Thread: "Brides of the State" - Big Daddy Government, Irish Style

(Note: This is too old to label 'news,' and yet it illustrates the principle of Big Daddy Government and the way all of its well-meaning programs strip men out of the lives of their children. The same thing's happening in most First World states ... this is the way they throw fatherhood and fathers under the bus.

This is copied from the Fathers Rights Network International Yahoo Group, and presented here to keep it from being forgotten. - BeijaFlor)

Inside Cork Thursday 8 July 2004

'Brides of the State' and the Family Man

By Katie Mythen

It is generally presumed, both at home and abroad, that Irish Society
affords a high level of protection for parental rights and for the welfare
of children. However, as society moves further and further away from the
traditional values of marriage, wedlock and two-parent families, embracing
what has become a comparatively liberal reality, the outline of a father's
duty in the upbringing of children has become somewhat blurred.

For years, many men have found themselves on the outside of what was once
their family life, faced with the stark realisation that having rights and
actually being able to exercise them are two completely different issues.
One of the prime activities of the National Men's Council of Ireland is to
monitor, on behalf of parents, how legislation and social policy impacts on
the family, marriage and, particularly, on children.

Roscommon man Roger Eldridge, Chairman, National Men's Council of Ireland
told Inside Cork, "Recently an unmarried father complained about his
treatment as a parent saying, "Men can rear children, wash dishes, cook
meals, clean houses just as well as women can. The only thing they can't do
is give birth. "The obvious reply is, of course men can do all the practical
things. The problem for men lies in the second sentence, "The only thing
they can't do is give birth." This leaves this man and all unmarried men
with the problem of how do they propose that women let them "rear children,
wash dishes, cook meals, clean houses?"

Roger continued, "What the National Men's Council of Ireland are saying and
what is in the Constitution (for the Common Good) is that only marriage
allows a man to have a legitimate opportunity to have a family life as this
man describes. A man earns himself a role by being family protector and
provider. As long as the woman values his role she will agree to him being
part of her family."

According to the French novelist and social anthropologist Briffault: "The
female, not the male, determines all the conditions of the animal family.
Where the female can derive no benefit from association with the male, no
such association takes place". - Robert Briffault"

"This somewhat harsh analysis derives from the empirical data which show
that, despite our delusions about women being the more romantic partner in a
relationship, 90% of women marry a man who has more assets or earning
potential than they do." Said Roger. "If women married for love the law of
averages suggests they would marry a richer man only 50% of the time. The
state is aware of Briffault's Law and through social welfare policies and
illegal judicial activism in the family courts has sought the place of the
husband. Effectively the army of "unmarried mothers" and 'separated wives'
in Ireland today are "Brides of the State".

For example the state is able, through the so-called 'One- Parent Family
Payment' scheme, to offer young women a disposable income that 99% of young
men can not compete with. We have calculated using up-to-date figures how
much a man must offer just to compete with the equivalent cash-in-hand that
an unmarried mother is currently receiving by way of benefits, including
housing, clothing, fuel allowances etc. If the mother has 2 children, gets
Child Benefit and the One-Parent Family Payment and she avails of the scheme
where she works 19 hours a week at times that suit her, her cash in hand
will be roughly 450 euro per week. She pays no tax or PRSI on this. On to
this must be added the cost benefits of the free Medical Card, Fuel
Allowance, Back-to-School Clothing Allowance, say at a minimum another 30
euro. She will be put at the top of the Local Authority housing lists and
will then get a reduced rent or mortgage payment benefit equivalent.

For a young man to generate an equivalent disposable income he must provide
as take-home- pay the same 480 euro she is getting plus he must provide
equivalent secure housing which means a mortgage costing him a minimum of
150 euro per week. So now he must provide 630 euro per week in his hand to
provide the equivalent of what the state gives to the mother for her and her
two kids. We must not forget his basic needs. The most important being that
he needs is a car so that he can get to work so he needs again a minimum of
another 70 euro in his hand for insurance, tax and running costs. The state
allowance for a single man on the dole is 130 euro so let's assume he lives
on the breadline. This means that he must bring to the relationship 630 + 70
+ 130 = 830 euro in cash to enable his wife and him to live at the level
that the mother could enjoy from the state on her own without him. This cash
is after tax and PRSI deductions so his gross pay must be in the region of
1250 euro! It is obvious that only exceptionally fortunate young men (or any
man) can compete with the state for the mother's 'hand in marriage'.

The average gross pay for 20 to 30 year old men is actually less than half
what he needs to be an 'eligible' bachelor." Hence the state, having wooed
the mother with our tax-paid money, then acts in the nature of a jealous
husband who will countenance no rival suitors and so ensures that she will
never marry a man. If the mother should meet a man who might have the
potential to foot the bill for her, this is where the state gets really
nasty. It says that if she is even seen with a man about the house she will
lose all her benefits!"

Roger feels that the untold pressure on the modern Irish man contributes
significantly to the country's climbing suicide rate, "We shouldn't be at
all surprised to see that the rate of suicide amongst men in Ireland is one
of the highest in the world," he said, "and that it peaks for males between
the ages of 20 and 35, when men should be at he prime of their lives and
getting married so they can start a family and enjoy the comforts and
benefits that it brings." A recent World Health Organisation report,
entitled Young People's Health in Context, which studied the health and
behaviour of 11 to 15-year-olds in 32 European countries, as well as Canada,
America and Israel, cited family structures as an "important factor" in
young people's health.

Jill Kirby, the chairman of the family policy group at the Centre for Policy
Studies, said: "There is a mass of evidence that children brought up by only
one parent are at risk of under-age sex, drug abuse and drinking." Roger
asks, "So how does the state justify promoting the position of unmarried
mothers to the detriment of their children? And why, with the Irish
Constitutional position clearly encouraging families based on marriage, is
the state penalising the formation of marriage and RTE hell bent on
preventing groups like us who promote marriage for its well-documented
benefits from being heard by the people? The answer frighteningly must lie
with the fact that the unholy alliance between big government and big
business wants us all to be isolated, vulnerable individuals without family
or community supports so that it can do what it wants with us, ie enslave
us. Isn't it time that the decent family men and women of Ireland stood up
for themselves?"

So there it all is. Laid out in black and white. Ten years ago.
Sad thing is, little has changed.

The only hope is places like this to make men aware.

What amazed me was this was written by a woman.