Its Not A Gender Gap But A Marriage Gap - Road to the Middle Class

FOR A GENERATION Democrats have been selling the idea of a gender gap, the idea that more women vote for Democrats and that therefore Republicans have a problem.

Never mind that the gender gap implies also the reverse, that more men vote for Republicans and that therefore Democrats have a problem.

Instead, let’s talk about a marriage gap, writes Jeff Jacoby. In 2004 there was a 36 percent marriage gap among women.

In the most recent presidential election, unmarried women voted for John Kerry by a 25-point margin, while President Bush won the votes of married women by an 11-point margin: a marriage gap of 36 points.

It’s really just practical. If you are a single woman, you rely on government for your safety net. If you are a married woman, you rely on your husband.

OK, now let’s expand Jacoby’s analysis a little. First of all:

Financial protection. Single women, especially if they have children, are more likely to be dependent on the government for welfare, Social Security, and other economic benefits... Married women, by contrast, are much less likely to depend on government support. Instead, many come to see the welfare state and its tax burden as a threat to the well-being of their family, making them more inclined to vote Republican.

Nothing remarkable there. Then there is:

Children and cultural values. Married parents with children are less likely to support the party whose policies make it harder to shield their children from corrosive cultural influences.

Yes, and the Democrats, as the party of single people, cannot get away from condoning complete license for single people. Finally, there is (easy now):

Male influence. Women are significantly less likely than men to follow national and international affairs, a knowledge gap that researchers have documented for decades.

The consequence is that married women tend to take up the political opinions of their husbands on national and international affairs.

What would be nice is for women to start taking control of local politics and getting control of their children’s education. Some of us out here shake our heads in frustration that women haven’t done something about education. How can married mothers put up with the nonsense that’s dished out at their children at the local government school?

Anything we can do to help, ladies?

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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Faith & Purpose

“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

Mutual Aid

In 1911... at least nine million of the 12 million covered by national insurance were already members of voluntary sick pay schemes. A similar proportion were also eligible for medical care.
Green, Reinventing Civil Society

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

Living Under Law

Law being too tenuous to rely upon in [Ulster and the Scottish borderlands], people developed patterns of settling differences by personal fighting and family feuds.
Thomas Sowell, Conquests and Cultures

German Philosophy

The primary thing to keep in mind about German and Russian thought since 1800 is that it takes for granted that the Cartesian, Lockean or Humean scientific and philosophical conception of man and nature... has been shown by indisputable evidence to be inadequate.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West

Knowledge

Inquiry does not start unless there is a problem... It is the problem and its characteristics revealed by analysis which guides one first to the relevant facts and then, once the relevant facts are known, to the relevant hypotheses.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Logic of the Sciences and the Humanities

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches… they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Living Law

The recognition and integration of extralegal property rights [in the Homestead Act] was a key element in the United States becoming the most important market economy and producer of capital in the world.
Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital

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