Have
Anti-Father Family Court Policies
Led to Men's Marriage Strike?
by
Glenn Sacks
© 2001
This article originally
appeared on the Glenn J. Sacks
Website
and appears here with the permission of the author.
Kathleen
is attractive, successful, witty, and educated. She also can't
find a husband. Why? Because most of the men this thirty-something
software analyst dates do not want to get married. These men have
Peter Pan Syndrome--they refuse to commit, refuse to settle down,
and refuse to "grow up."
However,
given the family court policies and divorce trends of today, Peter
Pan is no naive boy, but instead a wise man.
"Why
should I get married and have kids when I could lose those kids and
most of what I've worked for at a moment's notice?" asks Dan, a
31 year-old power plant technician who says he will never marry.
"I've seen it happen to many of my friends. I know guys who
came home one day to an empty house or apartment--wife gone, kids
gone. They never saw it coming. Some of them were never able
to see their kids regularly again."
The
US marriage rate has dipped 40% over the past four decades, to its
lowest point ever. There are many plausible explanations for this
trend, but one of the least mentioned is that American men, in the
face of a family court system which is hopelessly stacked against
them, have subconsciously launched a "marriage strike."
It
is not difficult to see why. Let's say that Dan defies Peter Pan,
marries Kathleen, and has two children. There is a 50%
likelihood that this marriage will end in divorce within eight
years, and if it does the odds are two to one that it will be
Kathleen, not Dan, who initiates the divorce. It may not
matter that Dan was a decent husband--studies show that few divorces
are initiated over abuse or because the man has already abandoned
the family. Nor is adultery cited as a factor by divorcing
women appreciably more than by divorcing men.
While
the courts may grant Dan and Kathleen joint legal custody, the odds
are overwhelming that it is Kathleen, not Dan, who will win physical
custody. Over night Dan, accustomed to seeing his kids every day and
being an integral part of their lives, will become a "14
percent dad"--a father who is allowed to spend only one out of
every 7 days with his own children.
Once
divorced, odds are at least even that Dan's ex-wife will interfere
with his visitation rights. Three-quarters of divorced men surveyed
say their ex-wives have interfered with their visitation, and 40% of
mothers studied admitted that they had done so, and that they had
generally acted out of spite or in order to punish their exes.
Kathleen
will keep the house and most of the couple's assets. Dan will
need to set up a new residence and pay at least a third of his take
home pay to Kathleen in child support.
As
bad as all of this is, it would still make Dan one of the lucky
ones. After all, he could be one of those fathers who cannot
see his children at all because his ex has made a false accusation
of domestic violence, child abuse, or child molestation. Or a father
who can only see his own children under supervised visitation or in
nightmarish visitation centers where dads are treated like
criminals.
He
could be one of those fathers whose ex has moved their children
hundreds or thousands of miles away, in violation of court orders
which courts often do not enforce. He could be one of those
fathers who tears up his life and career again and again in order to
follow his children, only to have his ex-wife continually move them.
He
could be one of the fathers who has lost his job, seen his income
drop, or suffered a disabling injury, only to have child support
arrearages and interest pile up to create a mountain of debt which
he could never hope to pay off. Or a father who is forced to
pay 70% or 80% of his income in child support because the court has
imputed an unrealistic income to him. Or a dad who suffers from one
of the child support enforcement system's endless and difficult to
correct errors, or who is jailed because he cannot keep up with his
payments. Or a dad who reaches old age impoverished because he lost
everything he had in a divorce when he was middle-aged and did not
have the time and the opportunity to earn it back.
"It's
a shame," Dan says. "I always wanted to be a father and
have a family. But unless the laws change and give fathers the same
right to be a part of their children's lives as mothers have, it
just isn't worth the risk."
Copyright 2001 Glenn
Sacks, all rights reserved
