Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto responds to Paul Krugman's claim that "the sharp decline in marriage rates among less-affluent white Americans, documented by Charles Murray in his new book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 is 'mainly about money' as opposed to 'morals.'"
Taranto responds:
Krugman concludes by complaining that conservatives are engaged in an "attempt to divert the national conversation away from soaring inequality." But the decline in low-skilled men's wages and marital prospects isn't the result of big Wall Street bonuses or lavish pay for Ivy League professors. It is a problem not of inequality but of equality--equality between the sexes.
... In 1960, according to the Pew Research Center, 72% of adults without a college education were married. In 2010, that proportion had declined to 47%. Many things changed over that half-century, but one of them is that marriage became a very different economic proposition for women.
Fifty years ago, a two-income household was unusual. In most cases when a woman married, she could expect to be supported financially by her husband. The 21st-century wife is expected to pull her own weight financially even if her husband's earning power hasn't diminished. This is called liberation.
... it is a fiction of economics to suggest that increased female labor-force participation was a new source of production. It was, instead, a reallocation of productive resources from homes to offices. No doubt on balance that has been a tonic for the commercial economy. But it has imposed significant social costs.
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In the Christian structure of marriage (not necessarily civil marriage) there is a factor which is absent in perhaps other settings - it is faith in god's day to day provision. Therefore, when living in such faith (though we falter) there's no pressure on the wife to work when she cannot. In the same way, it may be the husband who is supported sometimes by the woman's employment. Conceptually, provision comes from god, not from a corporation. The corporation is simply a tool, which can easily be replaced. Though there are responsibilities to the employer, the corporation or professional association is not one's ultimate god. Christian married couples have a greater sense of liberty, and a lesser stress level. Their dependency on god's grace allows them to free themselves from too-enslaving corporate situations that surely create marital problems. You have to experience it to believe it.
"No doubt on balance that has been a tonic for the commercial economy. But it has imposed significant social costs."
In the 60's "Mothers" and the role of "Motherhood" in society and the home was highly regarded in most circles. The purpose of a mans wages was not some personal aggrandizement of his own but to support a "wife" and children, so that the Mother in this equation was free to look to the needs of home and family exclusively and to that end she was seen as an "expert" in her field. I remember the pride and amusement that the title "Domestic Engineer" would bring among the conversations of adults. As we can see by the news reports, "Mothers" are now seen as expendable and exchangeable for anything or anybody in the care and training of children, and the dire statistics are glossed over or attributed falsely to some other cause. Or worse, we just lower our standard to some ridiculously Neanderthal level like "Dating and sex among pre-teens is normal and acceptable behavior..." You add some degenerate "standard" here________. Instead of looking at the facts against a perhaps superior standard of the past. In short, without mothers we are in a real societal mess.