….Society is breaking at both the local and national level, precipitated, to a large extent, by the dramatic rise in single, white mothers. Correlating three national longitudinal studies, Murray reveals this statistic about children whose mothers turned forty between 1997 and 2004: In Belmont, 90% still lived with both biological parents; in Fishtown, it was less than 30%. “The absolute level is so low that it calls into question the viability of white working-class communities as a place for socializing the next generation.” Some might argue that many of these unmarried women are, in fact, living with the biological father, or perhaps, another caring man so the children are just fine. The research does not support this claim. The disadvantages of being born to cohabiting parents extend into childhood and adolescence, even when the cohabiting couple stills consists of the two biological parents . . . the outcomes were rarely better than those for children living with a single parent or in a ‘cohabiting stepparent’ family. (Charles Murray, Coming Apart)
The reasons for this are myriad: married couples tend to become more religiously involved after marriage while cohabitating couples become less so, extended families support and invest in married couples and their children far more than they do for unmarried couples, schools and courts take far more seriously the role of legal father and husband than they do the sway of “mom’s boyfriend.” But perhaps the greatest reason is that “married partners tend to enhance their productivity by developing specialized skills; cohabiting partners more often do everything for themselves (being less sure of the partner’s sticking around.) This helps account for the marriage premium— men’s greater earning if married.” (David G. Myers, The American Paradox)
Although many might not be aware of these specific statistics or the severity of them, America knows that there’s a problem. An overwhelming majority (69%) of Americans say that “the trend toward more single women having children without a male partner to help raise them is a bad thing for society,” and 61% that a child needs “both a mother and a father to grow up happily.” Those who insist that the disadvantages of being born into the lower class are just too great to overcome may not be aware that the odds of building a better future are—even now—very much on their side. They simply have to make good on three highly manageable goals: 1) graduate from high school, 2) get a job, and 3) get married and wait until they’re 21 before having a baby. If they manage that, according to Brookings economists Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill, “they have an almost 75% chance of making it into the middle class.” Still, few are willing or able to reassert the obvious: that having kids outside of marriage is bad for the kids, bad for parents, and bad for the community. “Today, to suggest that a change might be in order, starting with a healthy drop in self-absorption, is anathema: it’s a free country, and don’t lay your values on my self-respect.”
So where are the men in all this? Their increasingly marginalized role may be the most dangerous thing to American society of all. Again, we must look at education, and the role it plays in both marriage and responsibility. We will also consider one of Murray’s founding virtues—industriousness—as it pertains to the men of Fishtown. One of the great virtues of America is that it did not have “different codes for socioeconomic classes.” Young men of all backgrounds were raised in the Judeo-Christian codes of conduct exemplified in the classic McGuffey Readers, which taught America’s children who and what they were and how they were expected to behave. Even when these civic training guides were phased out, their lessons endured, so that a man growing up in the 1940s, 50s, and even early 60s, could be expected to hold this view of the code for males:
To be a man means that you are brave, loyal, and true. When you are in the wrong, you own up and take your punishment. You don’t take advantage of women. As a husband, you support and protect your wife and children. You are gracious in victory and a good sport in defeat. Your word is you bond. Your handshake is as good as your word. It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. When the ship goes down, you put the women and children into the lifeboats and wave good-bye with a smile.
Up through the 1980s, changes in Fishtown’s “male dropout from the labor force moved roughly in tandem with the national unemployment rate.” But between 1985 and 2005, something changed:
Men who had not completed high school increased their leisure time by eight hours per week, while men who had completed college decreased their leisure time by six hours per week. . . . In 2003-5, men who were not employed spent less time on job search, education, and training, and doing useful things around the house than they had in 1985. They spent less time on civic and religious activities. They didn’t even spend their leisure time on active pastimes such as exercise, sports, hobbies, or reading … How did they spend that extra leisure time? Sleeping and watching television. (Murray)
This sleeping and TV watching is, no doubt, related to an increase in drug and alcohol use. “With the economy—the factories all gone—and the poverty, you can get sucked into drugs real easy.” Entertainment imitates life. In the past five years, movies such as Ted, The 40-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Pineapple Express depict the new prototypical American male: hanging out on the couch with his buddies well into his 30s, playing video games, dodging serious relationships, and getting stoned. This makes women—often the mothers of their children—less inclined to want them as spouses, which, in turn, may keep them from maturing. Homo incurvatus in se is a vicious cycle. “Married men become more productive after they are married because they are married.” Men who marry are also less likely to suffer from depression, and those who do suffer in their bachelorhood will find that marriage “mitigates against moroseness.” In his book Sexual Suicide, George Gilder claimed that “unmarried males arriving at adulthood are barbarians who are then civilized by women through marriage.” He predicted that because of this, the decline in marriage in America would be disastrous. Many derided his claim as “patriarchal sexism,” but Murray contends that its underlying assertions ring true: “The responsibilities of marriage induce young men to settle down, focus, and get to work.” In Murray’s 21st-century Fishtown, over 30% of white males ages 30-49 are considered economically ineffectual. In other words, even by the lowest measure—keeping themselves and one other adult above the poverty line—they are failing.
This failure is felt and shared by not only the people of Fishtown, but by all of America who will wrestle with how to keep the unemployed afloat, how to absorb the increase in mental illness, violence, drug abuse, and crime that is triggered by this new generation of ineffectual men and overburdened women, and how to sustain the promise of “equality” in America when circumstances have grown so far from equal. There had been a time when young men and women of all social classes would be overwhelmed with desire and yield. If a child were conceived, the next step was clear—or if it were not, society would make it clear. Once we realized how easy it could be to have pleasure without responsibility, our sinful natures had a field day, heaping lie upon lie (you don’t need a man to have a baby, a marriage license is just a piece of paper, marriage is old-fashioned, the kids are just fine), until we fall victim to what Luther noted five-hundred years ago: “Curvedness is now natural for us, a natural wickedness and a natural sinfulness. Thus man has no help from his natural powers, but he needs the aid of some power outside of himself. This is love.”
The love of which Luther speaks can only be found in God. So although we don’t need God to make a case for the importance of marriage to society, we cannot be saved from the sin that has led to its decline without Him. The one who created us, redeems us, and sanctifies us is our only hope against homo incurvatus in se and the resurrection of the institution of marriage.
From RECLAIMING THE WISDOM OF HOMO INCURVATUS IN SE: “MAN TURNED IN ON HIMSELF” AS AN ENTRY POINT FOR THE DISCUSSION OF SIN IN 21ST-CENTURY AMERICA by Heather Choate Davis
Heather Choate Davis 