When individuals are married, they should be treated as One and the state should bestow upon them high honor and far less monetary pressure than with individuals, this, to better enable them to care for and maintain their households.
And you live in which country? Surely not the US. The US says all citizens are equal. Married people count as two people, not one, just like everyone else. And unmarried people aren't drones to service the superior married class. No, I don't think so. The married may bask in the joy of their perceived honored status and they certainly shouldn't be dishonored by anyone else because they are married, but in the US we have a single class of citizens.
Their children are but individuals and are not to benefit as they would were they part of a true family and would not receive the same honor as children in married families.
I might accept some degree of deprivation for the children of "individuals" if their parents were so callous as to not provide adequately for them, although I think most people would consider me callous for entertaining such a thought. What I could never accept is sending a message to little children that they were second class citizens, somehow less worthy, less human, than the children of married parents. Never.
Less women would "shack up," and more would enter into stable, fulfilling marriages. And fewer men would abandon their homes.
I can see where fear for the future of their children might motivate fewer women to "shack up." How many, it's hard to say. Women now allow their children to be deprived, abandoned, abused, and ignored. I don't know that the stigma of being bastards would make much difference. It would make even less difference to men. Even if the re-bastardization of children were acceptable in a civilized society, I don't think it would be very effective.
Karen |
