In two previous columns I suggested that a not insignificant cause of the current rates of out of wedlock pregnancies in the US is a breakdown of healthy relations between women and men.  Past attempts to address high rates of nonmarital pregnancies failed to note this possible cause.  To be clear, I am not suggesting that all prior attempts to curb such pregnancies (e.g. policies in areas such as education, job-training, sex-education, child support enforcement, social welfare, and marriage) were wrong or illogical in themselves, only that they were incomplete. 

At the same time I would have to note that some policy responses may have actually exacerbated the situation. Those involving large-scale birth control distribution, for example, and abortion on request, were not only unsuccessful, but sent messages about the meaning of male/female relationships that very likely sent nonmarital birth rates to higher levels.

Evidence set forward in previous columns – much of it from qualitative interviews and other published accounts of unmarried pregnancy and parenting – suggests that deep levels of mistrust between the sexes, unrealistic or wrong ideas about sex and marriage, ignorance about the social importance of stable, long-term heterosexual coupling, and ignorance about men’s and women’s different relationships with children, fuel our current out of wedlock birth rates. 

But what can be done about these deep-seated and complex misconceptions and attitudes?  And by whom?   This column begins to propose some answers to these questions in a systematic fashion.  It contains summaries of proposals which are a part of a much longer paper on which I am working. 

One final column will complete this “series” on the relationship between a male/female problematic and out of wedlock pregnancies. Here, I will first suggest messages which need to be delivered to counter the existing misconceptions and attitudes which together form the male/female problematic. Then I will offer principles for deciding who – which persons and institutions -- ought to deliver such messages, focusing primarily upon parents, churches, and the state.  The last column will suggest some concrete policies or solutions each person or institution might pursue and why.

Based upon women’s and men’s narratives about how they came to be unmarried parents, as culled from research shared in earlier columns, I think that the following questions or issues need to be addressed in order to assist the healing of the male/female problematic in connection with out of wedlock pregnancies.  The first area concerns the equality of males and females, but “this time” (as distinct from attempts during the 1960s and 70s) with special attention both to avoiding generalized, gratuitous male bashing, and to pointing up the differences between men and women, particularly respecting the inclinations of each toward children. 

I say this for the following reasons. Unmarried mothers often testify to an early inclination toward motherhood, but don’t understand their male partners’ temporary or scarce interest in the child.  They don’t understand how, biologically and historically, it seems that men’s attachment to children is closely related to a mutual commitment between the father and the mother. They don’t understand women’s attraction to interweaving childcare and work, and men’s greater aversion to “multitasking.”  Understanding these sorts of matters might help women and men avoid behavior leading to conception, and avoid “writing off” the possibility of a commitment to the opposite sex during a pregnancy or after a childbirth.

Second, there is needed more information about and support for the unique personal and social importance of the married heterosexual pair.  Closely related, there is also needed more information about the common “disorders” that plague intimate heterosexual relationships.  It is well known by now that for most people, a significant and foundational portion of their happiness is linked to a strong heterosexual relationship. Stably married persons are far happier and healthier than their single or separated or divorced counterparts.

We also know that a consensus has formed around the conclusion that children fare best in stably married households. When children falter – as they will more likely do when raised outside of such families – huge external costs are imposed upon society in the form of school failure, drug use, criminality and violence, out of wedlock pregnancies, cohabitation and divorce. Even faltering couples give rise to social costs – whether due to poverty, lost work productivity or declining citizenship participation.