WESTERN SOCIETY is steadily reverting to matriarchy and witnessing the progressive erosion of democracy. The two developments go hand-in-hand because it is impossible to maintain democracy with large numbers of female-headed households. Formal recognition of paternal authority is necessary to reverse this trend. Men should have primary custody of their biological children, as was commonplace in Western democracies two hundred years ago. This is one of the most basic means of checking the expansion of socialist government and the decline of the family.  Here are continuing comments from readers on the issue of presumptive paternal custody, which was discussed in this entry.

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  A READER writes: I really like these simple yet profound observations. My husband and I have commented on this "look" often. We are far from perfect, but have held fast to the narrow path, and that involves fresh air, books, music, food cooked at home, and lots of creative play borne out of "boredom." We have prayed for friends who value similar things, and have been blessed in this regard. Just yesterday, a friend and I were able to talk on the patio as we witnessed games of dolls, slides, wagons, and dirt unfold on the lawn. Such play does give a sparkle to the eyes, roses to the cheeks, and tone to the muscles. My nieces are not so blessed, and it is always a privilege for us to have them over for a day or two, feed them, and give them a taste of carefree childhood existence apart from screens, daycare, and marital strife. Thank you for expressing so concisely some notions that have been swirling in my mind.  Laura writes: Most children get some outdoor play, some idle time, and some homecooked food but in general the wholesome childhood has become marginal and atypical. To raise children in the way you describe is now subversive, a radical stance  against a sick society.

LIV writes:

I have been reading your blog for a half a year now. I actually started calling myself a traditionalist a year before that, after I spent some time abroad on my own and, for lack of a better expression,  saw the light. Your blog has been a great help to me. I started out  reading the male perspective online and continue to do so, but am also grateful for the balance you provide. Recently you and your readers have been discussing the subject of  man-bashing and how it stems from assumed male authority. The  following comment of John P. made me consider the situation in my home:

“As to hierarchy breeding resentment, I think this is untrue. Bad  hierarchy breeds resentment. There are many men who are vastly better  at squash than I am and I feel not the slightest resentment toward  their position because it is self-evident that they have earned their  superior position through a transparent and rule oriented process.  Resentment of superiors emerges when the leadership is observably no  better, or even worse, than the led, a condition I see as becoming  worryingly ubiquitous in liberal society.”

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JAMES P. writes:

There are wonderful pictures of British children from the 1940s to the 1960s here. Note the picture of the teacher leading morning prayers, and the boys using roller skates with no helmets or pads — both very shocking by today’s standards.

Meanwhile, today, one child in four in the UK is born to an immigrant mother.

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JOHN E. writes:

JULIA ROBERTS spoke in a recent Elle interview on being a wife and mother:

“The children became the shooting stars of him[her husband], of that thing we have. How lucky we are that we love each other so much that we burst into three pieces.” 

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TEXANNE writes:

Another book about the quest to discover whether men and women are different (and if so, why), is briefly reviewed in the New York Times this week. An interesting quote by a transexual person (a male who has in some way been transformed into a female) provides a clue apparently overlooked by all the gender scholars and brain scientists hard at work on this mystery: 

“The more I was treated as a woman, the more woman I became.”  (more…)

IN TOLSTOY’S famous novel about female betrayal, the title character, Anna Karenina, is forced to abandon her young child in order to live with her lover. The tension between maternal love for her son and sexual passion is a running theme throughout the book and ultimately contributes to her death, wherein the beautiful Anna throws herself under the wheels of a train, a woman destroyed by her impulsive nature.

The end is extreme but this was once the only choice for a woman leaving her husband: her lover or her children. In colonial America, as well as nineteenth century Russia, a father had presumptive custody of his children. Divorce was rare and was not even recognized in most of the colonies or early states. However, a woman had no legal claim to her own children, who were considered the charges of fathers.

Today, in an age when mothers are overwhelmingly favored for legal custody of children, this seems unimaginable. But given the vast system of abuses perpetrated by family courts, the epidemic of female abandonment of husbands, the arrests and restraining orders against fathers, and the general decline of marriage, the old way more and more makes urgent sense. Children, when in dispute, should automatically go with their fathers, not their mothers, as is commonly assumed. A father, as head of the household, should have the right to award custody to a mother. But no court should usurp his powers and authority over his own children.

Some of the greatest injustices in the modern world are committed against fathers. Their basic rights must be restored. State-imposed destruction of the institution of fatherhood is nothing less than tyrannical and benefits women not at all.

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IN THIS discussion about man-bashing, I wrote:

Women have this natural tendency to blame men that stems from relying on men, and they also resort to this habit even when they are themselves at fault.

The analogy of employer and employee has serious limitations here because a husband-and-wife relationship is different and is based on mutual love. Still it works because the employee assumes the employer is in charge, as a wife often does with regard to a husband. Feminists wouldn’t admit this of course, but I believe this is one reason why anger at men only rises under feminism. Male authority is destroyed and yet women still presume it. The angry and embittered single mother is a perfect example of this. She has all the freedom from men she could possibly want and yet she is still enraged at them.

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UNDER the tag of “bigotry,” a student at Yale has written a column at The Huffington Post about the discussion here over the offer of a stroller by lesbian neighbors. Leah Anthony Libresco correctly states that I believe the “act of being openly and visibly lesbian is an offense against the feelings of others.” She (or he?) compares this to the prejudice of opponents to the proposed mosque at Ground Zero. The piece also appeared in Islamophobia Today.

The link between the two subjects is not as absurd as it sounds. Both radical homosexuality and Islam are avowed enemies of Western culture. (more…)

CHILDREN who spend their childhoods playing look different from children who spend their childhoods plugged in to the electronic mastermind of a crass culture.

Children fed by their mothers look different from children fed by food-processing companies and fast food outlets.

Children who have fathers look different from children who have no fathers, or who have fathers and stepfathers.

Children who have free time look different from children who spend all day in organized routines.

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Jesse Powell writes:

I get the uneasy feeling that what started off as a story of a single mother who let her hostility towards men damage her son has turned to the subject of why women bash men in general and then finally degenerated into woman-bashing, men’s rights style. 

If I could make some generalized comments here, not so much specifically in regards to Andrew’s nephew, whose story is very troubling, but more generally on the subject of man-bashing. It is definitely true that man-bashing is a commonplace, that masculinity is treated as a disease, etc. The question is, why do women “dish it out” and why do men “take it” and even go along with it?  (more…)

Andrew S. writes:

Recently my extended family got together for a rare vacation. Including my family (wife and three young sons, all below the age of 14), we were joined by my sister and her family (daughter in her early twenties and son also under 14, and the same age as my oldest, 12). As you will have noticed, my sister has no husband and her two children have different fathers (she was married to her daughter’s father but they divorced many years ago). We live in different states and lead very different lives.  (more…)

KATHLENE M. writes:

As I read the comments on “Christianity Lite” and “Asher’s Dilemma,” I thought I’d pass on something I stumbled upon at the “Quo Vadis” website called “Nine Days That Changed the World — Come Holy Spirit and Restore America.”  It’s about how when Christians came together in prayer in Poland during Pope John Paul’s visit, their prayers and faith helped usher in an end to Communism.  

HERE is the main part of a letter to the editor of The New York Times this week regarding a piece by Ross Douthat in which he argued that heterosexual marriage is a worthy ideal:

Ideals may be hard to argue with, but they have real-world consequences, and even a beautiful vision of marriage as an abstract ideal becomes ugly when it excludes actual human beings and damages their well-being. Ideas don’t ache, institutions don’t suffer and symbols don’t sob, but real people do.

By Mr. Douthat’s logic, the love, commitment and sacrifice that my partner and I share and practice (13 years so far) count for nothing compared with a particular ideal about what should be true. For that matter, our rights don’t count either. That’s not an ideal that we, or many people in this country, can get behind.

Amanda Udis-Kessler
Denver

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CLARK COLEMAN writes:

I’d like to make a couple of church-centered comments concerning all the discussion of “Asher’s dilemma.” First, I think that James Davison Hunter’s book,  To Change the World, about the failure of the church counterculture gets it backwards. The story is not that 40 percent of the population is conservative evangelical Christians, who outnumber the 10 percent of the population who are the institutional elite, but whose numbers do not equate to influence because the 40 percent  do not occupy the elite positions that the 10 percent do. The story of the failure of the “transform-the-culture” movement is that you cannot transform the other 60 percent if you are not transformed yourself. (more…)