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POINT The Marriage Trap By MELISSA DAVIS 11.03.03 2:01PM CST The decisions to marry and bear children are possibly the most private decisions an American could make, unless that American happens to be poor. Many poor American women can expect the government to intervene in these highly personal matters, via "marriage promotion" clauses to welfare legislation. The Bush administration would prefer that poor women transfer their dependency on government to dependency on a man - and any man will do. It's ironic, in a society that values personal liberty and limited government, that we accept this interference without any outrage. But then again, we also seem to value moral fortitude above all else. Thus, it shouldn't be surprising that we approve of didactic government intervention in the lives of that group of Americans many of us would prefer to ignore: poor, single, unmarried women with children. The most recent incarnation of "welfare reform," is the Bush administration's plan for TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families). This is a pro-family values, anti-woman, and decidedly uncompassionately conservative take on President Clinton's welfare reform of 1996. Current law encourages, but does not require, marriage promotion programs in order for states to receive TANF block grants. President Bush's new legislation not only requires states to establish marriage promotion programs, but also provides significant funding for marriage promotion activities in universal populations, not just welfare recipients. (Yes, this means that marriage promotion programs will target even middle and upper class Americans.) Proponents of marriage promotion cite statistics on child poverty and blame poor children's negative outcomes on the "collapse of marriage" as an institution in American society. It is true that 80 percent of child poverty is found in single-parent families, whether due to divorce or out-of-marriage childbearing. But what are the consequences of staying in, or seeking, marriage for the sake of the institution? First, marriage does not guarantee the end of poverty for most women. At least 40 percent of poor adults in the United States are married. Second, because of the increasing costs of child care, poor married women are more likely to stay home to care for children and are less likely to get the education or training they need to obtain a higher-paying job. Third, the prevalence of domestic violence in families receiving welfare is astonishing. As many as 50 percent of women on public assistance claim they have experienced relationship violence. Many of these women left their abusive partner only to find themselves single, poor, with children, and dependent on a welfare program that encourages them to return to their abuser. Returning women - and children - to abusive relationships because family policy moralistically prescribes marriage as a solution to social ills may not be all that moral after all. In 1996, when President Clinton enacted the Block Grants for TANF as Title I of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRA), welfare ceased to be an entitlement program and became a state-directed discretionary assistance program. The welfare overhaul added work requirements as a condition for receiving benefits and a sixty month lifetime cap for benefits. President Bush's legislation will add an additional 10 hours per week to work requirements. For single mothers of young children, work requirements often present a moral question: leave the babies in subsidized child care, or enter (or return to) marriage in order to be able to raise those babies themselves. Work requirements also prohibit women from receiving the education and training needed to obtain higher-wage jobs. Thus, too often, women find themselves stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty and dependence. I do not intend to assert that marriage is, in itself, a bad choice for many Americans. Indeed, two parent families usually make childrearing easier and studies do show that children have better outcomes when they live with both of their parents. But giving government the moral high ground when it comes to defining a healthy family has a dangerously Orwellian undertone. The Supreme Court has long emphasized the right to privacy in making decisions regarding marriage, contraception and childbearing. We don't intervene in the private decisions of middle class or wealthy women - what gives government the right to interfere with the personal choices of poor women? Instead of moralistically prescriptive interventions into the private lives of our nation's poor, we need welfare policies that aim to eradicate poverty and empower families to become self-sufficient. If we are truly worried about the children, shouldn't we allow their mothers to be their primary caregivers when they are still babies? Shouldn't we empower their mothers to leave abusive partners? Shouldn't we offer their mothers the support they need to get a job that pays a living wage? Instead of smugly promoting marriage, our government should be focusing on mitigating need in low-income populations. There are no studies indicating that welfare causes poor, unmarried mothers to be poor, unmarried, or mothers. Indeed, benefits of a few hundred dollars per month (in Texas it is $211 per month for a family of 3) hardly constitute an incentive to apply for welfare. However, everybody seems to hear about "welfare queens" who don't marry and keep having children out of wedlock in order to "milk the system." These mythical welfare mothers seem to be directing our nation's family policies and entitling government to define a healthy family by a marriage certificate - whether the marriage itself is healthy or not. Melissa Davis is a second year M.P.Aff. candidate at the LBJ School of Public Affairs focusing on non profit management and women's policy issues. She co-chairs POWER (Policy, Opportunity, Women, Education, Resources), and the LBJ School Progressive Collective. |
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