PJ Media

If women weren’t willing to have sex outside of marriage, we wouldn’t have this problem. A woman who choses to have sex without marriage chooses to risk being poor – being an unwed mother seems to be the best guarantee of a lifetime at the poverty level.

If men weren’t willing to have sex outside of marriage, we wouldn’t have this problem. A man who choses to have sex without marriage chooses to risk being poor – having to pay child support can put a real damper on the old lifestyle. Welcome to the poverty level…

But for some women, the risk is actually the desired outcome – being poor with a baby is better than being better off without a baby.

So the risks aren’t quite as symmetrical as they seem.

Used to be, we ostracized those women. But no more. Used to be, we frowned on sex outside of marriage, at least if it was “open & notorious.” No more. Essentially, sex used to incentivize marriage. But since it doesn’t anymore, we have no remaining social tools to clamp down on unmarried sex. So the result is going to be…babies who need support.

As always happens when societal mores break down, we turn to the law. The legal answer is that that men need to be careful to avoid these women, or take precautions if they don’t. Otherwise, the woman gets the child and the man gets to pay support.

Any other answer seems to either produce more unmarried mothers (welfare) or impoverished children (no child support.) Both answers seem to produce worse problems.

Bottom line: the bad answer we have is the best answer we can find, as long as we are depending on the law.

Of course, I suppose that we could require unwed mothers who get child support to have sex once a week with the fathers as long as the child support is being paid. That could provide incentives all around…

We could call that system “marriage.”

Uh…wait a minute…does that mean that maybe we should figure out some way to reincentivize marriage? Hmmm…maybe women could refuse to have sex outside of marriage, and then…naahhh…