Remember this? On 25 Aug 2006 at 10:54, I wrote:
> From the Christian Science Monitor for August 23, "Debate grows on > out-of- wedlock laws" http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0823/p03s02-ussc.html > > > "Christian activists say the state laws [forbidding cohabitation without > marriage] are worth fighting for, but acknowledge that cohabitation is > "part of the life we live now," says Brian Fahling, senior trial attorney > at the American Family Association's Center for Law & Policy in Tupelo, > Miss. One reason: Unwed couples are more than three times as likely as > married couples to report incidents of domestic violence, reports the > National Survey of Families and Households. > > "Our forefathers were wise, and such laws as the cohabitation law here > in North Carolina are really important for holding up moral standards," > says the Rev. Mark Creech, director of the Christian Action League. > "Cohabitation simply imitates marriage, but without actually creating > the internal, the emotional, the moral and the legal structure that protects > couples." I never got around to giving my opinion on this post. Responders, suitably provoked as intended, noticed that the Rev. Creech was jumping to the causal conclusion that marriage prevents violence from correlational data. No so, our TIPSters said, and provided a number of other possibilities for the association, including that the married may be less likely to report violence, or that couples prone to violence are less likely to marry (Chris Lovelace's)_. In other words, that rather than marriage preventing violence, violence prevents marriage. Or, perhaps the critical variable is religious commitment, not the act of marriage (Aubyn Fulton's). There are others. The one I'm partial to (we're talking a data-free environment here, of course) is that low socio-economic status breeds both violence and a lack of interest in marriage. It's not even too far-fetched to suggest a genetic link, that individuals prone to violence are also hard-wired to eschew marriage. And there are undoubtedly many others not dreamt of in our philosophy. But I guess it's all too tempting to take correlational data and jump to the causal explanation which makes you feel the most righteous. One question does occur to me, though. Do those who recommend marriage in order to accrue all the internal, the emotional, the moral and the legal benefits they claim flow from it also argue that these benefits bless same-sex marriage as well? That gay marriage might actually be good for folks? Or do the alleged protective benefits dissolve like the dew when the union is between two men or two women? And they're at it again, cause jumping from correlations. This time it seems to be that cannibis causes schizophrenia. See http://tinyurl.com/fbue5 And it's in a Canadian journal, for shame. Stephen ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Department of Psychology Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2600 College St. Sherbrooke QC J1M 0C8 Canada Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at http://faculty.frostburg.edu/psyc/southerly/tips/index.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------------- --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
