DESTRUCTIVE AMERICAN DIVORCE LAW

Any man who fathers a child in the USA today should get a medal for heroism. No wonder the birthrate is so low among middle-class whites

(1) The states have failed, since the 1960's, to treat marriage as a real contract. Currently anyone who wants out of a marriage can unilaterally end it without penalty. This is not what was intended when marriage laws were changed in the 1970's. "No fault" divorce was to be allowed only when both parties agreed to it. This would have made marriage more like a real contract, with less interference by the state in the matter of its ending. Instead, marriage has become a non-contract, with no protection for those who invest in it.

(2) Paternalistic "family" courts and new laws have seriously undermined fatherhood. There has long been a huge bias in divorce courts to grant custody of children to mothers. As this bias threatened to diminish, feminists pushed through the Violence Against Women Act, which makes it easy for any mother considering divorce to toss the father out of his own home and claim the family assets, including the children, simply by accusing him of domestic violence. No evidence or formal charge is required, and domestic "violence" need not even be violent. Shared parenting provisions would end this winner-take-all lottery.

(3) Federally funded state child support systems set excessive awards and penalize non-payment harshly, even when the circumstances for non-payment are clearly outside the control of the payer. Child support awards are so high that the children have become a profit center for middle class divorcing moms – an additional financial incentive for them to divorce. As Kimberly Folse and Hugo Varela-Alvarez write in the Journal of Socio-Economics, "Strong enforcement…may… lead to the unintended consequence of increasing the likelihood of divorce." Yet in a striking sleight-of-hand, disbursements under the "healthy marriage" mantra have actually gone less to counseling than to child support enforcement.

Is it any surprise that divorce in families with children is almost entirely instituted by the moms? But young men have gotten the message and are increasingly avoiding marriage and avoiding having children inside or outside of marriage. These men are scolded for their lack of "commitment" by the National Marriage Project, whose interpretation Dr. Horn is using to formulate policy. But no man in his right mind would start a family today if he understood how the federal government subsidizes the stealing of his children and his own incarceration for an assortment of newfangled gender "crimes" they make it impossible for him not to commit.

Exhorting people to marry is pointless so long as marriage is a bait-and-switch carrying financial rewards for those who break it. People will simply not invest in a worthless investment, no matter how much you preach at them. If marriage was a worthwhile investment, we would see more of it.

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