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Thoughts on Marriage & Child Abuse

By on 4.22.11 @ 10:21PM

Joe Lawler draws our attention to an article written by W. Bradford Wilcox, Executive Director of The National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, concerning the correlation between cohabitation and child abuse.

Wilcox argues that children who raised in homes by a mother and a boyfriend are more likely to suffer physical, sexual and emotional abuse than children who are raised by married biological parents. He writes, “In other words, one of the most dangerous places for a child in America to find himself in is a home that includes an unrelated male boyfriend - especially when that boyfriend is left to care for a child by himself.”

To support his argument, Wilcox cites several studies including the Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect which was submitted to Congress in January 2010 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services - Administration for Children & Families, Office of Planning, Research & Evaluation.

With all due respect to Wilcox he paints an incomplete picture. While it is true that the report concluded children were more suspectible to abuse in a household headed by a single parent with a cohabiting partner than with married biological parents it is far from the only factor contributing to child abuse. Indeed the HHS report also states that children are vulnerable to abuse if they live in households with low socioeconomic status, are in households with four or more children and if the perpetrator has trouble with alcohol/substance abuse as well as mental illness. Wilcox makes no mention of these and other factors. He leaves one with the impression that a child who lives with his mother and boyfriend is in imminent danger and can only be saved if his caregivers exchange vows.

So let’s say you have a household where a child is living with his mother and her boyfriend and the boyfriend physically abuses the child especially after consuming large quantities of alcohol. Does anyone honestly think the abuse will disappear if the boyfriend were to marry the child’s mother?

Those of you who are reading this post ought to understand from where I am coming. After I moved to Boston I took a job with the Child At-Risk Hotline which operates the after hours emergency service for the Massachusetts Department of Children & Families (then known as the Massachusetts Department of Social Services.) My job consisted mainly of taking reports of child abuse and neglect from both mandated and non-mandated reporters.

I probably wrote over a thousand of these reports during my time there. Some of the reports I took involved a mother and boyfriend while others involved married couples. Some of the reports I took involved poor families while some involved rich families. Some of the reports I took involved white families while some families were African-American, Hispanic or Asian or a combination thereof. While child abuse is more likely to occur in some families than in others one’s marital status, economic status or race does not immunize families from the ugliness of child abuse.

The suggestion that unmarried parents are the cause of child abuse in this country at the exclusion of all other factors is excessively simplistic. It not only unfairly paints unmarried parents with a broad brush but also trivializes the serious matter of child abuse.

View all comments (38) |

Jocon307 | 4.22.11 @ 11:22PM

I appreciate what you are saying, Mr. Goldstein, and you sound a lot like my dad who was a child welfare worker in NYC during the bad old days of the 1970s.

But I think you need to understand the lacking context Mr. Lawler and Mr. Wilcox are seeking to provide.

Back in those bad old days, and up until today, in fact, the left seeks nothing more than to portray the nuclear family as the root of all evil.

So, any bad situation in which a bio-dad molests, abuses, murders his wife/family will be front page news, fodder for a dozen "Lifetime" movies and an "example" for all to learn from.

In the meantime the thousands of cases (which are in the newspaper everyday) in which children are molested/abused/murdered by boyfriends, etc, of their mothers are NEVER taken as evidence that there is something wrong with that social arrangement.

So, this is the background.

The left seeks to destroy by any means available the better to control us, my dear.

NotALibertarian| 4.22.11 @ 11:29PM

Mr. Goldstein,
You seem to be exagerrating a bit yourself. Taking reports for a child abuse hotline does not make you more of an expert on abuse correlates than people who have conducted a long-term, methodical study.

"The suggestion that unmarried parents are the cause of child abuse in this country at the exclusion of all other factors is excessively simplistic" is a straw man. No one said married couples are never abusive parents. The point is that there is one lifestyle that minimizes the incidence of child abuse when compared to others.

Social libs have spent the last 30 years lecturing us that these other lifestyles are harmless, when they clearly aren't. You do not seem to realize that the alcoholic boyfriend you describe would not have so much access to the children if his mother had not been encouraged to sleep around by people who insist that everything is "more complicated" than social conservatives claim it is.

PCC| 4.22.11 @ 11:39PM

Mr. Goldstein,

Your post makes the important point that the politicization of today's so-called social science is not the exclusive preserve of "the left".

Occam's Tool| 4.22.11 @ 11:58PM

Aaron, the Black family had a lot LESS drug abuse and crime and child abuse when Monogamy was preferred and the children knew their daddy.

My expertise in this area makes yours look very, very small, my friend. I am a Board Certified Psychiatrist working in a rural inpatient hospital serving all economic classes. I have worked and studied abroad in New Zealand, as well as in Texas (where I went to Med school), California (UCLA grad in psychiatry), Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico, Minnesota. I have worked in rural areas and megalopolises, in the North and the South. I have worked in Prisons, Community Health care Centers, Jails, Private Practice, Developmental Disability Centers, State hospitals, County hospitals, VA hospitals, Private hospitals. I've worked for Charity hospitals, non-profit hospitals, for profit hospitals.

Not having a stable Daddy in the household leads to drug abuse, poverty, and physical and sexual abuse. Not in all cases, obviously, but it is the way to bet. The best way to have a stable daddy in the household is to have a married one. Sublimation does exist.

My advice is to read, very carefully, Theodore Dalrymple's Life at The Bottom. What he describes in England also holds very true here.

Marriage is a major barrier against abuse and poverty. Not in all cases, but it helps. You can get cavities if you brush your teeth and see the dentist regularly, but you do a better job of prevention if you take care of yourself. And that's what marriage is: a way of taking care of yourself. And by "yourself" I also mean your spouse and kids.

Occam's Tool| 4.23.11 @ 12:00AM

I use the black family as an example. Poor whites are the same way. It would be nice if you had more experience in treating dysfunction in families, rather than being a secretary.

(And I have issued well over 1000 reports of abuse myself)

Mark | 4.23.11 @ 2:22PM

I suspect substance abuse is another major factor in this. Now what I don't have a feel for is whether that can be tied in with socioeconomic status as a primary/secondary/tertiary causation. Since current substance abuse crosses socioeconomic status I wonder if statistically this can be seen when integrated.

Occam's Tool| 4.23.11 @ 3:33PM

It crosses lines, but the effect among the lower socioeconomic classes is endemic (routinely found), not epidemic (widespread).

For example, the primary route of transmission for Hepatitis C that I have seen is through IV drug use, since sexual transmission, while present, is not as high a risk factor. Every inmate admitted into Central New Mexico Correctional facility was tested for Hepatitis C. 80% came back positive for it (in 2006). That's what endemic means.

I see the damage of lack of structure every day, face to face. That report's genius lies in a multitude of areas---for example, married couples are much less likely to be poor than unmarried ones, so marriage not only serves as a good basis to raise kids, it serves as a wealth producer, too.

Might I suggest, Mr. Goldstein, that now would be a good time to re-read your Kipling. Specifically the Gods of the Copybook Headings. I have copied it below. Kipling was, and is, my favorite poet. Shakespeare may be more beautiful, but Kipling was more USEFUL.

"The Gods of the Copybook Headings

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!"

Occam's Tool| 4.23.11 @ 12:01AM

By the way, low socioeconomic status is directly related to unmarried status for women with children. Did you actually READ the report?

Daniel Upton| 4.23.11 @ 12:20AM

What the data tells us is that the kind of people who find cohabitation an acceptable lifestyle for themselves are also more likely to abuse or neglect their/their partner's children.

Where abuse is happening exchanging vows will not make it go away but if you are the sort of person who would not consider moving in with someone without first marrying you will be much less likely to be the sort of person who will shake your girlfriend's baby to death because it cries too much or to rape her daughter.

Seek| 4.25.11 @ 1:57PM

The mere fact of cohabitation without marriage doesn't "make" someone abuse a child. There is a lot more to it than that. And among the lower classes, child abuse is far more rampant, especially among blacks.

chaussures puma ferrari | 4.23.11 @ 5:45AM

good job.

Teflon93| 4.23.11 @ 8:25AM

"It's UNFAIR."

It's true.

The unwillingness---nay, the refusal---to marry the mother of one's children is not accidental, nor a simple choice. It is the marker of a deep character defect. That this defect is consistent with other character defects----lack of empathy, unwillingness to respect boundaries, sexual depravity---surprises no one with eyes to see and lacking an agenda.

Grow up, Mr. Goldstein. Join us in the real world, where sometimes people engage in "alternate lifestyles" because they are weak or wicked.

Claypoole| 4.23.11 @ 8:41AM

Are there any studies regarding the rate of child abuse (number of reported cases) in the years after Roe v. Wade as against the years before? Maybe we're just getting more information and statistics now, but it seems as if child abuse has increased since abortion was declared legal.

Occam's Tool| 4.23.11 @ 3:59PM

It has gotten worse, Claypoole, in the years since Roe v. Wade. I'm not sure there is a direct correlation to legalized abortion as a major influence, but anything that encourages the Culture of Death increases the risk of abuse.

Claypoole| 4.23.11 @ 4:53PM

Thanks for the update. I know that just because B follows A does not mean that A caused B. But I agree with you, Occam's Tool, that the debasement of the defenseless, the Culture of Death, seems to make simple abuse so much less of a crime.

David W| 4.23.11 @ 10:26AM

I read the local paper and often watch the local news. When there is a story of a toddler or child being abused or murdered, I don't remember the perp being married to the mother of the child. Indeed, often times the report will say that mother has several children and the man who assaulted the child was not that child's father (he may or may not be the father of the other children).

I know, this is anecdotal evidence, but barring a true scientific study it's the best one can get.

Oldefarte| 4.23.11 @ 1:39PM

No one will like what I'm about to say, but it is the truth [sadly] and I dare anyone to factually prove it otherwise. I am a born, raised and [for 16 years] educated Catholic who favors abortion being provided by the government. If there was a way to the government to force birth control upon society and for same to be truly effective in purpose, I'd be against abortion; but since ther is not such a way, abortion as birth control of the last resort is the only available effective option. I say this because as this editorial states, children born to povertous, temporary human sexual relationships are targets of physical/sexual abuse, toiture, and deplorable conditions. It's bad enough that such activity is inflicted upon adults, but when vernable, innocent children are its victims, it simply makes a rational human being want to get down upon their hands and knees and cry their eyes blind. Children can be a pain [as any parent will testify to], but they are same mostly due to their innocents and ignorance, and only need the steady hand of loving adults to guide them into adulthood. Any/all phychological/psychiatric problems with adults can always be traced backed to some abuse that they received at the hands of adults when they were children. The vernerability of children do not need to suffer this abuse, and for an adult to inflict same is beyond cruelty and savagery. Children would be better off not being born than having to suffer this painful abuse when they are not emotionally/intellectually capable of understanding it or dealing with same. This cruelty could/should be prevented by the governmental providing of abortion services, where warranted IMO!!!!!

Teflon93| 4.23.11 @ 2:37PM

It is not for us to say children "would be better off" being vivisected in utero.

Go read the circumstances of how Ludwig van Beethoven came into this world and ask yourself, applying the criteria you've established, if you would have deprived the world of its greatest music. The maestro of "Ode to Joy" new more about life than you do, sir.

Oldefarte| 4.23.11 @ 3:31PM

For ever Beethoven, there are thousands of beaten, raped, sexually assaulted, mentally damaged children that are daily trapped in the misery of their particular/miserable environments. Please don't give me that exceptionality BS [which typically is put on the table by foes of abortion at the drop of a hat]. I, nor any sane person, favors abortion's ugliness, but the fact remains that abused children are forced to suffer unimaginable indignities ALONE [with no one to stand by their side and help them, and certainly not the anti-abortionists who daily scream against it but are nowhere to be seen when the bullets, fists etc are flying against these abused children]. When anti-abortionists begin stepping up to to plate and completely/100% arranging for the adoptions etc of these damaged children, instead of simply mouthing off about the evils of abortion from a political standpoint, then at that time I'll join their verbal bandwagon of protesting against abortion, okay???????????

Occam's Tool| 4.23.11 @ 4:04PM

Your point is a good one, Oldefarte, but I invite you to review the literature on the Culture of Death. Abortion is one station, euthanasia is another, and Death panels (which will occur under Obamacare---NICE is the name of the one in the UK) is a third. All are tied together in logic.

Finally, we're losing the Demographic battle with the forces that advocate Sharia. We don't need to kill off our own soldiers in the culture war.

Both my babies are adopted from impoverished mothers in Guatemala; one of them with a right ear microtia with deformed middle ear bones resulting in the need for a bone anchored hearing aid. My time, effort, money and spirit are firmly where my mouth is on this one, sir. G-d Bless.

Teflon93| 4.23.11 @ 8:20PM

Condemning children to death by dismemberment because you think they're lives aren't worth living is your problem. The lousy Catholic witness you give is a much broader problem---people who don't know any better might think you're evincing the teaching of the Church. Which you most manifestly are not.

Christ had a very tough life. One wonders what you would have advised Mary to do at the Anunciation.

You might want to take advantage of Easter to think about this.

Oldefarte| 4.24.11 @ 10:15AM

I've spent 16 years in learning 'the teaching of the Church....WHAT ARE YOUR CREDENTIALS?[The lousy Catholic witness you give is a much broader problem---people who don't know any better might think you're evincing the teaching of the Church. Which you most manifestly are not]. Do you also include within those 'teaching of the Church' the pedifile priests within same sho have sexually molested thousands of venerable children within their care worldwide, and which/Church has now had to legally pay out $billions of their parishiners' hard earned charitable contributions to THE CHURCH in legal awards/damages because of same? What I would advise Mary [One wonders what you would have advised Mary to do at the Anunciation] would be to, if she lived in today's modern times and expensive monetary needs required to properly raise children, make sure that Joseph had a well paying job or independent income capabilities as a carpenter in order to adequately/financially support both her/Mary and Jesus. Oh, and also FYI, it's ANNUNCIATION, not ANUNCIATION, okay genius????????????????

Teflon93| 4.24.11 @ 11:32AM

How about alignment with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, for starters?

" Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:

You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.

God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes. "

There's no wiggle room there for "abortion is okay whenever Oldefarte believes babies are to be born to bad people."

"2272 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. "A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae," "by the very commission of the offense," and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law. The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society. "

There are very few canonical law penalties which incur excommunication by their very act---abortion is one, considered a grave offense indeed. This has been the Church's teaching since the beginning---anyone with access to the 1st century document The Didache knows as much.

But unlike Oldefarte's ridiculous claims to Catholic authority having failed to read the Catechism for 16 years, anyone at all can see what the Church's teaching is. The Catechism is online:

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

You can purchase your own for about $10 too.

So what's your excuse, Oldefarte? Learn your faith---then live your faith.

Teflon93| 4.24.11 @ 11:37AM

Oldefarte also laughably misses the point of my reference to Mary. Which child grew up to suffer more grievously and unjustly than Christ? He who was utterly without sin was brutally scourged, nailed to a cross, and executed.

By Oldefarte's criteria above----and lousy moral reasoning---Mary should have sought an abortion and thus spared Jesus his suffering.

And where would humanity be then?

Needless to say, the Catholic Church doesn't rely on Oldefarte's inability to reason but on the Word of God which is Truth itself. And thank God for that!

jocon307| 4.25.11 @ 3:14AM

"I've spent 16 years in learning 'the teaching of the Church..."

Sad that you've missed the most important parts.

Abortion is murder. We don't aid those who suffer by murdering them.

Even if (God forbid!) the Catholic church would ever support that IT WOULD STILL BE WRONG!

Teflon93| 4.25.11 @ 11:05AM

Oldefarte's moral reasoning is even worse, given aborting children on the grounds that somebody thinks they might be abused by their parents:

a. Is punishing someone before a crime is even committed;

b. Is punishing someone without any recourse to the judicial system;

c. Is inflicting the death penalty for crimes which never receive the death penalty in this country;

d. Is inflicting the death penalty on a completely innocent person---indeed, the putative future victim;

e. Is inflicting the death penalty in the most gruesome and painful manner possible;

f. Is protecting those same awful parents from committing the crime of child abuse by allowing them to commit murder.

Killing the child because the child might be abused in the future is rather like cutting off your arm because a paper cut on your pinky finger might become infected. Death by dismemberment or injection of high concentrations of salts or by having one's spinal column severed with shears is far more painful---and far more permanent---than any abuse one suffers in this life.

If Oldefarte thinks aborting a child with terrible parents is somehow justice, much less what the Church teaches, Oldefarte has a lot of learning to do.

RWinks| 4.24.11 @ 1:14PM

Mr. Goldstein; I believe you protest too much. In reading the article I see no mention of "to the exclusion of all other factors". It would seem obvious that the factors you mention....Alcohol, narcotic abuse, mental problems, sexual promiscuity, TEND to coincide with the other character traits of those who choose to co-habit.

Stable families promote many societal goods-----This is why the Left does everything possible to destroy them. As has been noted many times, individuals can give themselves a 98 percent probability of staying out of poverty by doing just two things--Get a job, any job and get and remain married.

Seek| 4.25.11 @ 1:59PM

I've got news for you. Plenty of rednecks, not a group normally given over to Leftism, cohabitate. And they have done so long before the 1960s.

A Balrog of Morgoth| 4.25.11 @ 12:06AM

Sixteen years learning to be a Catholic and advocating for abortion as a positive boon is where one ends up. Who was the instructor, Douglas Kmiec? Michael Pfleger?

This mutt ought to rethink the denomination with which aligns himself. Unitarianism seems more suited to his beliefs.

A Balrog of Morgoth| 4.25.11 @ 12:10AM

I love the "anti-abortionists must arrange the adoption of 100% of unwanted babies" logical fallacy. That one always slays me.

In related news, suicide hotlines are now liable for the care and feeding of any caller they persuade not to commit suicide.

Taxpayer| 4.25.11 @ 1:18AM

My parents divorced when I was 11. My mom's boyfriend was older, had grown kids--and was still married, to boot. He loved my mom but didn't want anything to do with my sister and me. He made that clear from the beginning. Though he didn't live with us, he was around a lot, and it made for a pretty miserable existence. He was never violent, but he ignored us to a pulp, and he frequently made my mom choose between him and us.

That I became clinically depressed, and my sister became addicted to alcohol and drugs, isn't too surprising.

After we were grown up and out of the house, he finally got around to getting a divorce and marrying my mother. And no, our relationship didn't change one bit.

BillCC| 4.25.11 @ 6:54AM

The observation has been made that those who cohabitate prior to marriage have higher rates of divorce than those who do not. Which produces the chicken-and-egg question: does cohabitation somehow change the relationship to a more fragile one, or are those who cohabitate before marriage a different group of people to begin with, perhaps having more difficulty with the concept of commitment?
Mr. Goldstein suffers the same cause-and-effect problem in his article. No, marriage vows will not cure the alcoholic-addict-abuser-etc.; it is unlikely this person would seriously take the vows at all. There are no absolute guarantees even with marriage, but as Mr. Wilcox accurately describes, the odds of successfully raising children are significantly greater from those parents who have declared a commitment.

BillCC| 4.25.11 @ 7:13AM

Something as yet unmentioned that may complicate the accuracy of statistics: our society currently has a lifetime predictive divorce rate greater than 40%. One-third of divorces involve minor children. There is a disturbing tendency for one party, typically but not always the mother, to make false allegations of spousal threat or child abuse for the purpose of receiving preferential treatment in custody allocation. This would have the effect of corruptly inflating statistics on abuse by biological fathers.

Seek| 4.25.11 @ 2:02PM

This says a lot more about the perfidy of women than about the act of cohabitation.

I never bought into that crap about "sugar and spice and all that's nice." Women are as violent and vindictive as any group of men. A great many men are terrified of women, in fact, which is one reason why the divorce rate has tumbled over the last 30 years. Men allow themselves to be dominated by women. When are men going to fight back in ways befitting a gentleman?

BillCC| 4.25.11 @ 7:33AM

My editor (that would be me) just reminded me of something. Please modify the last statement in the previous post:
...corruptly inflating statistics on abuse by biological fathers who had made the commitment to marriage.

mejamom| 4.25.11 @ 3:01PM

I know more than a few couples in their upper 20's-early 30's who have 1 or 2 young children and are not married. None of them are college educated, but have skilled jobs, own a house, are responsible, etc. Also no addiction issues. They are all obviously in love and expect to remain a couple until death parts them. All the fathers have proposed to the women. The reason the mothers have remained "single" is because they get a bigger tax break than if they are married. That refund allows them a more reliable car, better child care, preschool and school options among other things. They have told me if it weren't for that, they would marry. Something to think about.

BillCC| 4.25.11 @ 5:00PM

"In middle America, marriage is in trouble. Among the affluent, marriage is stable and appears to be getting even stronger. Among the poor, marriage continues to be fragile and weak.
But the newest and perhaps most consequential marriage trend of our time concerns the broad center of our society, where marriage, that iconic middle-class institution, is foundering. Among Middle Americans, defined here as those with a high-school but not a (four-year) college degree, rates of nonmarital childbearing and divorce are rising, even as marital happiness is falling. This “moderately educated” middle of America constitutes a full 58 percent of the adult population."

Thus begins the 2010 "State of Our Unions" report by the National Marriage Project, available at:
http://www.virginia.edu/marria....._12_10.pdf
The NMP is currently led by the same Dr. Wilcox quoted in the above article.
So perhaps this trend is what you are seeing, mejamom.

mjay| 4.25.11 @ 6:32PM

The vast majority of child deaths occur at the hands of the mother of the children, a fact which feminist-focused CPS workers consistently ignore.

Similarly, they also ignore the majority of domestic violence overall that women commit.

Massachusetts is a state with lifetime alimony and overwhelming custodial favoritism towards mothers in time of divorce.

Why does that state continue to reward potential child murderers with custody of their victims and a lifetime stipend from the victims' fathers?

Perhaps Mr. Goldstein could address these issues ... but I won't hold my breath.

More Blog Posts by Aaron Goldstein

http://spectator.org/blog/2011/04/22/thoughts-on-marriage-child-abu

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