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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (24932)	8/27/2001 10:40:00 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 82486

Here's a snippet from the James Q. Wilson essay. <<Renewing a Marr i a g e C u l t u re This essay ought to end with some ideas about how to re i n f o rce marr i a g e and make it a more compelling altern ative than cohabitation; it would if I knew how, but I do not. The decline in m a rriage, as evident throughout most of the industrial West with the rising levels of cohabitation, divorce, and s i n g l e - p a rent families, can best be explained by broad, profound, and enduring cultural changes. This is an a rgument I shall make in a fort h c o ming book, and it, like this essay, ends with no policy recommendations that a re likely to have more than a trivial e ffect on marriage. Individuals have been emancipated from external cont rols, whether those of the state or the c h u rch or the village, and have accordingly created lives designed to satisfy their immediate needs whatever the l o n g - t e rm cost to their off s p r i n g . Reversing that culture means re v e r s i n g the greatest accomplishment of the West: human emancipation. If a marriage culture is to replace an individualistic culture, it will have to be done not by government pro g r a m s or foundation grants, but by human beings, one by one, putting in place a renewed commitment to a larger social g o od — n a m e l y, the well-being of their c h i l d ren. Almost all parents, of course, love their children, but that love often does not extend, as it ought, to a tru e grasp of what human happiness means when it is viewed in the long run. One fact may help tell the story. People who a re religious are much less likely to cohabit and much more likely to marry than those who are secular.1 6 You who a re reading this essay might ask yourself what to do with that fact. >>