Better or Worse, Mostly Worse

LIKE Nero, fiddling while Rome burned, Americans have steadfastly denied the reality engulfing us. The siren songs of sexual liberation and individual self-realization, abetted by the transformation of our economy, have lured us to the deadly reefs on which marriage, as known throughout history, is breaking up.

So, without ever admitting that two and two do make four, we contemplate the mounting evidence of divorce, cohabitation, single motherhood, child abuse, and violence perpetrated by children, not to mention children’s suicide, alcoholism, and drug abuse. Many have attended to the signs, but they almost unanimously find someone to blame: conservatives charge women with neglecting their responsibilities; feminists charge men with brutality; everyone deplores deadbeat dads. Some preach restoration of family values, others sexual equality and joint-parenting, still others look to a rejuvenation of fatherhood. All these charges avoid the real problem: Marriage as the essential social unit —the glue that binds men and women to one another and, from infancy, binds children to society—has disintegrated.

EF

About the Author

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese

LIKE Nero, fiddling while Rome burned, Americans have steadfastly denied the reality engulfing us. The siren songs of sexual liberation and individual self-realization, abetted by the transformation of our economy, have lured us to the deadly reefs on which marriage, as known throughout history, is breaking up.

So, without ever admitting that two and two do make four, we contemplate the mounting evidence of divorce, cohabitation, single motherhood, child abuse, and violence perpetrated by children, not to mention children’s suicide, alcoholism, and drug abuse. Many have attended to the signs, but they almost unanimously find someone to blame: conservatives charge women with neglecting their responsibilities; feminists charge men with brutality; everyone deplores deadbeat dads. Some preach restoration of family values, others sexual equality and joint-parenting, still others look to a rejuvenation of fatherhood. All these charges avoid the real problem: Marriage as the essential social unit —the glue that binds men and women to one another and, from infancy, binds children to society—has disintegrated.