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conduct stems from the increased
loneliness and shrinking personal
horizons.
The Woman as Head of Household
Of course, the beneficia! effects of
an intact family- and the destruc–
tiveness of divorce- aren't con–
fined to men .
While there is sorne movement in
the divorce cour ts today to award
child custody to fathers, the most
common result of a failed marriage is
a woman trying to raise her children
by herself. The same result occurs,
also, in cases of illegitimacy.
Thus the breaking o f God's
law- whether in terms of adultery
or sorne similar sin that causes mar–
riages to break up--or premarital
sex- both lead to the same evi l
result. Aside from the
social
evils,
the
economic
consequences are
horrendous.
lll egitimacy and si ngle-parent
fami lies are recipes for economic
hardship and poverty. The hard
truth of economic life in tbis uní–
verse is t hat a fema le- headed
household will almost always not
prosper.
For example,
Money
magazine
presen ted a profi le of a newly
divorced , middle-class mother of
two. As a highly qualified, real
estate salesperson, she was abJe, by
herself, to earn at a yearly rate of
around $36,000 to $40,000. Nev–
ertheless, she was going into the
hole about $500 a month, and her
spend ing wasn't particu larly ex–
travagant either!
l f newly divorced, middle-class
professional women have a hard
t ime making ends meet, how much
worse must it be for the vast major–
ity of single mothers who earn
much, much less!
The fact of life in this world is
that children
wi/1 tend
to make it
more difficult for a sing le mother
to pursue her career, or even just
make a decent living. She must not
only be mother, but homemaker
and breadwinner as well. S uch
incredible demands on her t ime and
energy cannot help but hurt her
ability to earn a living.
lllegitimacy and divorce-both
bad resu lts o f breaki ng G od 's
law- go a long way toward explain–
ing much-maybe most-of the
poverty in
Western
societ ies today.
October/ November 1981
For the poor, in particular , such
sins virtually insure that they wi ll
remain perpetually mired in their
poverty.
Experlence of Ethnlc Groups
Sorne poor people- usuaJiy immi–
grants- go from being almost pen–
ni less to being middle and upper
class in two or three generations.
But wby do other poor people stay
poor ?
Poor immigrants to the United
S tates are renowned for their family
loyalty. They begin small, family
businesses. Usually eacb member
works for far, far below the míni–
mum wage-but the family prospers
because the
value
of the business
goes up, just like the value of acared–
for home goes up. After a number of
~~ ·
New divorce laws
make divorce easier–
but the economic
devastation remains the
same, or worse.
' '
years, the immigrant family is typi–
cally
worth more
than other families
who were content to work for shorter
hours at higher wages.
There is a delightful comedy–
type song, played on sorne of the
popular radio stations, which cap–
tures the essence of why family
unity and Joyalty is one of the key
elements of prosperity.
lt
is the sto–
ry of an Ital ian immigrant mother
admonishing her son to work hard,
be cheerful and stay in school. The
lines, "Whatsa matta you, gotta no
respeck?" do more to explain why
Ital ian famil ies in the United States
have achieved a great deal of eco–
nomic success in the Uni ted States
than do a hundred monographs in
academic journals!
By contrast, ethnic groups who do
not typically show family unity or
loyalty are the poorest, by far. When
more than balf of all U .S. black chil–
d ren are illegi t imate, or when a large
percentage of all black cbildren in
America witness the breakup of
thei r parents' marriage, there is
almost no way they are going to pros–
per. Yet black
immigrants
in Amer–
ica who have come from the West
Jndies, whose families are typically
intact,
make
more
than the national
average! But native-born blacks, a
commun ity with extremely h igh
rates of single mothers and illegit i–
macy, earn among the least of aH
major ethnic groups.
The Scourge of Dlvorce
lllegitimacy, that is, the failure to
obey God's law in the area of pre–
marital sex, is perhaps the main
reason the poor stay poor, at least
in the Western world.
And divorce,
general/y
the result
of fai lure to obey God's law
after
marriage, is probably the chief rea–
son why middle-class people
be–
come
poor.
Tbe exact rate of divorce in
Amer ican society is somewhat
unclear. Comparing
this year 's
divorces with
this year's marriages
often yields too low a figure, since
they are not the same marriages.
Business Week
reports that abou t a
third of all marr iages ..survive."
The number of divorces year ly, we
know, has
doubled
in the past
decade. In any case, the figures are
pretty bad.
What it means is untold personal
economic hardship for mill ions of
people. New divorce laws make
divorce easier- but the economic
devastation remains the same, or
worse. And the
costs
of divorce can
be devastating.
Wi th the laws the way they are
now in many places, divorce is
almos t as compl icated as dissolving
a business. As Charles J . Fleck,
presiding j udge of the na tion ' s
busiest divorce court , in Cook
County, lllinois, declares, "A sim–
ple case can ... end up with two
bankrupt persons."
Even if a family doesn't own its
own home or have much money, a
divorce sti ll may ent itle the wife to
the one major asset the husband
does have, his pension rig hts.
Dividing up those rights (which are
r ights to
afuture
income) now can
require the services of costly law–
yers and accountants, as well as
forcing the sale of property at a
potentially bad t ime.
When families do own their own
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