It is beyond dispute that the negative consequences of divorce and single parenting are enormous-both for children and society in general. Distinguished social scientists, Jean Elshtain and David Popenoe, summarized several recent research studies and found that "[t]he most important causal factor of [recent declines in American] child well-being is the remarkable collapse of marriage, leading to growing family instability and decreasing parental investment in children."' The detrimental effects of family disintegration in the United States are many and varied but the most significant are poverty, high-risk personal behaviors (premarital sexual behaviors, abortion, drug use, etc.), disadvantaged socialization, and increased criminal activity.

Poverty

Among the most profound advantages of marriage is basic economic security for children, and one of the most predictable consequences of divorce and single parenting is poverty. Marital status is more closely associated with avoiding child poverty than any other factor. One study reported that more than half of the increase in child poverty in the United States between 1980 and 1988 "can be accounted for by changes in family structure during the 1980s."56 In addition, "[cihanging family structure also accounted for 48 percent of the increase during the 1980s in deep poverty, and 59 percent of the rise in relative poverty among U.S. children."57 Many studies have shown that children in single-parent families are many times more likely to be living in poverty than children living with both a mother and a father." William Galston, who served as a domestic policy advisor to President Clinton, agreed that "[ilt is no exaggeration to say that a stable, two-parent family is an American child's best protection against poverty."59 Thus, "[a]s a matter of public policy, if not of morality, it pays for society to approve of marriage as the best setting for children."' Statistics show that "[tihe one-parent family is six times more likely to be poor than the two-parent family,"' and there is a well-documented trend of the "feminization of poverty" that results from divorce.62 Adults as well as children suffer from family disintegration, and state welfare costs soar. 

High-risk Behaviors 

Separation of children from their father is "the most harmful demographic trend of this generation ... [and fatherlessness] is the engine driving our most urgent social problems, from crime to adolescent pregnancy to child sexual abuse to domestic violence against women."63 Children raised in single-parent families exhibit higher teen childbirth rates. ' Additionally, "a significant number of teenage drug users are raised in single-parent homes."' Even after "controlling for [such] factors as low income, children growing up in [single-parent] households are at a greater risk for experiencing a variety of behavioral and educational problems, including... smoking, drinking, early and frequent sexual experience... and, in the more extreme cases, drugs, suicide, vandalism, violence, and criminal acts

Disadvantaged Socialization 

Lack of parental time and direction is a common affliction of children of divorce and out-of-wedlock birth. Children raised in single-parent homes are at an "increased risk for experiencing a variety of behavioral and educational problems, including extremes of hyperactivity or withdrawal, lack of attentiveness in the classroom, difficulty in deferring gratification, impaired academic achievement, school misbehavior, absenteeism, ... [and] dropping out [of school]."' Divorce is also associated with many emotional problems, problems with self-esteem, and difficulties with social relationships.68 Surveys of child well-being repeatedly show that children living apart from their fathers are far more likely than other children to be expelled or suspended from school, display emotional and behavioral problems, have difficulty getting along with their peers, and get in trouble with the police.' Children in single-parent families generally receive less parental time and direction and less competent child-rearing than those in two-parent homes. ° "They perform less successfully in educational activities, [and] have more social adjustment problems.

Crime 

The relationship between adolescent (especially male) criminal behavior and family deterioration from dysfunction has long been known. Researchers have frequently observed that boys raised by fathers rarely commit crimes while fatherless boys commonly commit crimes.7 " According to a 1990 study commissioned by the Progressive Policy Institute, the "relationship between crime and one-parent families" is "so strong that controlling for family configuration erases the relationship between race and crime and between low income and crime."" The likelihood that a young male "will engage in criminal activities doubles if he is raised without a father, and triples if he lives in a neighborhood with a high concentration of single-parent families."74 Such statistics are of great concern, as American society "is becoming an increasingly fatherless society."" In 1995, an estimated forty percent of all children in the United States resided in fatherless homes, and it is predicted that more than one-half of all children in America will spend a "significant" part of their childhood (before they turn eighteen) living apart from their fathers."' Recent studies in Europe replicate and validate the conclusion that the behavior and lifestyle choices of teenagers are associated with family structure

As the English author G.K. Chesterton famously observed, we should "regard a system that produces many divorces as we do a system that drives men to drown or shoot themselves. '79 A social system that drives or easily facilitates parents to divorce each other and handicap their children is extremely dysfunctional. Society, therefore, has a profound interest in strengthening the family structure and maintaining stability in order to prevent a host of social problems that can so cruelly afflict the younger rising generation of its citizens and so severely burden the rest of society. "[T]he laws of society ... [are] designed to secure its peace and prosperity, and the morals of its people ... are not interfered with."' These societal interests give the government motivation to regulate the form and structure of marriage and the family.