Family Unit

Fact, as far as I am concerned, the best environment to bring up a child is within a stable marriage. This statement is not suitable to be a subject of a scientific proof and lies beyond belief, which requires an acceptance of some deity. It is the cornerstone of our development as a human person. Let us not beat about the bush. I mean opposite sex marriage, there is no other, period. No matter how political correctness might wish to fudge the issue, there is no other basis. It requires each sex to make the baby and to provide the best, richest (in stimulation) and supportive environment within which the child can confidently grow and mature, until ready to launch out on their own. Life deals rough cards, partners die and some are wildly false to their initial presentations. So a single parent is part of life mosaics but one of regret, not as a state of normality.

Bring these two contradictory sexes together, with opposing aspirations and inner conflicts, and it is a miracle that a stable long lasting partnership could ever emerge. Yet is has because it was the requisite platform for their progeny to prosper. Perhaps the key cornerstone of this survival was sheer economic necessity. Man and woman just had to stick together because that was only way to keep a roof over their heads and food to come in to feed the family. She had to stay at home to keep his home, look after the children, so he was able to go out and get work to provide for them. Yes of course, there were many permutations, both man and woman, or only woman, or all including children had to work. Yes I know, the man seldom looked after the home or the children if the woman had to work. I am not pretending it is any form of ideal life. Just that was how it was, over the centuries.

One result of female emancipation is that they have achieved financial independence. They are not longer dependant on a male to succeed and make progress in life, they can go entirely their own way. Bravo for that. We should perhaps be surprised that it is only one in three marriages that survive. The challenges of two sexes getting to live together is so great that, without that sheer financial necessity binding them, it is a constant wonder that any at all make it. Let us not under-estimate just how difficult it is for man and woman to live together with some degree of harmony. When the woman forms her attractive and protective nest and looks for reassurance and confirmation that she has done well it is easy to understand any frustration even resentment when the males comes in and fails to acknowledge the efforts. Why should she put up with the male trashing her objectives and ignoring her needs whilst he looks for new horizons and challenges. They are poles apart in aspiration yet so need each other and should be dependant on each other when it comes to raising their children.

Convention has it that after a separation the children go with the woman. Convention, but it also acknowledges the reality that the woman gives birth to the child and only she knows with degrees of certainty who the father actually is rather than the one who believes or accepts he is the sire. On a break-up, more often than not, the woman takes the child and then society arranges that she is granted sufficient of the couples estate to bring up the child. It is a win win for the woman freed from the shackles of the male, supported and nurtured by her society. Why should she choose any other route and why should she endure the inconvenience of putting up with a male in her domain. All the incentive are currently stacked against couples staying together.

The change point was small and insignificant in practical consequences but huge in terms of the social message it sent out. The ending of the Marriage Person Tax allowance, absurd in its triviality, yet it underlined that the State now considered a married couple no different to two people living together. It normalised a growing trend. The financial implications were slight but the message was clear. Why bother to get married when there was no advantage to do so. It confirmed getting married and, even more important, staying together was no longer the norm but now for the minority. Many of those that do now marry may not be together ten years later. Serial partners for the children is now the acceptable social currency. Marriage like Divorce are just part of the tools we use to arrange our affairs.

We as a Society have to make marriage matter as that is the only acceptable stable relationship within which to bring up children. I can see no other satisfactory option. Married couples have to be given priority by the State when it comes to Tax, Housing, Retirement, in all of its dealings. Harsh yes on those that fall out of marriage but that rather is the point. It has to hurt to not succeed else it is too easy to fail. Which is not to say we as a society do not need to be doubly compassionate with those that fail through no fault of their own.

But there is the point, we as a society have to be able to know with confidence they are victims of a 'no fault'. The community have to know and share in the person misfortunes so they can agree how blameless and how much compassionate support should be offered. Single mum's had better think twice before the deed unless they can stand on the rostrum and have their cry of rape accepted by the community that it occurred in. Pregnancy is not an incidental accident, it is as the result of a choice, to have sex. There is nothing to say that if a person wishes to keep their life private they should but then they cannot seek benefit merely because it hurts as a consequence.

The child is always the victim when a parent gets it wrong. We as a society have to choose our priorities then each of us have to moderate our behaviour to fit within those priorities established. For me quite clearly parents who stay together to bring up their children is an overriding priority. We as a society have no better arrangement to ensure the best possible start off in life for our children. There are prices to be paid and we need to ensure our compassion is freely and easily available to those deserving amongst us, as long as they choose to share their troubles.

Being a child of a failed broken marriage the last thing I would advocate is a marriage kept together just for the sake of the child. It is more a matter of how we handle the inevitable breakdown of some marriages. But before that it is raising the expectations of what it means to be married and what each partner is required to endure so that it can succeed. Helped to see the strengths in the partner not just the weaknesses and having as roles models couple living together, not individuals pursuing self-satisfaction.