Congress wants to spend $100 million per year, for the next five years, to promote marriage, and marriage education. The federal funds will be directed toward low-income couples; the logic behind this plan being that if impoverished families can be swayed into getting married and staying married, those couples will need less monetary assistance later on in life. The plan also calls for $50 million per year to produce “committed fathers.”
Organizations can apply for grants through the marriage program; for instance, one Fresno man of Marriage Mentoring Ministries Inc. has asked the government for $550,000 in order to hire more marriage counselors, trained to advise couples before and after marriage.
Low income families do experience divorce far more frequently than those with higher income, and families headed by a single mother tend to be significantly poorer than two parent families. Rep. Wally Herger of California, speaking in favor of funding the marriage promotion plan, noted that children growing up with only one parent are seven times more likely to grow up in poverty; Herger and others reason that if husband and wife can stay together, the entire family will be less likely to depend on monetary support from the government. Furthermore, because single mother households access welfare far more often than other families, the thinking goes that keeping marriages together will result in less need for welfare programs.
Offering marriage counseling, especially to families that might not be able to afford it on their own, will always be a good policy. However, the thinking behind the federal plan to promote marriage is slightly skewed, because poverty leads to divorce, not the other way around. Convincing low income people to marry will not automatically raise their
income; in fact, if both husband and wife are impoverished, and get married, they probably will end up single because it seems to be that a lack of money results in the lack of a healthy marriage.
Marriage counselors, and national statistics, point out that money is the number one reason for arguments within a marriage, and one of the most prevalent causes of divorce. Impoverished couples struggle more than wealthy couples with meeting needs versus engaging in leisure activities; raising children; and spending time together as a family, because lower paying jobs mandate longer hours away from home. When both parents are forced to work full time jobs, they have little time for bonding with each other, or their children, and it is therefore no surprise that divorce may ensue.
Therefore, if the federal government is serious about curbing our nation’s high divorce rate, promoting more marriage – without a parallel promotion in programs that cater to low income citizens in general – is extremely nearsighted.
In one example of how federal dollars to promote marriage have certainly gone awry, the aforementioned Marriage Mentoring Ministries Inc. organization spent a previous grant of $50,000 to hire a single employee, and create thousands of leaflets detailing the benefits of marriage.
No federal money should be wasted on pamphlets that attempt to convince citizens to tie the knot, couples unsure about a lifetime commitment to one another probably shouldn’t get married, and we should hope that a leaflet would not convince them otherwise.
Furthermore, marriage does not need to be promoted as much as low income families need simple monetary support. Were the federal government to pour money into revitalizing the housing and employment opportunities in impoverished neighborhoods, instead of flyers about marriage, couples would see a tangible reduction in the factors putting stress on their marriages.
As for the $50 million to sway fathers away from leaving their families, perhaps the government should consider investing a portion of that money in birth control services. Because many states offer limited access to birth control services, low income citizens especially will have a more difficult time practicing safe sex; if a child is born to an unprepared couple, perhaps even a married one, that’s the time when a father may chose to escape a familial commitment that he cannot handle financially or emotionally.
Poverty leads to single parent households, yet being single in no way drives citizens
toward being impoverished. It is laudable that Congressional money be put toward counseling for low income marriages, however leaflets and other such programs that promote marriage, without programs addressing the problem of poverty in general, are simply useless.
[email protected]