tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post113268811034504487..comments2024-03-28T17:53:43.541-04:00Comments on DarwinCatholic: Living the ConsequencesDarwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-1132773802970573822005-11-23T14:23:00.000-05:002005-11-23T14:23:00.000-05:00Emily,That's a point worth considering.Some of it ...Emily,<BR/><BR/>That's a point worth considering.<BR/><BR/>Some of it overlaps. For instance, I'm pretty sure that an unmarried woman who got pregnant circa 1900 would probably have lost any secular job she might have held. While a woman could economically support herself, or could support herself alone with children (if she was widowed or abandoned by her husband -- and of course a woman-led household was much more difficult without public schools and readily available child-care, not to mention limitted career opportunities and pay) unwed motherhood itself reduced her earning potential, at least for a while. My unstudied impression from reading literature of the time is that an unwed mother might well go live with family till her baby reached a certain age, then move to a new area and announce that she was "Mrs So-and-so" whose husband was dead, overseas, or had abandoned her. This gave her a renewed ability to make her own living.<BR/><BR/>Also, there's the whole matter of whether it makes sense to be the only institution around trying to create a stigma about a certain sin. While it's certainly true that sex outside of marriage is a bad thing, if the Church is the only game in town that fires people for evidence of such behavior, it leaves the Church open to accusations of "refusing to forgive" thus making the permissive secular society look kinder than the Church herself.<BR/><BR/>For whatever reason the whole question is pretty well stuck on my mind, so I may write another post about it later if I come up with something...Darwinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-1132750498914700402005-11-23T07:54:00.000-05:002005-11-23T07:54:00.000-05:00I wonder if the increase in unwed motherhood is mo...I wonder if the increase in unwed motherhood is more due to changes in economic reality than to a reduction in stigma. <BR/><BR/>Many young women can now more-or-less get along without a second provider in the household.Emilyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03729808084952480247noreply@blogger.com