Monthly Archives: May 2011

Kate Middleton and Prince William: Marriage made in Heaven? (Part 4)

May 1, 2011 – 9:04 am

Adrian Rogers – [1/3] How to Cultivate a Marriage

I really hope that things go well for Prince William and Kate Middleton. This article below is about the affect on children during cohabitation. Therefore, it has nothing to do with the Royal Couple. This post today is mainly about the best way you can prepare for marriage.  In this series of posts I  will look at this issue of living together. It is based on the article “Should We Live Together? What Young Adults Need to Know about Cohabitation before Marriage,” by Josh McDowell. Here is a portion of the article below:

“Why Cohabitation Is Harmful For Children”

“Of all the types of cohabitation, that involving children is by far the most problematic.  In 1997, 36% of all unmarried-couple households included a child under eighteen, up from only 21% in 1987.22  For unmarried couples in the 25-34 age group the percentage with children is higher still, approaching half of all such households.23  By one recent estimate nearly half of all children today will spend some time in a cohabiting family before age 16.”24

“One of the greatest problems for children living with a cohabiting couple is the high risk that the couple will break up.25  Fully three quarters of children born to cohabiting parents will see their parents split up before they reach age sixteen, whereas only about a third of children born to married parents face a similar fate.  One reason is that marriage rates for cohabiting couples have been plummeting.  In the last decade, the proportion of cohabiting mothers who go on to eventually marry the child’s father declined from 57% to 44%.”26

“Parental break up, as is now widely known, almost always entails a myriad of personal and social difficulties for children, some of which can be long lasting.  For the children of a cohabiting couple these may come on top of a plethora of already existing problems.  One study found that children currently living with a mother and her unmarried partner had significantly more behavior problems and lower academic performance than children from intact families.”27

“It is important to note that the great majority of children in unmarried-couple households were born not in the present union but in a previous union of one of the adult partners, usually the mother.28  This means that they are living with an unmarried stepfather or mother’s boyfriend, with whom the economic and social relationships are often tenuous.  For example, these children have no claim to child support should the couple separate.”

“Child abuse has become a major national problem and has increased dramatically in recent years, by more than 10% a year according to one estimate.29  In the opinion of most researchers, this increase is related strongly to changing family forms. Surprisingly, the available American data do not enable us to distinguish the abuse that takes place in married-couple households from that in cohabiting-couple households.  We do have abuse-prevalence studies that look at stepparent families (both married and unmarried) and mother’s boyfriends (both cohabiting and dating).   Both show far higher levels of child abuse than is found in intact families.”30

“One study in Great Britain did look at the relationship between child abuse and the family structure and marital background of parents, and the results are disturbing.  It was found that, compared to children living with married biological parents, children living with cohabiting but unmarried biological parents are 20 times more likely to be subject to child abuse, and those living with a mother and a cohabiting boyfriend who is not the father face an increased risk of 33 times. In contrast, the rate of abuse is 14 times higher if the child lives with a biological mother who lives alone. Indeed, the evidence suggests that the most unsafe of all family environments for children is that in which the mother is living with someone other than the child’s biological father.31  This is the environment for the majority of children in cohabiting couple households.”

“Part of the enormous differences indicated above are probably due to differing income levels of the families involved.  But this points up one of the other problems of cohabiting couples-their lower incomes. It is well known that children of single parents fare poorly economically when compared to the children of married parents.  Not so well known is that cohabiting couples are economically more like single parents than like married couples. While the 1996 poverty rate for children living in married couple households was about 6%, it was 31% for children living in cohabiting households, much closer to the rate of 45% for children living in families headed by single mothers.”32

“One of the most important social science findings of recent years is that marriage is a wealth enhancing institution. According to one study, childrearing cohabiting couples have only about two-thirds of the income of married couples with children, mainly due to the fact that the average income of male cohabiting partners is only about half that of male married partners.33  The selection effect is surely at work here, with less well-off men and their partners choosing cohabitation over marriage.  But it also is the case that men when they marry, especially those who then go on to have children, tend to become more responsible and productive.34  They earn more than their unmarried counterparts.  An additional factor not to be overlooked is the private transfer of wealth among extended family members, which is considerably lower for cohabiting couples than for married couples.35  It is clear that family members are more willing to transfer wealth to “in-laws” than to mere boyfriends or girlfriends.”

22.  U. S. Bureau of the Census. 1998. Marital Status and Living Arrangements: March, 1997.

23.  Wendy D. Manning and Daniel T. Lichter. 1996. “Parental Cohabitation and Children’s Economic Well-Being.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 58:998-1010.

24.  Bumpass and Lu. 1998. op.cit. Using a different data set, however, Deborah R. Graefe and Daniel T. Lichter conclude that only about one in four chilren will live in a family headed by a cohabiting couple sometime during childhood. “Life Course Transitions of American 
Children: Parental Cohabitation, Marriage, and Single Motherhood.” Forthcoming: May, 1999. Demography 36.

25.  It is the case, however, that-just as with married couples—cohabiting couples with children are less likely to break up than childless couples. Zheng Wu, “The Stability of Cohabitation Relationships: The Role of Children.” 1995. Journal of Marriage and the Family 57:231-236.

26.  Bumpass and Lu, 1998, op.cit.

27.  Elizabeth Thompson, T. L. Hanson and S. S. McLanahan. 1994. “Family Structure and Child Well-Being: Economic Resources versus Parental Behaviors.” Social Forces 73-1:221-242.

28.  By one estimate, 63%. Deborah R. Graefe and Daniel Lichter, 1999, forthcoming.

29.  Andrea J. Sedlak and Diane Broadhurst, 1996. The Third National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect Washington, DC:  HHS-National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect.

30. See, for example, Margo Wilson and Martin Daly. 1987. “Risk of Maltreatment of Children Living with Stepparents,”  in R. Gelles and J. Lancaster, eds. Child Abuse and Neglect: Biosocial Dimensions, New York: Aldine de Gruyter; Leslie Margolin. 1992. “Child Abuse by Mothers’ 
Boyfriends: Why the Overrepresentation?” Child Abuse and Neglect 16:541-551. Martin Daly and Margo Wilson have stated: “stepparenthood per se remains the single most powerful risk factor for child abuse that has yet been identified.” Homicide (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1988) p. 87-88.

31.  Robert Whelan. 1993. Broken Homes and Battered Children: A Study of the Relationship Between Child Abuse and Family Type. London: Family Education Trust. See especially Table 12, p. 29. (Data are from the 1980s.) See also Patrick F. Fagan and Dorothy B. Hanks. 1997. The Child Abuse Crisis: The Disintegration of Marriage, Family and The American Community. Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation.

32.  Wendy D. Manning and Daniel T. Lichter. 1996. “Parental Cohabitation and Children’s Economic Well-Being.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 58:998-1010.

33.  Wendy D. Manning and Daniel T. Lichter. 1996.

34.  Sanders Korenman and David Neumark. 1990. “Does Marriage Really Make Men More Productive?” The Journal of Human Resources 26-2:282-307; George A. Akerlof. 1998. “Men Without Children.” The Economic Journal 108:287-309; Steven L. Nock. 1998. Marriage in Men’s Lives (New York: Oxford University Press).

35.  Lingxin Hao. 1996. “Family Structure, Private Transfers, and the Economic Well-Being of Families with Children.”  Social Forces 75-1:269-292.

“The National Marriage Project”

“The National Marriage Project is a nonpartisan, nonsectarian and interdisciplinary initiative supported by private foundations and affiliated with Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.”

“The Project’s mission is to provide research and analysis on the state of marriage in America and to educate the public on the social, economic and cultural conditions affecting marital success and wellbeing.”

“The National Marriage Project has five immediate goals: (1) publish The State of Our Unions, an annual index of the health of marriage and marital relationships in America; (2) investigate and report on younger adults’ attitudes toward marriage; (3) examine the popular media’s portrait of  marriage; (4) serve as a clearinghouse source of research and expertise on marriage; and (5) bring together marriage and family experts to develop strategies for revitalizing marriage.”

For more information or additional copies of this publication, contact:

The National Marriage Project Rutgers 
The State University of New Jersey 
25 Bishop Place 
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1181 
(732) 932-2722 
marriage@rci.rutgers.edu

 January, 1999


Leaving the Church

Britain’s Prince William and his wife Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, left, wave as they leave Westminster Abbey at the Royal Wedding. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and her husband the Duke of Edinburgh attended a pre-wedding reception for foreign royals Thursday evening. Royals across Europe and the Middle East attend a reception at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Hyde Park. (April 28)

In the final instalment, all four of the Queen’s children talk frankly for the first time about their working roles as part of the Royal Family. The younger generation are also seen to be getting involved. There’s an early-morning surprise for the residents of an inner-city hostel when they come down to breakfast and find Prince William making the coffee. Prince Harry attends a strategy meeting for his African charity, Sentebale. And we see what happens when all the family turn up for a very proud moment at Sandhurst.


By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers | Comments (0)

Balanced Budget Amendment the answer? Boozman says yes, Pryor no (Part 20, Milton Friedman’s view is yes)(The Conspirator Part 25, Louis Weichmann)

May 1, 2011 – 8:44 am

Photo detail

Steve Brawner in his article “Safer roads and balanced budgets,” Arkansas News Bureau, April 13, 2011, noted:

The disagreement is over the solutions — on what spending to cut; what taxes to raise (basically none ever, according to Boozman); whether or not to enact a balanced budget amendment (Boozman says yes; Pryor no); and on what policies would promote the kind of economic growth that would make this a little easier.

In Feb of 1983 Milton Friedman wrote the article “Washington:Less Red Ink (An argument that the balanced-budget amendent would be a rare merging of public and private interests),” and here is a portion of that article:

Here, for their consideration, are my answers to the principal objections to the proposed amendment that I have come across, other than those that arise from a desire to have a still-bigger government: 

**6. The key problem is not deficits but the size of government spending.** 

My sentiments exactly. Which is why I have never supported an amendment directed solely at a balanced budget. I have written repeatedly that while I would prefer that the budget be balanced, I would rather have government spend $500 billion and run a deficit of $100 billion than have it spend $800 billion with a balanced budget. It matters greatly how the budget is balanced, whether by cutting spending or by raising taxes. 

In my eyes, the chief merit of the amendment recommended by the Senate Judiciary Committee is precisely that it does limit spending. Section 1 requires that statement outlays be no greater than statement receipts; section 2 limits the maximum increase in statement receipts; the two together effectively limit statement outlays. Moreover, if in any year Congress manages to keep statement receipts and outlays below the maximum level, the effect is to lower the maximum level for future years, thus fostering a gradual ratcheting down of spending relative to national income. 

A further strength of the amendment is the provision for approving an exceptional increase in statement receipts (hence in statement outlays). The spending-limitation amendment that was drafted by the National Tax Limitation Committee required a two-thirds majority of both houses in order to justify an exceptional increase in outlays. The amendment passed by the Senate requires only “a majority of the whole number of both houses of Congress.” However, the majority must vote for an explicit tax increase. I submit that it is far easier to get a two-thirds majority of Congress to approve an exceptional increase in spending than to get a simple majority to approve an explicit increase in taxes. So this is a stronger, not a weaker, amendment. 

Section 6 proposed by Senator Armstrong in the course of Senate debate, makes the debt ceiling permanent and requires a supermajority vote to raise it. That provision was approved by a narrow majority composed of a coalition of right-wing Republicans and left-wing Democrats–the one group demonstrating its hardcore conservatism, the other seeking to reduce the chances of adoption of the basic amendment. 

I do not favor the debt-limit provision. Its objective–to strengthen pressure on Congress to balance the budget–is fine, and it may be that it would do little harm. But it seems to me both unnecessary and potentially harmful. I trust that it will be eliminated if and when the amendment is finally approved by Congress. I shall favor the amendment even if the debt-limit provision is left in, but less enthusiastically.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

I love the movie “The Conspirator” and I have been looking at some of the real life people involved in this story.

Louis J. Weichmann (September 29, 1842 – June 5, 1902) was one of the chief witnesses for the prosecution in theconspiracy trial of theAbraham Lincoln assassination. Previously he was also a suspect due to his association with the Surratt family.

Louis J. Weichmann

Contents

[hide]

[edit]Background and early life

Weichmann was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of German immigrants. The family surname was originally Wiechmann, but as in the case of many who emigrated to the United States, the name underwent several phonetic spelling changes. His father Johann was a Lutheran, and his mother Maria was a Catholic. Johann Weichmann was a tailor by trade, and he moved with his wife and their five children first from the vicinity of Baltimore to Washington D.C., and later to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where Louis attended Central High School. He wrote in his autobiographical work A True History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and of the Conspiracy of 1865, that he desired to pursue a career as a pharmacist, but at the behest of his mother he reluctantly agreed to study for the Roman Catholic priesthood. At the age of seventeen he entered the seminary at St. Charles College in Maryland. There he met and befriended a fellow seminarian, John Surratt, Jr. This friendship was to later have profound consequences for both of them.

In 1862, a year after the outbreak of the American Civil War, both Louis Weichmann and John Surratt left the seminary without becoming priests. Weichmann went to Washington, D.C., where he taught school for two years at St. Matthew’s Institute for Boys. After leaving this position in 1864, he became a clerk in the Department of War, headed by Secretary Edwin Stanton. Surratt had in the meantime become a courier and agent for the Confederacy. As a result of his earlier friendship with John Surratt, Weichmann took lodgings in the boarding house of Surratt’s mother, Mary Surratt, in Washington D.C. This happenstance brought him into contact with the major conspirators involved in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. According to Weichmann’s testimony at the trial of the conspirators, John Wilkes Booth, David Herold, Lewis Payne,George Atzerodt, John Surratt Jr., and others continually met at Mary Surratt’s boarding house. Weichmann testified that on the day Abraham Lincoln was shot, April 14, 1865, he accompanied Mary Surratt to her other property in Surrattsville, (now Clinton, Maryland), where she delivered items that Booth later retrieved after the assassination. He further testified that Mary Surratt met with John Wilkes Booth no less than three times on that fateful day. Dr. Samuel Mudd, who treated Booth’s broken leg on the night Lincoln was killed, and claimed to have no knowledge of the conspiracy, was linked by Weichmann’s testimony to the events for which he was tried and found guilty as well. Augustus Howell, a blockade runner who worked with John Surratt, claimed during the trial that Weichmann had provided classified information obtained by his position at the War Department over to the Confederates. He supposedly was hoping to obtain a better job from the Confederate government at Richmond in exchange for his services; however, these accusations were never substantiated.

[edit]Later life

In his later years Weichmann moved to Anderson, Indiana, where he opened a business school. One of his brothers, a Catholic priest, and two of his sisters had moved and settled there. Because of some lingering doubt as to the truth and motives of his testimony, Weichmann became a controversial and somewhat ostracized figure by many people. That Mary Surratt was the first woman tried and executed for a capital crime by the federal government caused a backlash against him. There also were strong anti-Catholic elements that attempted to link Lincoln’s death to aCatholic conspiracy. Partially because of this he swore out an affidavit, shortly before his death, reaffirming that all his testimony concerning Abraham Lincoln’s assassination was totally and completely true. He died a few days later in Anderson, and is buried there at St. Mary’s Cemetery. In spite of using the spelling Weichmann at the conspiracy trial, in all his official correspondence, and as the author of his book, the original family spelling of Wiechmann appears on his tombstone.

[edit]Bibliography

  • Weichmann, Louis J. A True History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and of the Conspiracy of 1865 (1975)

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By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Kate Middleton and Prince William: Marriage made in Heaven? (Part 3)

May 1, 2011 – 12:12 am

Adrian Rogers – [2/3] A Magnificent Marriage

Prince William and Kate moved in together about a year ago. Take a look at this clip.

In this clip above the commentator actually suggested that maybe Prince Charles and Princess Diana would not have divorced if they had lived together before marriage. Actually Diana was a virgin, and it was Charles’ uncle that suggested to him that he seek to marry a virgin.

I really hope that things go well for Prince William and Kate Middleton. This post today is mainly about the best way you can prepare for marriage.  In this series of posts I  will look at this issue of living together. It is based on the article “Should We Live Together? What Young Adults Need to Know about Cohabitation before Marriage,” by Josh McDowell. Here is a portion of the article below:

“Cohabitation As An Alternative To Marriage” 

“Most cohabiting relationships are relatively short lived and an estimated 60% end in marriage.11  Still, a surprising number are essentially alternatives to marriage and that number is increasing.  This should be of great national concern, not only for what the growth of cohabitation is doing to the institution of marriage but for what it is doing, or not doing, for the participants involved. In general, cohabiting relationships tend to be less satisfactory than marriage relationships.”

“Except perhaps for the short term prenuptial type of cohabitation, and probably also for the post-marriage cohabiting relationships of seniors and retired people who typically cohabit rather than marry for economic reasons,12  cohabitation and marriage relationships are qualitatively different. Cohabiting couples report lower levels of happiness, lower levels of sexual exclusivity and sexual satisfaction, and poorer relationships with their parents.13  One reason is that, as several sociologists not surprisingly concluded after a careful analysis, in unmarried cohabitation ‘levels of certainty about the relationship are lower than in marriage.’”14

“It is easy to understand, therefore, why cohabiting is inherently much less stable than marriage and why, especially in view of the fact that it is easier to terminate, the break-up rate of cohabitors is far higher than for married partners. Within two years about half of all cohabiting relationships end in either marriage or a parting of the ways, and after five years only about 10% of couples are still cohabiting (data from the late 1980s).15  In comparison, only about 45% of first marriages today are expected to break up over the course of a lifetime.”16

“Still not widely known by the public at large is the fact that married couples have substantial benefits over the unmarried in terms of labor force productivity, physical and mental health, general happiness, and longevity.17  There is evidence that these benefits are diluted for couples who are not married but merely cohabiting.18  Among the probable reasons for the benefits of marriage, as summarized by University of Chicago demographer Linda Waite,19  are:  1) The long-term contract implicit in marriage.  This facilitates emotional investment in the relationship, including the close monitoring of each other’s behavior.  The longer time horizon also makes specialization more likely; working as a couple, individuals can develop those skills in which they excel, leaving others to their partner.   2) The greater sharing of economic and social resources by married couples.  In addition to economies of scale, this enables couples to act as a small insurance pool against life uncertainties, reducing each person’s need to protect themselves from unexpected events.  3) The better connection of married couples to the larger community.  This includes other individuals and groups (such as in-laws) as well as social institutions such as churches and synagogues.  These can be important sources of social and emotional support and material benefits.”

“In addition to missing out on many of the benefits of marriage, cohabitors may face more serious difficulties.  Annual rates of depression among cohabiting couples are more than three times what they are among married couples.20   And women in cohabiting relationships are more likely than married women to suffer physical and sexual abuse. Some research has shown that aggression is at least twice as common among cohabitors as it is among married partners.”21

“Again, the selection factor is undoubtedly strong in findings such as these.  But the most careful statistical probing suggests that selection is not the only factor at work; the intrinsic nature of the cohabiting relationship also plays a role.”

11.  Larry Bumpass and James Sweet. 1989. “National Estimates of Cohabitation.” Demography 24-4:615-625.

12.  Albert Chevan. 1996. “As Cheaply as One: Cohabitation in the Older Population.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 58:656-666. According to calculations by Chevan, the percentage of noninstitutionalized, unmarried cohabiting persons 60 years of age and over increased from 
virtually zero in 1960 to 2.4 in 1990, p. 659. See also R. G. Hatch. 1995. Aging and Cohabitation. New York: Garland.

13.  Nock. 1995; Brown and Booth. 1996; Linda J. Waite and Kara Joyner, 1996. Men’s and Women’s General Happiness and Sexual Satisfaction in Marriage, Cohabitation and Single Living. Unpublished manuscript. Chicago: Population Research Center, Univ. of Chicago;  Renate Forste and Koray Tanfer 1996. “Sexual Exclusivity Among Dating, Cohabiting, and 
Married Women.” Journal of Marriage the Family 58:33-47; Paul R. Amato and Alan Booth. 1997. A Generation at Risk. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Table 4-2, p. 258.

14.  Bumpass, Sweet, and Cherlin, 1991, p. 926

15.  Bumpass and Sweet, 1989

16.  Latest estimate based on current divorce rate.

17.  Lee A. Lillard and Linda J. Waite. 1995. “Till Death Do Us Part: Marital Disruption and Mortality.” American Journal of Sociology 100:1131-1156; R. Jay Turner and Franco Marino. 1994. “Social Support and Social Structure: A Descriptive Epidemiology.” Journal of Health and 
Social Behavior 35:193-212;  Linda J. Waite. 1995. “Does Marriage Matter?” Demography 32-4:483-507; Sanders Korenman and David Neumark. 1990. “Does Marriage Really Make Men More Productive?” The Journal of Human Resources 26-2:282-307;  George A. Akerlof. 1998. “Men Without Children.” The Economic Journal 108:287-309.

18.  Allan V. Horwitz and Helene Raskin White. 1998. “The Relationship of Cohabitation and Mental Health: A Study of a Young Adult Cohort.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 60:505-514;  Waite. 1995.

19.  Linda Waite. 1996. “Social Science Finds: ‘Marriage Matters.'” The Responsive Community Summer,  p. 26-35.

20.  Lee Robins and Darrel Reiger. 1990. Psychiatric Disorders in America. New York: Free Press, p. 72.

21.  Jan E. Stets. 1991. “Cohabiting and Marital Aggression: The Role of Social Isolation.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 53:669-680. One study found that, of the violence toward women that is committed by intimates and relatives, 42% involves a close friend or partner whereas only 29% involves a current spouse. Ronet Bachman. 1994. “Violence Against Women.” Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics. p. 6

“The National Marriage Project”

“The National Marriage Project is a nonpartisan, nonsectarian and interdisciplinary initiative supported by private foundations and affiliated with Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.”

“The Project’s mission is to provide research and analysis on the state of marriage in America and to educate the public on the social, economic and cultural conditions affecting marital success and wellbeing.”

“The National Marriage Project has five immediate goals: (1) publish The State of Our Unions, an annual index of the health of marriage and marital relationships in America; (2) investigate and report on younger adults’ attitudes toward marriage; (3) examine the popular media’s portrait of  marriage; (4) serve as a clearinghouse source of research and expertise on marriage; and (5) bring together marriage and family experts to develop strategies for revitalizing marriage.”

For more information or additional copies of this publication, contact:

The National Marriage Project Rutgers 
The State University of New Jersey 
25 Bishop Place 
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1181 
(732) 932-2722 
marriage@rci.rutgers.edu

 January, 1999 

Adrian Rogers – [3/3] A Magnificent Marriage



Couple Singing

In this image taken from video, Britain’s Prince William, left, sings with his wife, Kate. (AP Photo/APTN)
Kate Middleton walked down the aisle of Westminster Abbey with her father on Friday to begin her wedding to Prince William. (April 29)

Royals at Wedding

In this image taken from video, From left, Britain’s Prince Philip, Britain’s Prince Charles, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, sing during the ceremony at Westminster Abbey for the Royal Wedding. (AP Photo/APTN)


By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers | Comments (0)