New York - Get Married (to your child's Mother) and We'll Forgive Your Support Debt

From KLTV TV

Pataki is pushing a proposal that would reward deadbeat fathers by forgiving their child-support debts to the state -- if they marry the mothers of their children. He says the idea is to get those fathers involved with their children's lives and encourage them to support their families.

The governor also wants to create a tax credit for young, unmarried fathers who keep up with their child support payments.

Michigan Governor Granholm Vetoes Marriage Bill

Detroit Free Press

I'm not sure if I covered this already but Governor Granholm "vetoed a package of bills that would encourage premarital counseling for couples and require counseling for married couples with children who are about to divorce. She said the bills were too intrusive on private decisions."

I would like to see, in particular, divorcing couples with children go into counseling.... However, I do understand and respect the resistance to bring the government any further into family life.

"Let me be clear: Marriage preservation is a very important issue," she wrote in her veto letter. "But the decisions men and women make about marriage are private decisions. State government should not expand its role into such private matters."

Marriage No-Shows

In line with a previous post about men on a "marriage strike" this article further cements the idea that men are in fact staying away from marital vows in ever increasing numbers.

"Among those men, 53% said they were not interested in getting married anytime soon -- the marriage delayers. That figure alone is cause for concern.

But this is the statistic that every American who wants to strengthen and protect marriage should be worried about: 22% of the men said they had absolutely no interest in finding their Truly Beloved. The report described these guys as hardcore marriage avoiders."

The reasons for this "marriage avoidance" should be obvious to all of us. An unbalanced family court system, potential financial destruction and disproportionate custody arrangements should scare any person half to death. However, these are far more often issues faced by divorcing men.

The entire article is available at intellectualconservative.com

Marriage Strike

This is an article co-authored by Glenn Saks and Dianna Thompson from July 2002. It addressees the reasons men may choose not to marry. Marriage Strike

The Theme For The Day: Cohabitation!

This is a study done in the Netherlands (and while the article refers to the increasing number of divorces in the country, it also states the current divorce rate is 25%, half of the US divorce rate for first marriages). It was published in 2000, so it can be considered relatively recent. Be prepared, it is 36 pages long and in places, largely technical in content. If you can get through, it is an interesting look at remarriage versus cohabitation and offers some interesting interpretations of those numbers. While it is obviously not directly applicable to the US, I believe we can safely assume that some of the noted tendencies cross national borders. Let me know what you think. Alternate Routes in the Remarriage Market (This is a PDF, so be sure to have Adobe Reader)