[OT] I Have a Dream - Martin Luther King, Jr.

[James A. Donald]

On 1/16/2017 10:25 AM, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
> There are many problems, and perhaps some possible approaches to
> improving the situation - for example teaching at school how to
> communicate in a relationship, perhaps documentaries on the problems of
> single parents, and certainly changes in the law - financial incentives
> to have a family, rather than to be a single parent, would be a good
> start.


Financial incentive to have a family rather than be a single parent has 
been tried.  Turns out that childbearing is profoundly unresponsive to 
merely financial incentives.

The early Victorians proceeded to emancipate women, figuring that since 
women were naturally virtuous and responsible, no disaster would ensue. 
The result, of course, was far too many women giving birth in dark 
alleys in the rain, eventually leading to our marginally less disastrous 
welfare state.   I don't have any statistics as to how many, but it was 
unacceptably many.

(And no, it is not the pill that made the difference.  We have had the 
condom since the late bronze age, and the sponge since the time of 
Caesar. In practice, the supposed beneficial effects of new and improved 
contraception, or campaigns to spread knowledge and use of 
contraception, only appear at the same time as the actual beneficial 
effects of welfare for single mothers.  The pill was effectively illegal 
in Japan until quite recently.  It made only a marginal difference.)

Regency period Australia had another solution to single women who were 
not being supervised by fathers or husbands, which solution horrifies 
moderns, and indeed horrified Victorians, but it undeniably worked. 
That solution being that you just do not allow fertile age women to 
follow their pussies wherever their pussies might lead. You don't allow 
women to sleep with men who cannot or will not marry them if pregnant, 
you don't allow a married woman to sleep with any man other than her 
husband, and you don't allow women to be disrespectful to their 
husbands.  You keep women under as much control as necessary to prevent 
sexual misbehavior.  Which turns out to be quite a lot of control.