Toughen Divorce, Not Child Support. (Society).(Brief Article)

Bryce Christensen, "The Strange Politics of Child Support," in Society (November/ December 2001), Rutgers University, 35 Berrue Circle, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854

There's a consensus these days that one of the best ways to strengthen America's families is to tighten child support laws. Time, for example, reports that "the deadbeat dad" is a "selfish figure condemned by liberals and conservatives alike."

Bryce Christensen, a scholar at the Howard Center, disagrees. The best way to preserve marriage and the family, he argues, is to make child support less draconian--but make it harder to divorce. Advocates of more aggressive child support, he contends, "have moved us a dangerous step closer to a police state."

Wives initiate two-thirds of all divorce cases in the U.S., and under "no-fault" divorce laws, neither partner has to give a reason for ending a marriage. Moreover, under a long-standing rule known as the "tender years doctrine," courts usually award custody of children to the parent who raises them as infants and toddlers--which, even now, is usually the mother. Thus, as West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Richard Neely observes, under current laws, "a blameless father ...