MICHELLE BELL writes:

I think Charles and Kristor have touched upon this idea with regards to Asher’s statements in “Disillusionment and Marriage“, but I wanted to expand upon it from a woman’s point of view.  I had an opportunity to chat with my grandmother earlier today about some family history to make sure I had gotten it right, and it seems to have pertinence to this discussion.

During the war (World War II), my grandmother and her sister were married.  My grandmother had just gotten married to her high school sweetheart before he shipped off and had gotten pregnant the week following her wedding with my eldest aunt.  Her sister had several children with her high school sweetheart.  (We’re an Irish Catholic family and her parents and the in-laws had all come from Ireland to settle in the land of opportunity, so babies were in abundance).  My grandmother’s husband came back, her sister’s husband didn’t.  She was widowed and a single mother at the ripe old age of 21 with 3 children under the age of 4.  My grandparents took the sister in, along with all of her children, for about a year.  During that time, my grandfather’s younger brother started courting the sister and they married after he graduated highschool.  My grandparents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary shortly before my grandfather died of cancer a decade and a half ago (he was a firefighter before they had rebreathers, and so contracted lung cancer later in life), and his brother and her sister were married for 61 years before they passed within a month of each other.  Yes, they had ups and downs in their lives (and many more children), but their marriages and relationships were strong and healthy.

Single motherhood in itself does not make one “unmarketable” for marriage — ideas and worldviews make someone unfit for marriage material.  Motherhood certainly complicates matters, but it is not a reason in itself for writing off a potential partner.  I simply cannot imagine a man acting like Asher in my grandfather’s day and getting away with it (or being allowed to marry anyone).  Seeking perfection in your partner while being a flawed being yourself seems to be a recipe for disaster.  I would be willing to consider the idea that Asher’s choices within life severely limit his partner selection because the type of woman he is looking for (single mother or not) is simply not going to view a man who indulges in pornography, drink, mind-altering substances and parties as responsible or husband material.  Her priorities (even more so if she’s a single mother) are to find a stable husband who will respect her, love her, help her provide for her children and otherwise build a good life with her; Asher is simply not suitable.  The traits that make a good husband, good man and a good father do not magically appear once a band is slipped on a finger — they are abundantly clear in actions and life choices before a marriage relationship begins.  Honestly, I suspect that type of thinking has a huge impact on the number of divorces we currently have; people expect that they will simply be able to change or to change their spouse to what they want instead of what they have.

So to Asher, there are women out there who want to be married, want to keep a house, and want to have children with a nice stable man as the head of the household.  I know because I’m one of them.  I have friends and family that fit that mould.  You’re not married to one of those women, because you’re not the type of man they’re seeking.  I wouldn’t let you within fifty feet of my sisters and would absolutely counsel any woman considering you as a marriage partner to look deep and hard if she finds your current behaviour acceptable. 

P.S.  I also was delighted to see you critique the men’s movement in the comments.  Men and women certainly have roles to play, but the role of men isn’t to be entitled blowhard seflish boys (certainly an unfavourable simplification of a complex issue, but I feel strongly that men who want respect must be respectable).  Men who are patriarchs are so on the rewards of their own hard work, good will and morality; it is not because a woman bows down to him or waits upon him hand and foot.  It is something earned, not granted.

                             — Comments —

Laura writes:

Needless to say, not all women have Michelle’s good judgment or are guided and protected by family when they are looking for love and marriage. The bars are filled with young women who are thrilled by unmarriageable men, who are happy with a life of casual sex in their twenties and whose fathers are completely uninterested in the sordid details of their personal lives and look the other way when they choose jerks. But it is not true that all women are this way and many are this way because of feminist indoctrination and the decline of fatherly authority. And, while self-interest partly accounts for the desire of women like Michelle for virtuous and responsible men, self-interest and the utilitarian quest for a provider do not fully explain it. There is something more there: the sincere pursuit of a moral ideal. 

Caradoc writes:

To Michelle: Don’t you think there might be a small bit of difference between a previously married war widow with children, and a modern day liberated, never married or recently divorced “single mom?” While both are unattached females with children, I think the similarities likely end there. Whatever you might think of “Asher” surely you can see this? This isn’t 1943, and it certainly isn’t 1843.

Laura writes:

Yes, there is a very big difference.

But don’t you think that if Michelle’s great aunt had been born in, say, 1990, she too might be a single mother in entirely different circumstances today? After all, her great-aunt wasn’t sexually restrained purely on her own initiative. She had an entire culture to move her in that direction and a family that would have severely stigmatized her if she had had a child out of wedlock. This would not have been so if she had been born in 1990. Then she would have been actively taught that sexual freedom is essential to self realization and that the most important thing for her while she was young was to develop her money-making talents, not to protect her chastity.

Ilion Troas writes:

I know a young man, whom I’ve known since he was an infant, who recently sired a daughter. I say “sired” because this beautiful little girl is a bastard … as, for that matter, is the young man. Now, this young man was raised without a father (he was sent in the summers to visit the man who sired him, until that man married), and was raised without soundly grounded moral teaching … though, his maternal uncles were able to somewhat ground him as a member of a family of men, with a history and a future. 

And so, reflecting on his own life, he swore to himself that he’d never do to another child what was done to him, that is, leave it fatherless. Sadly, with his morally ungrounded upbringing in the degenerate modern culture, this personal vow did not extend to realizing/affirming that he ought to “keep it in his pants” until he is married. 

A couple of years ago, he had moved to Florida (from Indiana) to:

1) finally have a father-son relationship with the man who sired him;

2) get a fresh start on life.

And then he found out that a former co-worker, with whom he’d had an alcohol-lubricated one night stand, was pregnant. So, he returned to Indiana to “be a part of his daughter’s life.” There is no need to go into my opinion on how that is or will work out. 

With that background out of the way: what prompted this comment is something that happened when the child was just a couple of months old, and he and the child’s mother were still playing house. He’d learned that I was in Indiana visiting my sister, and so he brought the baby over to my sister’s for me to admire. At some time in the visit, he joked that he was going to lock his daughter up and not allow her to “date” until she was 60 years old. My point is this: even with his terrible upbringing, in a culture which devalues and mocks virtue, he knows that things are seriously wrong, and he has the desire, inchoate though it is, to protect his daughter from it.

Y. writes:

About unwed mothers, besides the change in the cultural view of illegitimacy, there’s the fact that illegitimacy is financially rewarded. Especially for women in the lower socio-economic scale, getting a government check and housing is seen as smarter than working at the local fast-food restaurant for a low wage. It’s a generational lifestyle, with young women being shown by their mothers that this is the thing to do. If the governemnt provides benefits for four children then is anyone surprised that women will have four children, sometimes by four different fathers. The sperm donor is irrelevant to the financial benefit. Even single women with children who are living with a man in a steady relationship delay marriage because they receive more financial benefit by being listed as single mothers, including more benefits for higher education. 

I don’t see the number of unwed mothers decreasing so long as illegitimacy is rewarded.

Laura writes:

Single mothers should receive no government benefits at all and men should not be required to pay child support to women to whom they are not married.

Caradoc writes:

Laura writes:

And don’t you think that if Michelle’s great aunt had been born in, say, 1990, she too might be a single mother in entirely different circumstances today? After all, her great-aunt wasn’t sexually restrained purely on her own initiative. She had an entire culture to move her in that direction and a family that would have severely stigmatized her if she had had a child out of wedlock. This would not have been so if she had been born in 1990. Then she would have been actively taught that sexual freedom is essential to self realization and that the most important thing for her while she was young was to develop her money-making talents, not to protect her chastity. 

Yes, I do think that. In fact, it is almost 100% certain. And it reinforces my point. Women are not what they might have been in the old world. Men therefore cannot be what they were, either. It would be personally and financially suicidal. A man ought not be expected to fall on a sword in service to women who have made their own beds. Different circumstances change the appropriate response. A war widow is not the same as a tramp.

Laura writes:

You contradict yourself. On one hand, you acknowledge that women have been formed by their culture and then you say, they “have made their own beds.” Which is it?

To repeat what I have said before, I do not believe this is an easy choice for men and I would not want to marry a woman with a child if I were a man – unless I had no other choice.

Certainly men should not “fall on their sword” (if that is what raising a child and loving a woman are) for women who are proud of having children out of wedlock and who do not see their mistakes, women who celebrate single motherhood. But not all women are this way, and women who have given birth to their children, rather than have abortions, have often made a difficult choice. By calling all women who have had children out of marriage”tramps,” in an age of easy sex and no parental authority, an age in which men are not declining easy sex en masse and in which many men are not exactly eager to marry the women they impregnate, you suggest that women are solely responsible for sexual freedom and there is no possibility for forgiveness or change once mistakes have been made. I know a young woman who is 22 who is raising her child at her parent’s house. She is constantly on her younger sister to not make the mistake she has made. She would make a decent wife. Obviously, I don’t believe all single mothers would make decent wives, but some of them would.

It is never personally suicidal – never – to form a family unless one commits wrong in doing so. The only thing that ultimately destroys a person is their own sins, not the sins of others. Do I expect too much selflessness from men? Perhaps. I will hold onto that ideal. I hold onto the ideal of selflessness in women too.

Stewart W. writes:

I find myself somewhat supportive of Caradoc’s statement.  I believe there is a big difference between a widow with children, and a “single mom” of today.  All other things being equal, the widow is truly in her condition through no choice of her own, and up until her misfortune made all the right choices with regard to marriage and children.  She’s thus demonstrated a predisposition to the characteristics one would want in a good wife and mother.  Furthermore, the although the woman and her children will rightfully love and miss the deceased father, the complications of the “other dad” (and the “other lover”) are absent.  Knowing these things about the family, a man who might fall in love with the widow can be reasonably certain that he can step into the role of father and husband from a strong, confident, and noble position. 

All of these characteristics are absent when courting a “single mom”.  Either she’s demonstrated a lack of morals and an understanding of what it takes to make a stable, traditional family by engaging in casual sex, or by abandoning her first mate, or she’s demonstrated poor judgment in picking a dirtbag as her first husband.  Also, if you become the new husband, you probably will never be the father, and will most likely always have to deal with her “ex” in your life. 

When I was single (about 15 years ago), I may have been quite sympathetic to a single woman with small children.  However, I simply wouldn’t have let myself fall for such a woman, because the odds of having a happy marriage in such a circumstance were too small.  Nobility alone is not enough reason to submit myself to an unhappy marriage and miserable life.

Laura writes:

Please see my reply to Caradoc. 

Remember we are talking about a hypothetical situation in which a man must choose among many single mothers or nothing.   

I presume you would rather have a woman who had had an abortion and does not come with the baggage of a responsible choice. You would consider her to be someone of higher character. 

Do you ever think what it is to be a boy without a real father? I don’t mean to be maudlin or anything, and far be it for me to be so insensitive to men as to mention the existence of children, but such children do exist? Do they ever move you? Have you ever met a single mother who was a decent woman who had made a mistake? I have. This type of woman bears the consequences of the sexual revolution far more than anyone else, and that includes all the women who have had abortions and are subsequently attractive to men as mates.

Stewart writes:

If the hypothetical is between many of today’s “single moms” and remaining celibate, were I faced with the choice today, I would probably choose to remain celibate, although I will never state my case as an absolute for the possibility of an exceptional case that avoids all of the social pathologies.  Also, to clarify, I’m definitely not a “men’s rights” fan, and consider myself a confirmed traditionalist, am strongly against abortion, and would never prefer a woman who had one.  As I stated, I find the attitudes of the men’s rightists and Roissyites to be reprehensible.  All I’m stating is that my normal selection process would produce a very strong bias against marrying or even dating a single mother, for the reasons I listed above.  I may very well have compassion for many of these women, but to put it in the vernacular, I wouldn’t want the “baggage”.  You yourself have mentioned that there are few more emasculating conditions than to be raising another man’s child.  Also, although I’m aware of the posited hypothetical, the reality is that I would and did know that I had many other choices, which is why I’m happily married today.

 As to the plight of the children in these cases, of course I am moved by these cases, and have myself been the recipient of “the stare” that fatherless children give when they see a strong, stable man.  I’ve been in the role of a stable father figure for my niece for many years, as best as I can manage.  In many cases, I think the best a good man can do for such children is to simply be the stable neighbor, uncle, coach, pastor, or family friend, to try and help these children see a vision of normal, healthy men and to understand how to strive for that in their own lives. 

Are you suggesting that the best situation is for a man to marry an unstable or unsuitable woman just for the sake of her children by another man?  I’m sorry, but in this case, I’m going to have to agree with Dr. Laura Schlesinger, that in almost all cases, it’s worse for the children to have a new “dad” introduced into their life.  The best thing the mother can do is remain single until the child turns 18.  Every day on Dr. Laura’s  show, you hear the stories of people who are trying to deal with the intractable and painful consequences of “blended families”, so I don’t believe that, but for extraordinary circumstances, a second marriage should be undertaken for the sake of the children.

Stewart adds:

Are you suggesting that the best situation is for a man to marry an unstable or unsuitable woman just for the sake of her children by another man?  I’m sorry, but in this case, I’m going to have to agree with Dr. Laura Schlesinger, that in almost all cases, it’s worse for the children to have a new “dad” introduced into their life.  The best thing the mother can do is remain single until the child turns 18.  Every day on Dr. Laura’s  show, you hear the stories of people who are trying to deal with the intractable and painful consequences of “blended families”, so I don’t believe that, but for extraordinary circumstances, a second marriage should be undertaken for the sake of the children.

Laura writes:

I don’t believe a man should ever marry an unstable woman unless he is deeply attached to her. I am not saying that men should marry single mothers even out of compassion for their children, but that men should not disregard all single mothers as suitable mates if they are in a position where very few single women are available. If they do meet a decent woman who is a single mother and whom they like, they might then get over their aversion to marrying her by simple compassion for her child. There are some women who do not fit the stereotype of the trashy, welfare-loading whore. 

Many of these women will never find men to marry them. That is a fact and it is not surprising at all. Let’s hope they can serve as a voice for change for the next generation.

As I have said at length before, the cult of single motherhood is grotesque. As I wrote before,

Rather than regretting her mistakes, the New Single Mother revels in them. She dotes on her little one, has sex with many men in search of elusive perfection, and publicly trashes the father of her child. She forms networks with other single mothers, who help each other normalize the abnormal and defiantly proclaim they don’t need men.

Stewart writes:

Well, it sounds like we are probably on the same page, after all. If, as Asher seemed to suggest, a man is categorically against marrying a single mother under any circumstances, then he is a fool. However, for many of the reasons I stated, you are right that most of these women will never find men to marry them. 

Michelle Bell writes:

Thank you, Laura, for your comments and wisdom. You illuminated my intent with sharing that story, perhaps better than I could have especially your statement of “There is something more there: the sincere pursuit of a moral ideal.” I wanted to challenge the idea that there are no ideal partners available, so morality can put into a little box and forgotten about — if a person is not seeing the partner they are seeking, then they are looking in the wrong place! My mother always said “If you want to make friends, you have to be the person you want to make friends with.” The sentiment behind that saying seems to be applicable throughout all of our human interactions. If you are seeking a specific type of partner, you need to be the person that will be attractive to that partner. Seems very simple.

Perhaps I am an idealist (we can chalk that up to my youth and naivete), but I do not think that it is single motherhood that should disqualify someone as “wife” material. Just as issues with substances, pornography or many sexual partners (in the past) do not automatically disqualify a man as “husband” material. It is a person’s thoughts and deeds and current actions that should determine the suitability of a marriage partner, although past deeds should be disclosed if it looks like a marriage is agreeable. Both parties have a right to know what they are agreeing to when they intertwine their lives. The problem is that men carry a different style of baggage than women do — women are much more likely to have children from previous choices; men are likely to carry wounds within that may not be immediately apparent (sexual perversity, drug or alcohol addictions, etc). Honestly, I’d rather take clean and upfront baggage than something hidden and unknown that might be controlled for a time and then surface to rampage and destroy. I’m not saying that single motherhood is an ideal — it just is something that we deal with in our current culture.

To Caradoc, yes I understand there is a huge difference between my time and the time in which my grandmother’s family was forming. However, it seems to me that if single motherhood is “acceptable” in one circumstance, then it’s not the single motherhood status that is the problem. It is the ideas and worldviews that are the issue at hand. Certainly a child out of wedlock may be an appropriate shorthand to discover the ideas and worldviews of a particular person, but it is not a guarantee. And I’d much rather be given the benefit of the doubt if something should happen and I end up in my great aunt’s shoes. Whatever happened to love thy neighbor as thyself? And perhaps the trick of that is people must learn to love themselves (and to be lovable) before they can give to others. I find it hard to believe that self-destructive behaviour is very loving to either family or self.

Laura writes:

Thank you.

Michelle writes:

To Caradoc, yes I understand there is a huge difference between my time and the time in which my grandmother’s family was forming. However, it seems to me that if single motherhood is “acceptable” in one circumstance, then it’s not the single motherhood status that is the problem.

There is a significant difference when the father of a child is still alive.

Postmodern Antiquarian writes:

I no not think marrying a single mother is desirable, but I believe there are cases when the mother is deserving of a husband and a man can make it work. While I fully understand Asher’s antipathy toward women with children, I suspect that the antipathy is directed toward the children themselves, rather than the women. I’m not suggesting that it is even a conscious antipathy. It is only natural for a man NOT to embrace someone else’s child. By definition it takes time to build a relationship with any human being, particularly one with a child who is a stranger. For a man dating a mother, the child is a living and constant reminder of her imperfect past; a former lover, and, yes, her sex life. 

I know from growing up among adult-male relatives and neighbors that almost any child will respond to an adult male who shows interest in his life — and absolutely vice versa.
I would recommend that Asher not cross off women with children from his list of potential mates. If he truly wants to build a relationship with a woman and share a life, he can build a relationship with the child. He just needs to remember, it’s not going to happen right away. Most real relationships don’t.

Laura adds:

In the heat of this conversation, I failed to clarify one aspect of my position. I don’t think a woman who has refused to marry the father of her child, as Bristol Palin has done, or who has divorced the father of her child, fits into the category of suitable prospects.

In years past, men who did not want to marry the women they impregnated were compelled to, largely by other men. That is no longer the case.

Rita writes:

I would like to point out, to Steward W. in particular that it is not always the woman who abandons her mate. It is often the husband who leaves the marriage by cheating. That she is the one stuck handling the divorce paperwork so she can get on with her life with some dignity, doesn’t make her the abandoner.

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