Conjugal Haves and Have-nots

In Sunday's The New York Times on July 15 appeared an article by Jason DeParle on "the way family structure deepens class divides."  Among the observations is that children in two-parent homes tend to fare better than children in single-parent homes.

Much of this faring well is understood in the article economically:  "striking changes in family structure [in the U.S. over recent decades] have also broadened income gaps and posed new barriers to upward mobility."  Mr. DeParle continues, albeit in a somewhat attention-grabbing, Marx-related way of articulating these descriptive trends:

Estimates vary widely, but scholars have said that changes in marriage patterns -- as opposed to changes in individual earnings -- may account for as much as 40 percent of the growth in certain measures of inequality.  Long a nation of economic extremes, the United States is also becoming a society of family haves and family have-nots, with marriage and its rewards evermore confined to the fortunate classes.

This is empirically revealing and helpful data for informed debate.  But is marriage really "confined" to one segment of society in the sense that it is out of reach, or in the sense that a man and woman who wish to marry are not permitted to do so?

It may be the case, as Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University, says, that “[i]t is the privileged Americans who are marrying, and marrying helps them stay privileged.”  So the main question in my mind is, Why are not people marrying who might stand to benefit in numerous ways by so doing?

Education level is cited as a factor correlated to one's state of marriage and parenthood.  The more educated a woman is, the less likely she is to have a child out of wedlock.   A racial correlation exists but is decreasing.  Multiple factors are interrelated, to be sure.  I wonder, however, if the view of one of the subjects of Mr. DeParle's story about income levels and family structure is closest to the mark:  “I’m in this position because of decisions I made.” 

These are not the words of a privileged outsider looking in on someone less wealthy.  These are not the words of controversial sociologist Charles Murray, who argues in his most recent book that moral decline is responsible for matrimonial decline.  (That book is reviewed in the NYT and WSJ; also available are a chat with readers, an op-ed, and summary essay.)  These are the words of someone who is actually and personally affected -- by the decisions that she says that she made.

All of this brings to mind a topic from a previous post on poverty.  In it, I reproduced a statement by Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution.  His main point in recent Congressional testimony is that certain behavior is an extremely accurate predictor of adult poverty or, alternately, of general economic success:  "Young people can virtually assure that they and their families will avoid poverty if they follow three elementary rules for success -- complete at least a high school education, work full time, and wait until age 21 and get married before having a baby."

Consider these statements from the article in the Times, which are congruous with Mr. Haskin's remarks:

• "Nearly half the unmarried parents living together at a child’s birth split up within five years."
• "Marital decline compounds economic woes, since it leaves the needy to struggle alone."
• "Forty years ago, the top and middle income thirds had virtually identical family patterns: more than 95 percent of households with children in either tier had two parents in the home. Since then the groups have diverged, according to [two researchers] Mr. Western and Ms. Shollenberger: 88 percent at the top have two parents, but just 71 percent do in the middle." [A different but related research finding is depicted in the nearby chart.]
• "While many studies have found that children of single parents are more likely to grow up poor, less is known about their chances of advancement as adults. But there are suggestions that the absence of a father in the house makes it harder for children to climb the economic ladder."

In other previous posts (two in May, here and here; and one in April), I also commented on family matters.

Upon continuing reflection, two important considerations occur to me.  One is that the heightened contemporary concern about income discrepancy among Americans, the so-called haves and have-nots, may be legitimate, but it may need to be examined and discussed from a wider perspective than purely monetary differences.  Mr. DeParle's article serviceably suggests that conjugal differences are related to income differences.  To put a finer point on the broader perspective that may be required, increasingly cultural or lifestyle or -- may we actually say it -- moral differences, too, must be brought into the conversation about differences in income levels.

In addition, our examinations and analyses will benefit if we can move beyond the passive victim explanation (i.e., "Those people over there wholly did this to me!").  We may not be able to be content either with the opposite, active agent explanation (i.e., "You did this completely to yourself!").  The proper weighting of these two reasons for a certain state of affairs may be difficult in general to quantify.  Neither may be the whole story.  Both, however, passive and active, object and subject, victim and agent, explanations are relevant.  Still, in the public debate, more room than currently seems popularly acceptable may need to be made at the table for the this-is-a-result-of-your-choices element.

In so saying, I do not wish to be misunderstood.  Environmental factors beyond one's control do often influence the opportunities (or the perception one has of opportunities) about which one may make active decisions and in light of which one may pursue certain goals.  Examples may include being born into a family in a violent neighborhood, which entails pressures that limit educational possibilities, or being born to a parent who has few inhibitions, which leads to destructive effects that harm the child.

However, it seems equally obvious that individuals do, by and large, voluntarily if not always deliberately make decisions that have undesirable consequences for themselves.  Individuals are not forced but rather choose whether or not to be married.  They choose whether or not to behave in such a way that they may have children out of wedlock at a certain age.  They choose whether or not to commit themselves to the laborious task of reconciling with a spouse in the wake of the contentious situations that arise in a marriage rather than divorcing.  They even choose whether to (behave in such a way as to) complete at least a high school education or to seek full-time employment.  All of these bear on one's financial prospects, income level, and upward mobility.

Why is this view, that an individual's decisions may bear on one's financial situation and that these decisions may be moral in nature, controversial?  Let me offer a few suggestions.

First, a possible reason is the nation's drift in culture, or character.

In the article in the Times, Mr. DeParle remarks, "Across Middle America, single motherhood has moved from an anomaly to a norm with head-turning speed."  The language of anomaly and norm reflects not just frequency of occurrence in the culture, as in a move from uncommon to common, but also a moral acceptance of single motherhood in the culture, as in a move from not acceptable to acceptable.  If single motherhood does not carry the same social stigma, then that is because single motherhood is not viewed with the same moral disapprobation as previously.  Whether this is because divorce, too, is more common and less stigmatized that earlier, or because reproductive technology is more accessible to more people, or because the sheer number of single parents makes it hard for people who know single parents to be critical of them, or even because being critical itself is frowned upon -- all of these things reflect both changing behaviors and a changing attitude toward matters of morality.

Answers to questions -- and the questions themselves -- are different.  What shape should a nuclear family take?  What sort of commitment does one actually make in marriage?  What is marriage?  What sort of family structure both is appropriate to and should best foster becoming a parent and discharging that loving, sacrificial duty?  If I wish to be a mother but marriageable men are hard to come by, perhaps because men lack the desired and necessary moral qualities or character, should I go it alone through a means like sperm donorship and in vitro fertilization?  A positive answer assumes that one has the means to pay for the technological procedure.

Or in the case of many inner cities, where poverty and violence are more common, if I have the same desire for a child and find few or no marriageable men not only because of the previous reasons but also because they are unemployed or incarcerated or dead, do I just have a child with my current boyfriend outside of marriage?  This potential answer, of course, assumes something about the permissibility of pre-marital sex, itself a moral topic about which society's public moral opinion has changed.  Pre-marital sex used to be frowned upon; now it is expected. 

The family is a sphere of life that is inherently moral in nature.  In families we confront the messiness of human relationships; we realize the power of human sexuality, which connects us most intimately with another human; we find our notions of and capacities for commitment, sympathy, fairness, patience, and self-control tested.  Insofar as marriage is integral to family structure, which inescapably entails these things, marriage also, and any conception or pursuit of it, is moral in nature. 

This drift, first of individual behavior in community and then society's view of it, involves unavoidably the social conception of what is in fact moral.  I mean "what is in fact moral" in the sense both of what is a moral matter and what is the proper way in which one ought to think or act about a particular matter.  Both have broadly changed.
 

Second, and closely related, this morphed view of what is moral does not include cultural "lifestyles" or has relativized them.  For this reason, so-called lifestyle choices are deemed irrelevant to the morality inherent in the income debate.  To introduce them is to make a contested move.

If it is controversial that an individual's decisions may bear on one's financial situation and that these decisions may be moral in nature, then this may be because activities like pre-marital sex, cohabitation, and single-parenthood are not viewed as moral matters.  Where they are viewed as moral matters, they tend, as I have suggested, to be viewed as equally morally acceptable alternatives to abstinence, marriage as a conjugal union, and two-parent households.  This shapes politically correct debate.  These behaviors, in other words, are either off-limits (because they not seen as ethical in nature) or accepted (because ethical standards have been flattened).  It is perhaps because they are accepted that they are off-limits.  Certain family-related behavior is not illegitimate, but criticizing another lifestyle is impermissible.  "You just don't do that these days."  This is the new morality.

The nature of the family and its role in the social fabric used to be expected; now raising questions about variations from that previous expectation is frowned upon. 

Third, accompanying the drift in the nation's culture and its reconfiguration of what is moral has been a greater abdication of individual responsibility and a tendency to assign blame to other agents.

In a previous post, I drew attention to a suggestion made by Roger Scruton about his perception of growing ingratitude.  According to his (quite sensible) view, when one receives something by grace, gratitude follows; when one receives something by justice, ingratitude follows.  Grace is understood as an undeserved gift; justice is understood as an expected right.

In American society over the last fifty years (and even longer), more citizens receive monetary assistance of some kind from the federal government in greater amounts than in previous generations.  These distributions are made in the name of justice.  The discourse about them focuses on the distributions, and often prejudges them, as rights, a supposed right to health care, for instance.  They are even referred to in the federal budget as "entitlements."  Slowly and sometimes not-so-subtly the culture's assumptions about its own nature shift in this direction, too.  The way in which I think about what I have in life, or should have in life, increasingly includes a component of that which I expect to receive from others owing to a form of justice.

Entailed in this evolving mentality is a diminished, although not obliterated, sense of individual responsibility and local community.  Entailed also, on the other hand, is a magnified, although not total, sense of third-party (often state) responsibility for the national community.  When I do not have what I expect to have by right (and often I may confuse what I wish to have and what I ought to have by certain just deserts), I find fault with some third party.  I blame someone else.  This is usually the third party that I believe is supposed to guarantee my rights (the state).  It also often is the entity that I believe is preventing me from receiving what I suppose, whether by desire or justice, is now rightfully mine (the state and/or an economic system or a party or an industry or a company or a person).

How does this relate to conjugal haves and have-nots?  Recall that the discussion about income discrepancies in the United States generally takes place at the level of those who have agency, those who earn X and those who earn Y.  This is helpful to recall because the argument that I am trying to make is a moral one, namely, that an individual's decisions may bear on one's financial situation and that these decisions may be moral in nature.  When we speak of rights or what ought to be the case, we are squarely in the moral sphere.  Assigning blame is a moral action and reflects a moral judgment.

A curious irony exists.  The fact of disparity in income levels is presented as a moral issue (e.g., "I am not receiving what I ought to receive"), but it is often also seen as illegitimate and prejudicial to explain that disparity by way of other moral issues (e.g., the consequences of individual moral choices and habits some of which relate to family and sexuality).  Put the other way around, why is it legitimate to cast the disparity in income levels among persons in society as driven by immorality (greed, exploitation, cronyism) but illegitimate to offer as a contributing factor other forms of immorality (lack of self-control, failures of duty, infidelity)?

I suspect that one answer, not far off the mark, is that the former immorality (greed, exploitation, cronyism) is committed by other agents but the latter (lack of self-control, failures of duty, infidelity) are committed by the persons with the lower income levels who claim to be hurt by the greedy, exploiting cronies.

What we find, then, is a propensity to criticize but not an openness to be criticized.  We can "call out" other people's immorality, but we cannot bear to have them call out our own.  We moralize selectively.  Whether this is perhaps another moral shift in culture, or just intrinsic to human nature, it is strikingly reflected in contemporary American individual character, at least at the level of public debate.

Why is a moral understanding of the matter important?  What is gained by identifying morality as involved in the descriptive relationship between marital and parental situation, on the one hand, and financial situation, on the other?

One benefit is that a moral understanding allows us consistently to hold together both passive and active causes of the income gap.  Not only may an individual in some sense be on the short receiving end of some other group's morally dubious actions, but also individuals are in a real sense active agents in producing their own financial state of affairs.   The former covers the "I'm not receiving what I ought to receive" notion; the latter covers the "these are some of the consequences of your individual moral choices and habits" idea.  When we see both elements as moral, we may open up to better view than if we do not the nature of the problem, its origins, and potential remedies.

A second benefit is that we can thereby more acutely perceive the effect of the morality of public culture on public debate -- and we can talk more openly about that effect.

Public culture, what is accepted within a community, does imply notions of personhood and society to which persons and society should aim.  These are goals of the group, and as goals they function as constraining norms.  In this way we see that public culture influences behavior, which leads to consequences both for persons and for the group.

This is a significant observation that is all too often dismissed when it is claimed that culture is neutral.  Usually that happens when culture is influencing ideas and behavior in the way that a partisan likes.  In Justice as Fairness, John Rawls, the towering figure of modern political liberalism, writes:  "We suppose, as a general fact of commonsense political sociology, that those who grow up in a well-ordered society will, in good part, form their conception of themselves as citizens from the public culture and from the conceptions of persons and society implicit in it" (122).  Political liberals and conservatives both understand this "general fact":  Culture's influence is always operative; that influence is powerful; and it powerfully influences identity and morals.

If the current debate about the sources of income gaps and class stratification is lopsidedly moral, namely, to the passive/victim/environmental explanation, then the lopsidedness itself says something noteworthy about the morals of the culture that the nature of the debate reflects.  Less cumbersomely put, the focus of the debate reflects the prevailing moral disposition of the culture.  In this case, the moral disposition may be a decided shift to rights-based thinking, enlarging statist institutions, moral blame-shifting, and ingratitude.  Whether this is entirely accurate, we should, at the very least, pause to ponder whether how people conceive of themselves and of society is true to other moral sentiments that we may have (we might not be consistent), or that it may be legitimate to have (we might not have a monopoly on morality).

In writing this, specifically about a possible marked shift of this sort, I wish to be clear.  I am speaking of the broad culture, not of every individual.  Indeed, as we will remember, the lead subject in Mr. DeParle's article says of her situation:  “I’m in this position because of decisions I made.”   

I do hope that these reflections add some balance to what I see as an uneven public debate.  The element of individual responsibility is not only marginalized in the media; it is also frequently vilified or scorned, as are those who suggest it.  In asking why some moral elements are permitted in public discourse and others are not, I am not only pointing out an inconsistency; I am also suggesting that something valuable is lost in our understanding of real social situations like marriage and sexual behavior.  That something valuable but lost is recognition of a more holistic moral dimension that is inherent in social life.