Marriage and Poverty

Phyllis Schlafly

The crux of this problem and its costs is that a lack of marriage causes poverty. The poverty rate for single parents with children is 36.5 percent, while it is only 6.4 percent for married couples with children.

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Contrary to a lot of chatter, this isn't a teenage problem (only 7.7 percent of new single moms are minors), and it isn't a failure of birth control, and it isn't the accidents of unplanned pregnancies. These single moms want their babies and confidently expect Big Brother to provide for them.

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Marriage drops the probability of child poverty by 82 percent. Marriage has just as dramatic an effect as adding 5 to 6 years to the parents' level of education.

If single moms were to marry the fathers of their children, the children would immediately be lifted out of poverty. Eight out of ten of these fathers were employed at the time of the births of their out-of-wedlock children.

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Interviews with low-income single moms show that they are not hostile to marriage as an institution or as a life goal. In fact, they dream of having a husband, children, a minivan, and a house in the suburbs "with a white picket fence," but nobody tells them they will probably always be poor if they have babies without getting married.

What about the guidance we give kids in school? We tell them they will be poor if they become school dropouts and that it's self-destructive to use illegal drugs, but it's just as important to warn them about the life of poverty ahead of them if they produce babies before they marry.

What about the moral guidance we expect from the churches? Do they tell young people not to pretend they can form a "family" without marriage and a father for the children?