Patriarchy - Merits and Laments

[Timothy17]

Tim, you are avoiding my questions, or perhaps I haven't been clear. Let me try again.

If the head of family (male or female) is demonstrably wrong,and the subordinate partner is demonstrably right, does that subordinate partner have a right to oppose the head of family, in a patriarchal system? Is the subordinate partner bound to follow along as the head of family makes decisions for him/her that he/she opposes?

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.

What is the extent of responsibility the head of family (male or female) has for his/her partner? You've earlier in the thread (post 18) stated that the head of family is responsible towards the courts for the behaviours of his/her family - to what extent, then, should he/she control those behaviours, and to what extent does his/her partner have personal freedom?

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.

Is a family truly unified if one person makes all the decisions, and the others are compelled to go along with it?

Can a family be said to be unified when it no longer exists ?

di·vorce   /dɪˈvɔrs, -ˈvoʊrs/ Show Spelled

[dih-vawrs, -vohrs] Show IPA

noun, verb -vorced, -vorc·ing.

–noun

1. a judicial declaration dissolving a marriage in whole or in part, esp. one that releases the husband and wife from all matrimonial obligations. Compare judicial separation.

"...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

Edited October 6, 2010 by Timothy17

[ToadBrother]

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.

But that flies in the very face of notions of democracy. Would you accept this situation from your government? Would you give up the right to vote if someone said "It will create social order"?

[Timothy17]

I want numbers, not personal stories of tragedy.

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

Edited October 6, 2010 by Timothy17

[Timothy17]

But that flies in the very face of notions of democracy. Would you accept this situation from your government? Would you give up the right to vote if someone said "It will create social order"?

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.

[Timothy17]

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."

[M.Dancer]

People divorce for all kinds of reasons. I cannot recall any citing patriarchy or lack there of as a reason.

As bad as divorce is, divorce is generally better than the alternatives.

[Timothy17]

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."

Edited October 6, 2010 by Timothy17

[Timothy17]

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."

[Timothy17]

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 ?

[ToadBrother]

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

No, it revolved around the legal status of women, and how it was incompatible with the notions of liberty and human rights as they developed in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Simply put, creating an underclass simply because of the presence of a vagina and breasts was seen to be as much anathema to a society based upon liberty and justice for all as had been enslavement based on the color of skin. And your sad story not withstanding, I see no reason to think that rolling back those liberties is in the least bit desirable.

In other words, it's you who has to adapt, not everyone else.

[ToadBrother]

Would you like the remaining 80% of the numbers ?

I never said fatherless families weren't a problem. But neither of these provide the 75% figure you quoted, and like I said, even if they did, it still doesn't help you with the overarching claim; that revoking womens' civil liberties will make a better society.

At the very least I'm glad to see you've dispensed with the very misleading way in which you opened the thread. You're not trying to determine the merits or flaws in patriarchies, you're trying to justify your belief that they'll make things better.

Edited October 6, 2010 by ToadBrother

[ToadBrother]

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.

What I'm asking you to do (and something I suspect in all your hatred of modern women you've never considered) is to walk a mile in their shoes. If our liberties were hard won, and somebody insisted that the only way to solve a specific societal ill was to willingly give up those liberties (to vote, own property, stand for public office, etc.) would you do it?

Because that's what you're suggesting women do.

[Timothy17]

In other words, it's you who has to adapt, not everyone else.

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."

[Timothy17]

In other words, it's you who has to adapt, not everyone else.

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."

[Melanie_]

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.

Demonstrably: in an obvious and provable manner; "his documentary sources are demonstrably wrong" incontrovertibly, provably

There are certainly times when one partner is demonstrably wrong. In a marriage where partners are equal, they have an opportunity to be honest about their mistakes, apologize, and rectify them. In your vision of a patriarchal marriage, where one partner has to be infallible, there is never that opportunity to be human.

When you state that one partner must have final arbiting and decision making power, I fundamentally disagree. One partner cannot have the final say on every facet of a marriage, based on his/her personal preferences and opinions. That nullifies the value of the other partner, and creates a relationship based on oppression.

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.

Then perhaps you should give it some more thought, and provide a more comprehensive definition of what you mean by head of household.

Can a family be said to be unified when it no longer exists ?

This is a sidestep, rather than an answer to the question.

"...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

It means the marriage is over.

[ToadBrother]

Meet tomorrow's everyone else :

Oh good grief. If this is the way you're going to play it, I'm going to walk from this one. I asked for a citation for the 75% figure, not for you to clip dozens of articles and publications you assert prove your point. A gleaming of them does not in fact suggest that. I'll wager that none of these authors actually think returning to the 18th century will make things better.

And, as I said, even if the figure is correct, it still doesn't help you with the core argument.

[Timothy17]

I never said fatherless families weren't a problem. But neither of these provide the 75% figure you quoted, and like I said, even if they did, it still doesn't help you with the overarching claim; that revoking womens' civil liberties will make a better society.

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."

At the very least I'm glad to see you've dispensed with the very misleading way in which you opened the thread. You're not trying to determine the merits or flaws in patriarchies, you're trying to justify your belief that they'll make things better.

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

[Melanie_]

Meet tomorrow's everyone else :

These quotes are all from the 80's. Have you looked at any more current research?

[ToadBrother]

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

You have not yet even answered any of my questions in a meaningful fashion. You haven't explained why anyone who has gained liberties should give them up based upon someone else's naive belief that old laws long thrown out created a more just society.

What you've demonstrated is that you're a very troubled man who seems to blame all women for your personal tragedy. That road leads to maniacs like Marc Lepine, my friend. Get rid of the hate, get rid of the bigotry. Accept two realities; 1. that your bad experience is not justification for adopting this irrational belief, and 2. that every system is flawed, and sometimes there are winners who should have lost and losers that should have won.

Believe me, as a guy who came out of an expensive lawsuit with close relatives, winning only after having spent tens of thousands of dollars, I could go around declaring the laws in question evil and wrong, for producing the necessity of the lawsuit to begin with. But I'm an adult. I realize that even good laws can have, on occasion, bad side effects. You need to get over all of this and grow up. I can only imagine how much this is poisoning your general relationship with women.

[ToadBrother]

These quotes are all from the 80's. Have you looked at any more current research?

Even if he's right, so what? Yes, single-parent families have specific challenges. But to use that to declare that women should go back to being chattel is a total non sequitur, a logical fallacy at the heart of his claim.

I think Timothy needs to seek counseling, myself. He's been hurt and seems to have blamed women entire for that tragedy. Lots of parents have divorces and still manage to navigate custody and support issues in an equitable fashion. Family law is like every other aspect of law, not every result will be optimum.

[Timothy17]

These quotes are all from the 80's. Have you looked at any more current research?

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.

[ToadBrother]

I may be kooky, but I sure hope you realized that at the root of my kookiness is a genuine, very humanitarian concern.

Hardly. It was humanitarian concerns that finally brought patriarchies down. They are incompatible with Enlightenment notions of liberty.

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.

Like I said, using an old evil to fix a new one strikes me as ludicrous.

Guys like you always fascinate me. I could understand if you were just throwing out absurd ideas as flamebait, but your type seem to say the most outrageous things as if you actually believe it.

If we want to solve issues with family law, then lots talk about that. Let's talk about making sure the spouses who are shut out by a legal process too easily used as a stick by the other spouse no longer can be used in that way. There has in fact been a lot of work in many jurisdictions in the Western world towards divorces that don't have the Kramer vs. Kramer wars, the fathers shut out from their families, the children bereft of fathers. But these changes have to be sensible ones that balance both parties' inherent rights.

Basically, your position is absurd, made worse by the fact that you seem to genuinely believe it, even as it becomes clearer that you have some serious emotional issues. As a child of divorce, myself, I can certainly empathize, but I am a child no longer and thus not only can, but must look at things rationally.

[Timothy17]

I think Timothy needs to seek counseling, myself. He's been hurt and seems to have blamed women entire for that tragedy.

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

[Melanie_]

Even if he's right, so what? Yes, single-parent families have specific challenges. But to use that to declare that women should go back to being chattel is a total non sequitur, a logical fallacy at the heart of his claim.

I think Timothy needs to seek counseling, myself. He's been hurt and seems to have blamed women entire for that tragedy. Lots of parents have divorces and still manage to navigate custody and support issues in an equitable fashion. Family law is like every other aspect of law, not every result will be optimum.

I agree, he isn't making a good argument for returning to a patriarchal system. My point, though, is that if you look at more recent research you would find different results.

But regardless of what the actual findings are, it doesn't mean patriarchy will be the answer.

Edited October 6, 2010 by Melanie_

[ToadBrother]

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.

I'm familiar enough with a lot of this to realize that there are serious issues. But let's not also forget that there is another side to this coin. A lot of these women don't willingly choose a life apart from the father of their children, and that in a lot of cases, as seen in certain populations in the United States, a substantial part of the problem is a lack of maturity on the part of fathers (the sort of thing, for instance, that Bill Cosby has been attacking in many African-American groups in the United States). I cannot, even with evidence of single-parent families being at higher risks in certain areas, advocate forcing women to remain in marriages where they are abused, neglected and/or abandoned, simply to prop up some bizarre neolithic idea of the appropriate nuclear family.

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.

Since the women's right movement, from the Suffragette movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries down to the feminist movement beginning in the 1960s (but certainly with its roots in WWI and WWII, when the role of women in the economic system were greatly enlarged) was fundamentally about sexism, it's hard to see how you can think that proposing we return to that previous system isn't in itself an attack on the rights and dignity of women.

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'm afraid seriously advocating the revocation of women's civil liberties is going to put you in the kook territory whether you like it or not. That you are sincere, that you clearly have some personal experience, doesn't make your views less "kookish". Sincerity alone is not the measure of an idea.

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.

And there is a great deal of recognition. Most jurisdictions are looking at reforms to their family court systems, and there has certainly been a big push in Canada and the States, at least, towards mediated settlements that allow both parties to work out issues in a calm, dispassionate atmosphere, to minimize the sorts of clichéd lawyer-client tag teams and court room brawling that we've seen. I have to say though, that I have yet to see any great body of evidence that these are the norm anyways. To be sure there are brutally vicious divorces that can ultimately lead one parent to being marginalized, but how common are they? Before you embark on any policy or legal change, you should know what exactly it is your fixing, and you should always be honest enough with yourself and others to admit that no matter how equitable you try to make things, there were always arise situations that defeat that goal. There's an old rule in law, and that is that hard cases make bad law.