"Handouts"
Posted by Marie Bernadette on March 12, 1998 at 14:12:43:
In response to Single Mothers, written by Cassia on March 12, 1998 at 13:00:42
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] Sarah P: ] The workhouse, however, would certainly be a deterrent, compared to government handouts to encourage single mothers etc.
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Cassia: There have always been single mothers. Remember, in JA's time most working class people did not marry and most of them still had children anyway. Part of the reason, both then and now, was the ability to keep more of the money you earned if you were single, and the fact that husbands are often felt to be an added burden rather than a help. Considering the statistics about the percentage of men who always pay all of the child support required of them, is their thinking really that wrongheaded?
Marie Bernadette: I agree with Cassia on this. I think it is a myth that government handouts encourage single mothers, in the past or the present. The majority of single mothers support themselves, then and now. Single mothers take a very small slice of the government pie. It is grants to greedy corporations that take a far larger chunk of that pie than we realise! It is appearently easier to vilify a single mother than big business. I wonder how this question reflects upon a societies' degree of respect of motherhood? Was motherhood more or less respected in Jane's time? Was it only respected if the mother was wed? (Which is most perverse to me, because a woman who is a mother is a mother all the same, married or not; motherhood is motherhood; why should one 'type' of mother be more revered than another. Oops! There goes my egalitarian nature pushing through again). Think I am off topic? No, because these very same questions were discussed in the 18th and early 19th centuries as well.
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