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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (93799)	1/5/2005 12:01:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793725

It's not a matter of "thinking less" of your family and friends if they have children out of wedlock. It's that it's a foolish thing to do. We can argue about it all we want. The simple truth is that having children out of wedlock is one of the stupidist things a woman can do. One of the surest paths to poverty for her and her children. It's not at all uncommon for couples to have sex before marriage, and marry quickly if the woman turns up pregnant. My impression is that those relationships turn out about as well as the ones where the children are not conceived until after marriage. Social stigma against "bastards" is not fair to the children, who are innocent, but whatever it takes to convince people that they need to get married before they have children can't help but have good consequences. This opinion is derived from many years of observing how this issue affects children, mothers, and fathers. "Staying together for the good of the children" is probably the most important gift you can give your children. May I point out that women are far less likely to marry an abusive, unsuitable man that merely have sex with him? So if a woman only has sex with men whom they intend to marry -- and who intends to marry them -- that means that they've both cleared a lot of hurdles towards a lasting relationship. It's much much harder to find someone willing to marry you, whom you are willing to marry, than it is to hook up. We all know that. Hooking up takes minutes. Relationships take time and effort and commitment.

To: Lane3 who wrote (93799)	1/5/2005 12:39:19 PM
From: Neeka	Respond to of 793725

I do have a very dear friend that was born and raised in Palau Micronesia who was fostered by her sister. The environment in her birth home was so disruptive that she ended up being raised by her sister. Her father had multiple partners, and she has sisters and brothers all over the island by different mothers. She has never revealed why, but her father once chased her through the jungle with a machete and nearly killed her. She said that she carried the stigma of being what we consider a "bastard" or illegitimate in her village. The people of Palau are predominately Catholic, so I can understand the angst she suffers because of her situation while growing up. Fortunately she met a wonderful man from my area that was in Palau doing a US govt survey on the main runway. They dated and got preggers, and as a consequence got married, moved back to Seattle, had another child and are the proud grandparents of 5. The women of Palau are forbidden to utter a peep during child birth. It dishonors their family if they do. She went through 41 hours of labor with their first son....being tended by the village mid-wife and her attendees. My friend is so proud of that achievement, but still carries the scars of being a bastard. This was an impoverished nation during her childhood, and she actually thought that people that could afford canned food were wealthy. I think being married before having children is mostly a western idea, but that is changing. I've been to 9 weddings in the last two years. At two of them the children of those unions were the ring bearers, and at one, the mother was 3 months pregnant. M