a researcher and scholar who has conducted an in-depth study of plural families who belong to two large polygamous groups.

Although excommunicated by the LDS Church, the families we studied refer to themselves as "Fundamentalist Mormons," and claim to adhere to the religious principles and practices of the early church. In so doing, they reject the Manifesto of 1890 in which the LDS Church first renounced the practice of plural marriage.
As a scholar I neither condemn nor condone the principle or practice of plural marriage, but wish to understand how these families work and the challenges they face in a lifestyle they profess to be part of their religious and cultural heritage.

Although issues of public policy and alleged violations of criminal statutes of bigamy and cohabitation by practitioners of plural marriage are important, I believe that an informed citizenry and public officials might benefit from research results on these families as they ponder potential courses of action.

Our research involved interviews, observations and visits to the homes and communities of more than one hundred people in two dozen plural families (including several women who had been divorced and quit the movement), as well as visits by participants to my home and the home of my colleague and co-author (Joseph Ginat). Our work is reported in a book titled Polygamous families in contemporary society (Cambridge University Press, 1996).

The focus of our work was on husband-wife and wife-wife relationships in plural families, with only slight attention to children in these families. Based on our research we concluded, first, that living in plural marriage is a challenge for both men and women. Stresses and strains arise with respect to child rearing, finances, jealousy and conflict among wives, management of homes, men's' responsibilities to visit families regularly, help resolve conflicts, and function as family patriarchs. It is an ongoing challenge for all participants, and some husbands and wives described their everyday life as a constant struggle. At the same time we found that some families functioned quite well; others were searching for a family lifestyle that worked for their unique situation and personalities, and still others were dysfunctional. And within families we found that some individuals were quite satisfied with their situations, while others were in varying degrees of unhappiness or struggling to succeed.

We also found that men and women varied considerably in their roles. Some wives were very powerful in comparison to their husbands; others were submissive. Some wives were quite compatible with one another; others were not. Similar to monogamous families, the situation varied from family to family and individual to individual. As a result, we concluded that it is not sensible to assume that all or most polygamous families are unhealthy or that all or most wives are unhappy or mistreated. Variability is the norm, just as it is in most relationships.

We also discovered wide variations in the personalities and demeanors of individual husbands and wives. Some husbands and wives were bright, energetic and assertive; others were more withdrawn and submissive. Some were educated, well read, humorous and outgoing; others were the opposite. Men and women varied quite a bit in their personalities, demeanor and social presence. Indeed, they appeared to encompass the same spectrum of qualities as people in monogamous families. Once again, it is personal and family differences that stand out, as they do among people in society at large.

Interestingly, similar variations in the personalities, roles of husbands and wives, family well being, and the enormous challenges of plural family life have been reported for LDS pioneer plural families of the nineteenth century.

Our second conclusion is that the polygamous groups we studied, and their practice of plural marriage, are here to stay. They are growing in numbers through internal birth rates and conversions, and they adhere to a way of life and underlying religious principles that seem to sustain them in the face of societal antipathy to their lifestyle. So, the likelihood of their withering away because of falling memberships or enforcement of laws by civil authorities seems improbable. Thus the practice of plural marriage in the context of religious values is one more of the diverse forms of family structures in modern America--which includes traditional nuclear families, blended families, co-habitating heterosexual couples, gay and lesbian households, single parent families, and others.

So, what are we to do? If I have any suggestion, it is an urgent call to understand and become educated about plural family life--how it works, how it is different from and similar to monogamous family lie, why and how people and families succeed or fail in this unusual family structure, and so on. Most important, we should avoid being swept away by simplistic stereotypes about life in polygamous families. It is too easy to accept claims of rampant child and wife abuse, especially if we do not approve of or are embarrassed by polygamous lifestyles. While I do not question the personal abuses reported by some former participants, I know of no systematic evidence that children or women in plural families are mistreated to a greater extent than those in monogamous families in society at large. And it is too easy to assume, as some do, that the typical marriage includes old men and young girls. Yet, both the pioneer data, and our small sample of cases do not reflect the stereotype of the old man-young girl marriage as the predominant pattern (although some such cases do exist, to be sure -- and they are personally shocking to me, as are the marriage laws in the State of Utah that permit people to marry at a very young age).

With better understanding and facts in hand about plural families, it may be feasible to determine a variety of public courses of action. It is certainly possible that aggressive legal action is warranted in some instances and for some violations of the law. It is also possible that constructive actions may be initiated to open up and increase access by these groups and their members to societal services, which can result in increased protection of those who may be at risk. On the other hand, unilateral and sweeping legal or criminal action taken against all members of these groups may result in even more secrecy than presently exists, with the possibility that individuals, families and groups will go "underground", as did many pioneer families following the 1890 Manifesto. If that occurs, then seeking out and punishing violators of civil laws, abuse of women and children, and other crimes, will be even more difficult than it is now. And it will be more tenuous to find workable ways for disaffected, needy, or mistreated members of these groups to seek protection or access to helping services. So, I encourage citizens, law enforcement agencies, social service agencies, legislators and political leaders to learn more about the realities and variations in modern plural family life, and not rely on simplistic stereotypes. So doing can result in more informed and targeted legal actions and public policies.

History has shown that the way in which we define social problems often determines the path to their solution. If we as a society view the practice of polygamy as a fundamental evil, and a violation of some of our most important laws, then we may decide to pursue aggressive actions against those perpetrators simply because they engage in plural marriage. However, if we see the problem to be protecting any and all citizens who may be mistreated, providing people with opportunities for free choice about their lives, and offering members of plural families access to health, social, and educational services, then we may wish to think about constructive steps, not just punitive public policies and actions. In so doing, we might not only assist those in plural marriages who deserve freedom and civil rights, but we might also help other citizens in American society--including those in monogamous and other family structures who suffer indignities, mistreatment and loss of freedom.
_________

Irwin Altman is distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Utah.
posted by maggie at 12:12 PM VOTE 0 comments

Constitutional Challenge to Polygamy Ban Avoided/Prof. Friedman

Prof. Howard Friedman runs a con law site, Religion Clause, dedicated to the religious exercize clause. He has links to press coverage of the case there.

Maggie

http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2005/12/free-exercise-challenge-to-polygamy.html
Monday, December 26, 2005

Free Exercise Challenge To Polygamy Ban Avoided
Article 20, Sec. 2 of the Arizona Constitution prohibits polygamy. An accused Colorado City member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was planning to challenge the validity of that provision by asserting his religious freedom rights under the U.S. Constitution. However, the Provo, Utah Daily Herald reported on Saturday that his attempt to do this has been stymied as prosecutors dropped an underage sex charge against Randolph J. Barlow, and proceeded only on charges of sexual assault where the defense would not be relevant.
posted by maggie at 11:59 AM VOTE 0 comments

Incredible Shrinking Japan

(Quite a vigorous comments sections going on this site. BTW, an interesting dichotomy is emerging among population demographics, where the move towards female labor force participation is at first associated with dramatic declines in fertility, once the demographic transition is accomplished, lower female labor force participation appears to be associate with "lowest low fertility." This raises several questions: maybe female labor force participation was always a false correlations and what do women do with their lives when they neither have children nor work?. Maggie).

http://www.crisscross.com/jp/news/358684

Saturday, December 17, 2005

TOKYO - Japan's population is likely to start decreasing from next year, a year earlier than formerly projected, if the fertility rate continues to dwindle at the current pace, which marked a record low 1.29 in 2004, the government said in a report released Friday.

In a white paper on society with a falling birthrate, the government said Japan has become a country which has an extremely small ratio of children in the society. Given the current trend that 51% of babies are born from mothers in their 30s as people marry and have children in older age, the "entire society must support young child-rearing families to change the trend toward childlessness," the report said.
posted by maggie at 11:26 AM VOTE 0 comments

Stanley Kurtz on Hollywood Family Values

Talk of the town on The Corner at nationalreview.com.

Kurtz is talking about Big Love, the new cutting edge sit com about Christian polygamists. I would say, in defense of Hollywood that in fact there really are Christian polygmaists out there. Old Testament you know. . . Maggie

P.S. Also, I suspect that Christians have learned that expressing outrage about the latest outrage only plays into the marketing plans of the producers. . .


"Even polygamists can be “virtually normal.” As series co-creator Mark Olsen says in the Newsweek piece, “It’s everything that every family faces, just times three....The yuck factor disappears and you just see human faces. We found it to be a mother lode.” So this would seem to confirm the link between same-sex marriage and polygamy, except that here same-sex marriage is not being used to legitimate polygamy. No, polygamy is being used to legitimate same-sex marriage! In other words, gay marriage and group marriage are mutually reinforcing, and both depend upon the larger view that families ought to be whatever people want them to be.

Now imagine that Mel Gibson were to create a television series about gay men who converted to Christianity and underwent successful reparative therapy. What we’re seeing here seems like the real-life equivalent of that in reverse: a playwright of gay liberation produces a television series about pious Christians who just happen to be polygamists (with the ultimate purpose, I suspect, of deconstructing traditional marriage). Of course, the controversy over my imaginary Mel Gibson series would dwarf the shouting over The Passion of the Christ. By the same token, it seems to me that traditional Christians have every right to express indignation over HBO’s “Big Love.” And I expect that before long we’re going to see some."
posted by maggie at 10:33 AM VOTE 0 comments