Another Day

Today was much better.  I think I may be getting accustomed to the idea that I don't have to be at work everyday and consequently don't need to feel anxious about not being there.  Today was the most relaxed I have been.

It was a beautiful day to be at home-blue sky, mid forties almost springlike out in the sun.  Some domestic chores aside I enjoyed practicing the piano, studying Spanish and doing some indexing of Italian birth records from the mid 1880's.  That last is slow going because the handwriting is difficult and my Italian very rusty.  I found it interesting that a number of children were reported as being born from a union with an unidentified woman.  My temporal chauvinism is showing I presume.  I thought frequent sexual immorality was a much more modern vice although I am not sure of the origin of that notion.

I suppose it is common to think that one's own era is one of degeneration from some kind of golden (or at least more golden) age.  It is hard to think objectively of the past, obscured as it tends to be by the glow of nostalgia.  Still even with that caveat, I can say without doubt that the acceptance (not to say glorification) of acts once considered beyond the pale has increased dramatically in my lifetime.

The rate of out of wedlock births, for example, stands at about 40% overall and is much higher among certain groups.  Such births are no longer an occasion of mourning or shame; the new acceptance (celebration in some groups) has seen to that.  And most people bid good riddance.  I admit to sympathy for that sentiment; I also cringe at depictions of the treatment of unwed mothers in years gone by.

On the other hand, I understand that children born to single parents are at much higher risk for negative life outcomes than those born to a man and woman married to each other.  Those higher risks will eventually manifest themselves in society at large in the form of decreased productivity as those children grow up.  And by productivity I refer not only to the economic inputs these children are capable of but also to contributions without any economic price tag--being a caring neighbor or a thoughtful citizen for example.

I wonder if the increased happiness (through greater acceptance) of single women is worth the price.  I for one don't relish a return to the shame, ostracism and denigration of the past (assuming it has been accurately portrayed).  Certainly the advocates of the new moral order would express outrage at the prospect of employing such tactics to place restraints on unwed parenthood. 

But that outrage itself is interesting because certainly practitioners of the new morality have not hesitated to employ shaming, ostracism and denigration to enforce their own moral vision (think of the Duck Dynasty or Chick Fil A controversies).  So the objection cannot be to the method, but must be to the set of values to which the method is applied.  Outrage at the use of shame, ostracism and denigration to attempt to reinforce traditional moral views must be based not on the mere use of such methods but on the kinds of behaviors to which such methods are applied.

I have the sense that the acceptance of unwed motherhood is seen by some to be a backlash against the use of shame, ostracism and denigration but as I have concluded that cannot be true.  So what was the origin of the acceptance of unwed motherhood?  It must have been a view that for whatever reason unwed motherhood was determined to be a condition to be supported.  But as to how that feeling came to be general and why that view was promoted, who can say with certainty?

As an explanatory note, I wrote this post yesterday, but did not post it until this morning.