Timothy17

I think most people would agree the UN has lost a lot of its good reputation, hence being denied anything by or from the UN really doesn't bother people. The UN was framed with a Cold War brewing and legitimized by the threat of nuclear holocaust. Since the end of the Cold War, I think it has been trying to justify itself by picking up new causes, but in the process picked up some highly controversial ones and by further prioritizing those causes (to which for each its followers would, naturally, desire their cause to be at the top of the list) has miffed a lot of people. Humanitarian agencies and charities don't need governmental authority, so it is hard to justify the UN purely for its charitable or humanitarian pursuits, as these alone don't constitute or require governmental powers.

Sounds a lot like democracy to me

Lol, I assure you, as a devout Catholic I have never imagined that my sperm, singular or plural, is somehow sacred, nor has that ever even been implied to me by anything I have read. I have yet to see a painting of a sperm with a halo around its "head." I have, however, been taught that life is sacred.

And run of the mill people don't enable evil, either ? So, by not being part of a religion, one is suddenly incapable of enabling evil ? Though I am not sure which organization you are talking about, it is a sore point at many Canadian churches that we are forced to pay for things like abortion-on-demand ; however, at least if I found out my local Church was somehow killing people, I could stop donating money to them - I can't do the same for the government. While I admit the obvious existence of homophobia that transcends religious groupings and is part of a larger social phenomenon, please don't paint everyone with the same brush. The Church has always openly taught her reasons for her stand against homosexuality, and that has to do with her belief that it is an act being done that is contrary to nature (natural law), arising from a disordered (sexual) appetite. Nowhere is it ever permitted to "demonize" anyone, as everyone enjoys the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of life. Scientific knowledge is always "under attack." That's how it is proven and tested. You speak of scientific knowledge like some sacred relic, and later you lambast religion for thinking it's "beyond criticism." Hmm. From what ? How are they degraded ? How is the Church's love of the Ever-Virgin Mother of God, Mother of our Hope, Life, and Salvation, the Queen of Heaven, degrading of women, or in any way lead any mind to think that women are not perfectly capable of saintliness, holiness and blessedness, etc ? Or St. Joan of Arc, or Mother Theresa, or St. Gianna, ad infinitum. The example of these women have the power to redeem women in the eyes of even the most bigoted of peoples. Sending your kids to elementary school is a sure fire way to acquire and spread diseases. Ask any parent. Does that mean schools should be closed ? Never heard that one before. Seeing as just about every single religion began with one person, I am not sure how you can imagine that "the masses" are the prerequisite for religion. Tim

I wrote, "Imagining the person to exist outside or beyond society to such an extent that they can divorce themselves from it leads to a kind of misanthropy and narcissism that will only wreak havoc on that kind of genuine liberty that makes man free by making him responsible not only for himself, but also his neighbour." To which ToadBrother reponded with, I will repeat, and then add, "[...] genuine liberty that makes man free by making him responsible not only for himself, but also his neighbour." Which is the classical understanding of rights and liberties, wherein rights are also responsibilities, and those responsibilities necessarily require rights to protect their enactment and fulfillment by the person, otherwise the person cannot be legitimately at liberty if he is constrained from pursuing the duties and obligations necessary to and for his freedom. I wouldn't say the only, but yes I agree, which is why I argue the destruction of marriage by the courts is an assault in the order of tyranny, or is at least tyrannical, and ultimately undermines liberty by threatening a basic pre-requisite of and for liberty, especially when it repudiates a family, then binds a disenfranchised member of that society to its servitude, without bestowing upon him any of the rights that arise from the responsbilisities.

Firstly, Papa's scrambling for a living is on the pre-text that the economic environment he finds himself in requires such scrambling ; furthermore, the assumption papa is going to scramble in order to feed his wife, and his children, only shows that, at least in this author's mind, papa will go to lengths extreme for his family. By making the family "his," he is assured of his position in that family, and can therefore sacrifice himself so safe in the knowledge that he is not labouring in vain for his family. I am not so sure about mama running the home so papa can sit around reading, as the preceding verses lamented papa's having to "scramble for a living." That being said, I am not sure the lamented situation is improved by situating the children in two homes wherein both mama and papa must scramble for a living, with the children being tossed about or between by a court's edict. Tim

Please take note of the underlying dilemna : i) I noted how by applying divorce, marriage acquires less strength than even a simple, commercial contract, which does not admit one-sided repuditation, as that would revoke and undermine the entire point and purpose of contracts. ii) You then attempted to rescue the present marriage system by alligning it to simple contracts, which as the preceding note I made necessarily refutes, owing that there is no equivalent possibility of "divorce" in lawful contracts. The note I made in "i)" was to provoke contrast. I am at a loss to understand why you think that by proving my point (as shown in "ii), above" you have somehow weakened or neutered my original argument, which stands. I wrote, "Again, (commercial) contracts are not stipulated with oaths or vows before God," You responded, By which expression I think you mean to ask the relevance, which I had already explained when I said, "[God] even in the primitive, most neutered sense means an authority beyond reproach, even by the state." You attempted to undermine the obviousness of that fact by asserting, To which I would reply by asking how many marriages occur without any reference to God at all. I imagine, but admittedly cannot prove, that of such marriages the majority of even that number are, I bet, re-marriages. Up until quite recently each session of Parliament in Ontario was opened with an observance of prayer, which instantly repudiates your statement ; furthermore, witness any crowning of Royalty in living memory, including our own Queen's, and you will witness a stately religious observance. Even in the United States, each President is made to swear upon a Bible, which is a very simple religious ceremony. Therefore, your point is simply non-existent in reality. Now this is almost comical because common-law exists exactly because it is old. Common Law is the unwritten codification of long-standing rulings and maxims of law that are taken for granted in English speaking nations. The Maxims of Law are themselves from common law, and these maxims are absolutely essential in common-law countries and absolutely beneficial to liberty. One maxim of common law, for example, is "Marriage ought to be free," and the realization of that in one way is common-law marriage, wherein the benefit of the doubt is rendered to a couple and they obtain marriage without necessitating spending money for some public observance thereof. Please see common law above. You at once lambast common law as being "old," then use one of its maxims, that is of common law marriage not requiring a religious ceremony, to prove this pointless assertion. What does my thinking here matter ? It is you, not I, who does not believe in the possible existence of a higher power. What follows from that is your business, not mine, and randomly including it here changes nothing. I quite agree. A charge I believe you are also guilty of. I am dealing with this one. I am arguing the benefits and merits of patriarchies. I have to argue their necessity because, again, patriarchy is a social and legal contstuct ; that is, it requires civilization and also fosters it, which is my underlying point throughout. The de-construction of patriarchy, and the aggressive licenses permitted by the courts that make patriarchy perpetually precarious is a problem, which I have demonstrated with an abundance of evidence in previous posts. I am enamoured with history and Rome's especially. Exactly. I earlier explained how, as more and more plebs adopted by immitation and example the patrician system of patriarchal organization that their monopoly on governance lost its original merit and pretext. It was growing into an oligarchy ; furthermore, the patrcicians abused their wealth and the plebs, especially in loans that impoverished the plebs and forced them into a perpetual servitude, and exasperated their ability to found their own patriarchies and benefit from it from a generational transference of wealth point of view. There is more to it, and is in fact exactly as I have always been saying. Tim

The reduction of marriage to equivicol comparison of commercial contract is itself emblematic of the disembowling of marriage. Again, (commercial) contracts are not stipulated with oaths or vows before God, which even in the primitive, most neutered sense means an authority beyond reproach, even by the state. Contracts may invoke the state, which automatically subjects them to temporal changes by anchoring them to an admittedly and universally understood changeable system, but everyone knows God does not and cannot change, which is why even "purely" secular persons will and would invoke that name in marriage without offending their particular sense or notions of God. Marriage, by its very nature, desires and seeks public approval - not for the idea of marriage itself but as a deeply-rooted understanding that the love which binds the two is authentically good beyond reproach. No one fears that the unifying love making the marriage happen would subject them to persecution or criticism, hence the desire that marriage is to be openly and publicly recognized and celebrated. The honking of horns by motorists as the newly-wed's limo passes demonstrates this - the public nature of the union shows what is at the root idea of marriage. It is exaclty because marriage demonstrates a unifying, intrinsically good love that begets respect and reward by all civilized peoples that makes it as a foundational stone for all civilized societies. It demonstrates the underlying desire for humanity's unity and reconciliation, reinforcing the very ideas of nationhood (or state-hood) as a practical and possible truth. It means we can belong to one another. If my sister were to marry, I am obliged by the highest tangible and visible authority (the state) to recognize her husband and all his relatives as my own family. The addition of "brother-in-law" is at once an encouragement to embrace a brother who before was a stranger, and the addition of "in-law" includes a threat to behave thusly. Yes, a threat, because - as everyone knows - the law is always serious. When someone tells me "it's the law," there is underlying that statement also a threat to conform or at least respect it lest I beget danger to my person. The disembowling of marriage under the auspices of personal or individual liberty threatens what is ultimately at the root and core of realized civilization. Imagining the person to exist outside or beyond society to such an extent that they can divorce themselves from it leads to a kind of misanthropy and narcissism that will only wreak havoc on that kind of genuine liberty that makes man free by making him responsible not only for himself, but also his neighbour. If we can divorce ourselves from personal responsibility we can divorce ourselves from society and the litany of responsibilities it imposes upon us. Divorce becomes the state-sanctioned flag of the rebel and revolutionary, who claiming personal liberty pre-supposes that he is not under obligation to any, and thus imagines that social and legal obligations are intrinsically tyrannical, rather than being props for his or her liberty. It is this bastardization of liberty into license that breaks, rather than unites, civilized society, and genuine "progress" cannot happen in a civilization where liberty becomes an injustice, a tyranny. This poisoning of the well, as it were, will make sick all who drink from it. Allow me to finish by saying that the repudiation of marriage by society or the state is a repudiation of itself, and hence why I think, and therefore openly state, that our society has adopted a kind of misanthropy that threatens and even hates its very own existence. I believe the rise of the Patriarchs in Rome, and their acquisition of power and rule over their neighbours, the plebs, is directly due to the fact that the former were a realization of society, and of civilization, and the latter had no ability to prevent such formation, and no logical reason to prevent it, as the fruits of that civilization were always enjoyed by them as benefits. To imagine that the repudiation of civilization at its root and core is a form of progress is only to pave and make way for a new society, and a genuine revolution, one in which the plebs once again become subject to the patriarchs, even though they may instrinsically hate or dislike those patriarchs for reasons quite beyond their ability of description ; that is, illogical ones, and ones of ultimately what is envy or jealousy. Tim

I believe you correctly diagnosed an underlying difficulty that has manifested in the discussion, namely, the personal view (especially my own) being applied, whereas exactly what patriarchy was or is, as you bear witness, is something handed down - taught or learned, even. I therefore believe patriarchy is something that can adapt and be molded, and when I said "new" patriarchy, I meant it in the sense of a patriarchal system that would serve present society. Clearly from the thread, there are aspects of historical manifestations of patriarchy that we would simply never agree with. Now, the chief opponent idea I have seen raised is "individual" or "personal liberty." I must state that this discussion might at this point require a change of topic, in order to return or continue, because I think what constitutes "personal liberty" in the modern sense may actually be defective ; that is, it veils or masks what is in reality individual or personal license, which is not only contrary to liberty, but jeopardizes its actualization. Pre-supposing the very idea of divorce, or no-fault divorce, is that the vows taken 1)can be repudiated, even though the very vows themselves confess to never be liable to such, save for by death, and 2) that an individual's desire to be dispensed with responsibility or consequences can be realistically or safely condoned and actuated by the state. Imagine if we allowed the same, modern ideas of divorce to enter into commerical contract law. Imagine the shock of people repudiating their contracts simply because they were not happy with it - regardless of whether terms and conditions were met, or services were provided. Any right-minded person would hurl a long litany of socially acceptable slurs, insults, etc., at a person trying to repudiate their word in contract simply because they didn't want to anymore. I once had a recent experience at a movie theatre where the theatre was advertising a deal wherein for $8.00 I could get a large popcorn, large soft drink and "free" candy. I paid the eight dollars, and then was given the popcorn, and the large soft drink. I asked for the candy, and was told there was no candy left. I asked why this wasn't noted to me before purchase, and why they were still advertising for something they could not deliver. A shrug was the response. I asked for a refund or something to replace the candy that was conditional upon the deal itself, and at this point the supervisor stepped in and told me he would give me a refund, but if I wanted to pay for the popcorn and pop, it would cost a little more than eight dollars as per standard charge ; otherwise, I would have to just "deal with it," meaning take the popcorn and pop and pretend the candy never existed in the first place. It's at junctions like the aforementioned where someone's individual or personal liberty is threatened to satisfy someone else's sense of license. I was cheated, and furthermore, my complaining of this resulted in my being treated as if I were at fault and to blame. The arrogance, and complete break with traditional or conventional customer service left me totally stunned. The mentality of the movie theatre employees, I think we can all agree, is not conforming with our notions of what liberty means. We never employ liberty at the expense of justice, and usually, rights and liberties are in keeping with justice, and are balanced in the community of persons : one person's rights or liberties do not deprive or undermine another's, but rather balance or even serve or sustain them. Now, naturally, if the theatre-employees conception of individual liberty were to be granted the seal of approval by the state, I think we would all become alarmed at the prospect of being cheated perpetually in our dealings. Now many people would simply refuse to condone such behaviour, and themselves choose to be honourable in their dealings, even if it means missing opportunities for easy gratification or profit or sometimes being forced to suffer loss in keeping with the person's sense of honour or fairness, as obviously this person can have no guarantee that any other truly shares his convictions. By and large, though, the dog-eat-dot mentality would likely encourage, at least from time to time, for people to cheat others, and we can imagine that very quickly cheating and false advertising, etc., would become rampant, even acceptable to some extent. I think the explosion in divorce rates in such a swift period of time lends itself to the admittance of an injustice at most, or a license at least, into the "marriage system," and this deep-seeded error is therefore undermining that system. That the vows given could ever be repudiated by anyone was a revolution in society, that this could be done with relative ease was yet another ; in fact, I venture to say that what we now have is an anti-marriage system that merely masquerades as true marriage. I believe society has retained a deep-rooted respect for marriage, handed down by and through culture and generations, but in practice or effect most do not want it, but only the semblance of it, and the deep-rooted respect it begets. The final casualty in this trend will be the respect for marriage that makes it appealing ; in fact, I believe we can expect marriage itself to be more and more openly mocked and ridiculed, privately and publicly. What I fear we are heading towards is the necessity for the creation of another kind of "marriage" by the state, which would in fact only be the recognition of a genuinely different kind of marriage, one that does not permit the injustices or licenses accepted in the present system, and the simple rational for this recognition will be exactly to stabilize the overall marriage system, with the added incentive of the stability traditional marriages, homes, and families bring to society - not the least as a stable tax base. There is I think too fundamental a difference forming between the traditional notions of marriage and the current laissez-faire form. I have gone on too long for one post, so I will let that drop fall in the pond and see how calm - or not at all calm - the ripples are

I strongly recommend you read the sources I cited in light of your statement. It's exactly because males who grow up virtually or entirely fatherless tend to have serious issues. You are recommending, and in fact virtually giving your seal of approval, by imagining that there is something seriously wrong with me. Though frankly this alienation at present is disheartening, no one has to worry about me committing crime or ever harming anyone. I also ask you to be more charitable. You seem to have adopted a view that I harbour some sexist fallacy. To every lady on these forums, my sincere apologies if I have come across as anything such. Violence is utterly, and uncondtionally, despicable. I would like to point out, however, that there is no worse insult or insinuation than to claim someone is a nutter, or a kook, or what have you in a debate. I agree with your previous advisement about Family Law, and the need for greater scrutiny about a father's rights as being a good starting point. I also propose that the weight of evidence I have given, and could provide more of, demonstrates at least that divorce has extremely adverse and dangerous effects, manifested in the children of such divorces who are far more likely to themselves become alienated from society due to anti-social behaviour. I assert that it is a serious problem, and one that deserves the careful attention of Canadians. Certainly at least the innocent victims of these children of broken homes deserve some investigation into the possibility that their lives were deprived them or at least adversely affected due to a consequence of present state and social policy. Tim

Is there any reason why the reasons would change ? These sources are not just from the 80's, it spans back almost 40 years, and in each case the researches felt obliged to connect the criminal or problematic social behaviour with the single-parent household or absence of a father figure. Please note the re-occuring theme of "cross-cultural," and independence of ethnic or any other factors : this is a very universally human phenomenon. More modern examples of the same thing : consider Tupac Amaru Shakur (90s) or Marshall Mathers (present day). The exact same mentality and serious masculinity issues result, and both resulted from families where the father is absolutely absent. From my own personal experience with my friends, the lack of a dad typically has very serious consequences on sons, especially in role and masculinity issues. I may be kooky, but I sure hope you realized that at the root of my kookiness is a genuine, very humanitarian concern. Perhaps a new partiarchy, or any system of social arrangment that doesn't fail kids, but for all my knowing I defaulted to the only known example that systematically does not produce these effects by supplying what was missing : the father, of which the documents I cited demonstrably prove to be a very real problem when he's missing.

CRIME AND DELINQUENCY: Ramsey Clark, Crime in America (New York: Pocket Books, 1970), p. 39: "In federal youth centers nearly all prisoners were convicted of crimes that occurred after the offender dropped out of high school. Three-fourths came from broken homes." Ibid. p. 123: "Seventy-five per cent of all federal juvenile offenders come from broken homes." I told you I had a strong bias in the first post. It was when I started to be called a kook that I developed an overly reactionary stance, mind you, that often happens in isolation and embattlement. Let me state now that I do apologize for my uncharitable behaviour, though I do believe I have provided many merits for the patriarchal system. Tim

Meet tomorrow's everyone else : Patricia Cohen and Judith Brook, "Family Factors Related to the Persistence of Psychopathology in Childhood and Adolescence," Psychiatry, Vol. 50, Nov., l987, p. 344: "One-parent families and families with multiple marital disruptions are apparently unable to mount effective means of counteracting pathological reactions that have developed in their children." Barry Siegel, Los Angeles Times, 3 Nov., l985: "Most of the young convicts' stories, full of parents who ran off and unguided lives on the streets, evoke pity. Most of their deeds, full of rapes and beatings and murders, evoke horror." Ross L. Matsueda and Karen Heimer, "Race, Family Structure, and Delinquency: A Test of Differential Association and Social Control Theories," American Sociological Review, 52 [Dec., l987], 826-40; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, March, l988: "Teenagers from broken homes are much more likely to become delinquents than are teens from intact families, particularly if they are black....Given the family roots of black delinquency, the authors of this new study find it 'not surprising that simplistic policies of rehabilitation and deterrence have failed to stem the tide of rising rates of delinquency.'" Phyllis Chesler, Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1986), p. 291: "Who are the women in prison?...More than half are single mothers living on welfare." Bill Hazlett and David Shaw, Los Angeles Times, 31 December, l972, citing the views of Dr. Chaytor Mason, clinical psychologist at USC: "But many mothers just can't cope with growing boys alone--especially not with growing boys who are already frustrated by the uncertainty of their own masculinity. The boys misbehave, and the mother tells them how bad they are, and the boys, in effect, tell themselves, 'If I'm going to be bad, at least I'm going to be good at it.'" Tamara Jones, Los Angeles Times, 19 December, 1988: "Favoring shaved heads and crisp, military-style clothing, skinheads are thought to have doubled their ranks over the last nine months alone to claim an estimated 2,000 to 3,500 hard core members nationwide. Some even carry business cards with their particular gang's name, post office box number and racist motto.... "'What you have here is not the last, dying remnants of an old problem' says Lenny Ziskind of the Center for Democratic Renewal. 'What we have here is just the embryo of a future problem.'... "[Eric Anderson, a Yakima, Wash., anthropologist] described the skinheads as ranging from 14 to 27, from largely middle-class neighborhoods and broken, unstable families. "'Most are dumber than bricks, but some are real sharp," Anderson said. 'They're openly trying to recruit all the time, and oftentimes it's runaway kids or punks who are looking for some family unit." Gary Bauer, "Report to the President from the White House Working Group on the Family," quoted in Phyllis Schlafly Report, February, l988: "A study by Stanford University's Center of the Study of Youth Development in l985 indicated that children in single-parent families headed by mothers have higher arrest rates, more disciplinary problems in school, and a greater tendency to smoke and run away from home than do their peers who live with both natural parents--no matter what their income, race, or ethnicity." Margaret Cambric, Executive Director, Jenesse Center, Los Angeles, quoted in Los Angeles Times, 27 February, 1988: "When you're dealing with gang activity, you're dealing with the family structure. People don't tend to see it that way....All of it is domestic violence....gang violence stems from the home."

Meet tomorrow's everyone else : Patricia Cohen and Judith Brook, "Family Factors Related to the Persistence of Psychopathology in Childhood and Adolescence," Psychiatry, Vol. 50, Nov., l987, p. 344: "One-parent families and families with multiple marital disruptions are apparently unable to mount effective means of counteracting pathological reactions that have developed in their children." Barry Siegel, Los Angeles Times, 3 Nov., l985: "Most of the young convicts' stories, full of parents who ran off and unguided lives on the streets, evoke pity. Most of their deeds, full of rapes and beatings and murders, evoke horror." Ross L. Matsueda and Karen Heimer, "Race, Family Structure, and Delinquency: A Test of Differential Association and Social Control Theories," American Sociological Review, 52 [Dec., l987], 826-40; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, March, l988: "Teenagers from broken homes are much more likely to become delinquents than are teens from intact families, particularly if they are black....Given the family roots of black delinquency, the authors of this new study find it 'not surprising that simplistic policies of rehabilitation and deterrence have failed to stem the tide of rising rates of delinquency.'" Phyllis Chesler, Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1986), p. 291: "Who are the women in prison?...More than half are single mothers living on welfare." Bill Hazlett and David Shaw, Los Angeles Times, 31 December, l972, citing the views of Dr. Chaytor Mason, clinical psychologist at USC: "But many mothers just can't cope with growing boys alone--especially not with growing boys who are already frustrated by the uncertainty of their own masculinity. The boys misbehave, and the mother tells them how bad they are, and the boys, in effect, tell themselves, 'If I'm going to be bad, at least I'm going to be good at it.'" Tamara Jones, Los Angeles Times, 19 December, 1988: "Favoring shaved heads and crisp, military-style clothing, skinheads are thought to have doubled their ranks over the last nine months alone to claim an estimated 2,000 to 3,500 hard core members nationwide. Some even carry business cards with their particular gang's name, post office box number and racist motto.... "'What you have here is not the last, dying remnants of an old problem' says Lenny Ziskind of the Center for Democratic Renewal. 'What we have here is just the embryo of a future problem.'... "[Eric Anderson, a Yakima, Wash., anthropologist] described the skinheads as ranging from 14 to 27, from largely middle-class neighborhoods and broken, unstable families. "'Most are dumber than bricks, but some are real sharp," Anderson said. 'They're openly trying to recruit all the time, and oftentimes it's runaway kids or punks who are looking for some family unit." Gary Bauer, "Report to the President from the White House Working Group on the Family," quoted in Phyllis Schlafly Report, February, l988: "A study by Stanford University's Center of the Study of Youth Development in l985 indicated that children in single-parent families headed by mothers have higher arrest rates, more disciplinary problems in school, and a greater tendency to smoke and run away from home than do their peers who live with both natural parents--no matter what their income, race, or ethnicity." Margaret Cambric, Executive Director, Jenesse Center, Los Angeles, quoted in Los Angeles Times, 27 February, 1988: "When you're dealing with gang activity, you're dealing with the family structure. People don't tend to see it that way....All of it is domestic violence....gang violence stems from the home."

Ibid., p. 66: "Juvenile delinquency can have many different etiologies, but paternal deprivation is a frequent contributing factor. Many researchers have noted that father-absence is more common among delinquent boys than among nondelinquent boys. Studying adolescents, Glueck and Glueck [unravelling Juvenile Delinquency, l950] reported that more than two-fifths of the delinquent boys were father-absent as compared with less than one- fourth of a matched nondelinquent group. McCord, McCord, and Thurber ["Some Effects of Paternal Absence on Male Children," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, l962, 64, 361-369] found that the lower-class father-absent boys in their study committed more felonies than did the father-present group, although the rates of gang delinquency were not different. Gregory [i. Gregory, "Anterospective Data Following Child Loss of a Parent: I. Delinquency and High School Dropout," Archives of General Psychiatry, l965, l3, 99-l09] referred to a large number of investigations linking father-absence with delinquent behavior and also detected a strong association between these variables in his study of high school students. "Siegman [A. W., "Father-Absence During Childhood and Antisocial Behavior," Journal of Abnormal Psychology, l966, 254, 71-74] analyzed medical students' responses to a questionnaire concerning their childhood experiences. he compared the responses of students who had been without a father for at least one year during their first four years of life, with those of students who had been continuously father-present. The father absent group admitted to a greater degree of antisocial behavior during childhood. Other researchers relying on self-report procedures have also reported that individuals from fatherless families are more likely to engage in delinquent behavior [F. I. Nye, Family Relationships and Delinquent Behavior, New York: Wiley, l958; W. L. Slocum and C. L. Stone, "Family Culture Patterns and Delinquent Type Behavior," Marriage and Family Living, l963, 25, 202-8]. Anderson [L. M., "Personality Characteristics of Parents of Neurotic, Aggressive, and Normal Preadolescent Boys, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, l969, 33, 575-81] found that a history of paternal-absence was much more frequent among boys committed to a training school. He discovered that father-absent nondelinquents had a much higher rate of father-substitution (stepfather, father-surrogate, etc.) between the ages of four to seven than did father-absent delinquents. "Miller [W. B., "Lower-Class Culture as a Generating Milieu of Gang Delinquency," Journal of Social Issues,, l958, l4, 5-19] argued that most lower-class boys suffer from paternal deprivation and that their antisocial behavior is often an attempt to prove that they are masculine. Bacon, Child and Barry [bacon, M. K., Child, I. L. and Barry, H. III, "A Cross-Cultural Study of Correlates of Crime," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, l963, 66, 291-300], in a cross-cultural study, found that father availability was negatively related to the amount of theft and personal crime. Degree of father availability was defined in terms of family structure. Societies with a predominantly monogamous nuclear family structure tended to be rated low in the amount of theft and personal crime, whereas societies with a polygamous mother-child family structure tended to be rated high in both theft and personal crime. Following Miller's hypothesis, Bacon, Child and Barry suggested that such antisocial behavior was a reaction against a female-based household and an attempted assertion of masculinity. A large number of psychiatric referrals with the complaint of aggressive acting-out are made by mothers of preadolescent and adolescent father-absent boys and clinical data suggest that sex-role conflicts are frequent in such boys." Harvey Kaye, Male Survival (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1974), p. 155: "Facing economic hardship and a much higher problem of a broken home, brittle family relationships, and an absentee father, the mere struggle for existence becomes a major preoccupation, and the niceties of psychological development may become negligible or coarsened in the process. Growing up deprived also often means growing up with little impulse control. Since the capacity to internalize one's impulses is a prerequisite for progress, handicaps mount. Fragmented families frequently germinate rage-filled children; and rage plus poor impulse control equals confrontation with the law. A sorry case, calling for any bright innovations which a boy's nimble brain can devise." Would you like the remaining 80% of the numbers ?

Ibid., p. 92: "In attempting to explain why Warren committed the murders, the psychiatrist pointed to his background, making the following observations: "1. Warren grew up in a home where women were in control and men were denigrated. "2. Warren's traumatic victimization at age twelve by two older girls served to confirm his picture of the world. "3. Warren's marriage to a woman with four children demonstrates his tendency to empathize more with children than adults and his feelings about mother figures. "4. The timing of the murders indicated a rekindling of Warren's own childhood fears as a result of the events of pregnancy and childbirth; thus, he perceived it necessary to destroy these women in order to prevent his own destruction. "5. The mutilation of his victims was an attempt to remove gender identification from his victims and render them nonfemale." Douglas A. Smith and G. Roger Jarjoura, "Social Structure and Criminal Victimization," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 25 [Feb., l988], 27-52; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, June, l988: "Criminologists have long used race and poverty as key variables for explaining crime rates. However, researchers at the University of Maryland find that when differences in family structure are taken into account, crime rates run much the same in rich and poor neighborhoods and among black, white, and Hispanic populations. In their study of over ll,000 urban residents of Florida, upstate New York, and Missouri, Professors Douglas A. Smith and G. Roger Jarjoura found that 'the percentage of single-parent households with children between the ages of 12 and 20 is significantly associated with rates of violent crime and burglary.' The UM team points out that 'many studies that find a significant association between racial composition and crime rates have failed to control for community family structure and may mistakenly attribute to racial composition an effect that is actually due to the association between race and family structure.' Drs. Smith and Jarjoura likewise criticize theories that attribute crime to poverty since when family structure is taken into account, 'the effect of poverty on burglary rates becomes insignificant and slightly negative.' "This new study should dispel illusions about curing the social effects of casual divorce and rampant illegitimacy through government programs that merely alleviate poverty or reduce racial prejudice." Dr. Lee Salk, What Every Child Would Like His Parents To Know, cited in Doug Spangler, "The Crucial Years for Father and Child," American Baby, June, l979: "Research conducted on children whose fathers were away in the military service revealed that...boys whose fathers were absent during the first year of life, seemed to have had more behavior difficulties than would normally have been expected. They seem to have had more trouble establishing and keeping good relationships, not only with adults but with other children. Other studies showed a reasonably close relationship between delinquent behavior in boys and the absence of an adequate father (male) figure during childhood." Henry Biller, Father, Child and Sex Role (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1971), p. 1: "Much of the current interest in the father's role seems to have been intensified by the growing awareness of the prevalence of fatherless families and the social, economic and psychological problems that such families often encounter. The fatherless family is a source of increasing concern in many industrialized countries." Ibid., p. 39: "Bacon, Child, and Barry [bacon, M. K., Child, I. L. and Barry, H. III, "A Cross-Cultural Study of Correlates of Crime," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, l963, 66, 291- 300] discovered that societies with relatively low father availability have a higher rate of crime than do societies in which the father is relatively available. Stephens' data [stephens, W. N. "Judgments by Social Workers on Boys and Mothers in Fatherless Families," Journal of Genetic Psychology, l96l, 99, 59-64] suggest that intense, restrictive mother-child relationships are more likely to occur in societies in which there is relatively low father availability in childhood. Close binding mother-child relationships appear to be negatively related to sexual adjustment in adulthood."

Los Angeles Times, l9 September, l988: "In a grim portrait of youthful offenders, a federal study released Sunday indicated that nearly 39% of the l8,226 juveniles in long-term youth correctional institutions were jailed for violent crimes, and that nearly three out of five used drugs regularly....[According to Steven R. Schlesinger, director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics] 'Almost 43% of the juveniles had been arrested more than five times.'...Researchers found that many of the young adult offenders had criminal histories that were just as extensive as those of adults in state prisons. For example, more than half of the young adults surveyed--as well as a comparable sample of state prisoners- -were found to be incarcerated for violent offenses....The report also painted a picture of broken homes and poor education: Nearly 72% of the juveniles interviewed said that they had not grown up with both parents, and more than half said that one of their family members had been imprisoned at least once." Richard M. Smith and James Walters, "Delinquent and Non- Delinquent Males' Perceptions of Their Fathers." Adolescence, 13, 1978, 21-28: "The factors which do distinguish between delinquents and non-delinquents indicate that delinquency is associated with: (a) lack of a warm, loving, supportive relationship with the father; ( minimal paternal involvement with children; © high maternal involvement in the lives of youth; and (d) broken homes. The factors which may serve to insulate youth from delinquency are: (a) a stable, unbroken home, characterized by loving, supportive, parent-child relationships; ( a father who has a high degree of positive involvement with his son; and © a father who provides a stable model for emulation by his male offspring. The evidence reported herein supports that of earlier investigations that fathers appear to be significant contributors to the development of offspring who are capable of adapting and adjusting to society, and that fathers who are involved with their offspring in a warm, friendly, cordial relationship are important in the child's life for the prevention of delinquent behavior." Los Angeles Times, 3 November, 1985 [Ronald Ward, 15, murderer of two elderly women and a 12 year old child. According to Joseph B. Brown, Jr., Ward's attorney]: "'The hardest thing in this case was that my client's a child and really had no controlling parents. The grandmother who raised him is senile, bless her soul. People oppose abortion and sex education, make no provision to deal with the resulting parentless children, then when these children go ahead and do what can be expected, people want to kill them.'...David Burnett, the circuit judge who presided at the trial, said: 'The tragedy in the Ronald Ward story is he's a victim of a society that allowed him to live in a situation where he had no guidance or control.... "[The senile grandmother's] unmarried daughter, she said, gave her the baby in late 1969, soon after he was born. The daughter 'used to come around once every two years, but then it got to a place where it was only every four or five years.' She hasn't heard from her now in years." Marilyn Stern, John E. Northman, and Michael R. Van Slyck, "Father Absence and Adolescent 'Problem Behaviors': Alcohol Consumption, Drug Use and Sexual Activity." Adolescence, 19, 1984, 301-312: "The absence of the father from the home affects significantly the behavior of adolescents, and results in greater use of alcohol and marijuana and higher rates of sexual activity. The impact of the father's absence from the home is apparently greater on males than on females. The alcohol and marijuana use and sexual activity rates for father-absent males is greater than for any other group. The data underscore the significance of the father as a key figure in the transmission of values and as a role model in the life of the adolescent. In addition, the father may have a stabilizing influence within the family structure....This suggests that the father's presence may serve as a deterrent to more liberal indulgence in alcohol and marijuana use and sexual activity....Father-absent males reported the highest levels of alcohol and marijuana use the sexual activity. This group of adolescents appears to be particularly at-risk for problems associated with the three areas of alcohol, marijuana and sexual activity." Rachelle J. Canter, "Family Correlates of Male and Female Delinquency," Criminology, 20, 1982, 149-167: "Consistent with earlier research, youths from broken homes reported significantly more delinquent behavior than youths from intact homes." Robert K. Ressler, Ann W. Burgess and John E. Douglas, Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives (Lexington, Massachusetts: D. C. Heath and Company, 1988), pp. 20f.: "n seventeen cases [out of 36 sexual murders] the biological father left home before the boy reached twelve years. The absence was due to a variety of reasons, such as death or incarceration, but most often the reason was separation and divorce....Given the departure of the father from the family, it is not surprising that the dominant parent to the offender during childhood and adolescence was the mother (for twenty-one cases). Some of the offenders were able to speculate on the meaning this had in their lives, as in the following case: The breakup of the family started progressing into something I just didn't understand. I always thought families should always be together. I think that was part of the downfall...I said whether I did anything good or bad. They left that totally up to my mom. We'd go out on boats and cycle riding and stuff like that, but when it came down to the serious aspects of parent-child relationship, never anything there from the male side...My brother was eighteen and moved in with my real dad. I was ten and stayed with my mother. "Only nine murderers said the father was the dominant parent, and two said both parents had shared the parenting role....The low level of attachment among family members is indicated by the murderers' evaluations of the emotional quality of their family relationships. Perhaps the most interesting result was that most offenders said that they did not have a satisfactory relationship with the father and that the relationship with the mother was highly ambivalent in emotional quality."

CRIME AND DELINQUENCY: Ramsey Clark, Crime in America (New York: Pocket Books, 1970), p. 39: "In federal youth centers nearly all prisoners were convicted of crimes that occurred after the offender dropped out of high school. Three-fourths came from broken homes." Ibid. p. 123: "Seventy-five per cent of all federal juvenile offenders come from broken homes." Margaret Wynn, Fatherless Families: A Study of Families Deprived of a Father by Death, Divorce, Separation or Desertion Before or After Marriage (New York: London and Maxwell, 1964), p. 147: "The loss of a father increases the risk that a child, and particularly a boy, will become a delinquent by a factor of approximately two." Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: W. W. Norton, 1963), p. 196: "A famous study in Chicago which had seemed to show more mothers of delinquents were working outside the home, turned out to show only that more delinquents come from broken homes." Education Reporter, December, l986: "A study by Stanford University's Center for the Study of Youth Development in l985 indicated that children in single-parent families headed by a mother have higher arrest rates, more disciplinary problems in school, and a greater tendency to smoke and run away from home than do their peers who live with both natural parents--no matter what their income, race, or ethnicity." Starke Hathaway and Elio Monachesi, Adolescent Personality and Behavior (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1963), p. 81: "Broken homes do relate to the frequency of delinquency. Further, if a home is broken, a child living with the mother is more likely to be delinquent than one for whom other arrangements are made. In the case of girls, even living with neither parent is less related to higher delinquency than is living with the mother." Henry B. Biller, Father, Child and Sex Role (Lexington, Massachusetts: D. C. Heath and Company, 1971), p. 49: "It is interesting to note that the Gluecks found that both father-absence and mesomorphic physiques were more frequent among delinquents than among nondelinquents [Glueck. S. and Glueck, E., Unravelling Juvenile Delinquency. New York: Commonwealth Fund, l950; Physique and Delinquency, New York: Harper and Row, l956]. Dewey G. Cornell, et al., "Characteristics of Adolescents Charged With Homicide: Review of 72 Cases," Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 5, No. 1 [l987], 11-23; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, March, l988: "In a new study of 72 adolescent murderers and 35 adolescent thieves, researchers from Michigan State University demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of teenage criminals live with only one parent. Fully 75 percent of those charged with homicide had parents who were either divorced or had never been married at all; that number rises to 82 percent of those charged with nonviolent larceny offenses."

If the democratization of the family results in 50% of them being torn asunder, I worry about the consequences for democratic societies, but seeing as the two are not analogous (families and democracies), I will respectfully refuse to engage in such a paradox.

Neither the argument for abolition or woman's suffrage revolved around numbers, but personal tradgedies. That exact same demand could have as easily and equally been used as a reason to deter dicussion of abolition and women's suffrage, and there - and yes, you are right - I prefer to be the kook with a personal tradgedy to tell. Tim

Define demonstrably. From my family experience, demonstrably easily passes into the realm of preference and opinion. I submit in the patriarchal system the "head of the family," at a minimum, must have final arbiting and decision making powers, for reasons arising from the reality of any social unit. I postulated that the head of family status had some purpose in the courts : I never stated it as if it were a known fact. I admit I am at a loss to understand all the faculties or rights that might belong to the "head of household," term, being as I am a modern young man and have never been exposed to what this might entail or mean. Can a family be said to be unified when it no longer exists ? "...a judicial declaration dissolving a marriage... especially all matrimonial obligations." I can but only ask the reader to muse over the full implications of that. Tim

Yes, I do oppose matriarchy in its known extreme, but in matriarchal societies there is no reason for a head of family status, because the family as we recognize it simply does not exist. Matriarchal societies supplant the exclusivity principle with the promiscuity principle, which prevents a patrilineal ordering of society. I should also note that the matriarchies the West was exposed to during the Age of Exploration had a distinctive characteristic of polygamy, too, while in other cases the men were, as I have reported earlier, little more than peripheral studs. In some African societies to this day it is often complained that women do all the hard work : because the men are lazing around and socializing and not accomplishing much of anything. What won't be reported along with that tragic tale is that these societies are, in fact, matriarchal, and the men have no reason to work. Matriarchy impoverishes both men and women. Firstly, I think we have split hairs. I never conceded in my argument that there is any reason the husband must, by default, be the head of the family in decision making purposes, or even in terms of legal purposes. I cannot imagine why this would be necessary. I do, however, concede that reality - that is, nature - dictates that in any organized social unit, whether large or small, someone must ultimately make the decisions to prevent stagnation. Again, I never produced such an argument. I conceded that for reasons beyond my understanding this was necessarily included as a practical requirement of patriarchy. I afforded the only thing I could think of that made this so : a reference to the Christian scriptures. I would also deprive the father of a "right to rebel," by establishing a new family. The "right to rebel," in the context of family, is simply a veiled right to abandon or deprive in one fashion or another. The central point here is the unity and solidarity of the family - not a game of who is right and wrong, or a fettish over decision making power. In my view and belief, and from everything I have read, the patriarchal model places children as the ultimate benefactors of the family. It's the children's needs, ultimately, that regulate and orient the policy of the family, be it mom or dad's idea or decision ; however, the children's rights to have both Mom and Dad in the family are considered inalienable, except in those situations where either Mom or Dad become something that alienates the welfare or interests of the children. Tim

I think a system that has a 50%+ divorce rate fails. I am curious : do you honestly believe women are forced to the altar, and marry only for reasons of compulsion ? And if so compelled, how come did the partiarchal system include the possibility of annulment specifically for reasons of such compulsion ? Lastly, the third option - the option of legal seperation - yet remained, and I can think of no reason on earth either annulment or seperation would be discarded in even a modern patriarchal system, or what modern society would for a moment hesitate to permit especially the latter in cases of abuse. Patriarchy, as I understand it, has always been a societal option, available for both men and women to participate in. The State recognized the societal benefits to civilization that the Patriarchal system manifestly created, not the least benefit is the inclusion of men in the reproductive order that gave him reason and incentive to be responsible, productive, law-abiding members of society. The Libertine is hardly a man who inspires confidence in society : the family man is. Family law has nothing to do with partiarchies ? We have both at one point or another conceded that patriarchies by default require legal props, and you want me to believe that the deprivation of those props has no consequence in a topic about patriarchal societies ? I am forced to but sigh at the impossible situation you hope to place me in. That is a good question : how many cases does it happen in ? How many is too many ? How many situations of our legal system in a free society rob and then yoke one of its citizens to others it has just permanently and officially estranged from him ? Is this precedence or occurence any better than the alternative ? I could cite the fact that as of 1991, 75% of the inmates of the United States shared one thing in common : they came from single parent families, which at that time constituted something like a quarter of the population. So one in four families had the curious distinction of producing three out of four delinquents. If that's not manifestly evidential proof of something being very, very wrong with that situation, I am not sure what indices we ought to use. My father. That's meaningful enough to me, as it is and will be increasingly with other and increased numbers of children who are deprived of their homes and families and exposed to all the hazards that Mom or Dad shopping for a new mom and dad go with it. Tim

I am sorry, but I have earlier conceded that the granting of "head of family" status on men seems to have no other reason than a reference to Christian scriptures. I absolutely do not believe that in the event of a disagreement the wife, by default, is wrong. Truth is the truth, and correct is correct, regardless of its source. Children may very well be right or correct in their protests, for example, but we don't thus warrant their disobedience at home or in school on account of it. We are beginning to stumble onto the ground and rational for the existence of authority. You or I may disagree with what Stephen Harper says or does, but we never inherit a right outside of the law to rebel and establish our own countries.

Yes, but the destruction of patriarchy was effected by the state, principally in legalization of divorce, then further by ensuring such things as alimony and child-support payments. Anyone who has been through a difficult divorce will confess to you that the State is never more involved in the personal lives of its citizens than in issues dealing with the break-up of the family. Yes, I have confessed that candidly because the males in society do not have the necessary biological props that guarantee their involvement in the family ; further, the self-denial and sacrifice expected of fathers in the traditional home requires a socialization to that effect, and legal system that enforces the responsibilities. If individual liberty, as you define it, reigns supreme, than by logical extension men would not be bound at all to their families, and could easily justify withdrawing child-support under the guise of their "individual liberty." Now, especially in the event of divorce, with the legal bias to bestow children on the mothers, what reason does the man have to continue his support of his family, if quite likely his role is threatened to be replaced by surrogate fathers or any person - if any at all - that Mom sees fit ? When the courts dissolve a marriage, deprive the man of his children, and often even his house, and then force him to pay restitutions to Mom and his kids, how can we any longer speak of "liberty" ? The man is quite literally subjected to forced servitutde, wherein he is obliged to pay for his family and accept all the financial requirements of it, while at the same time being deprived of every benefit and right that family originally bestowed upon him. The very cause of his wealth in the first place was for the sake of his family. Please, you speak of chattel, slavery, and limiting property ownership ? Attend yourself to a local family court, and see chattel, slavery and deprivation of property being liberally dispensed by a litany of court edicts. Tim