Whatever the origins and convolutions of the (complex and often incoherent) intellectual and emotional background that implicitly, if not explicitly, endorses atomisation and household fragmentation, the foremost element has been the animus against marriage and two-parent families. Anti-family activists have expressly sought to undermine any economic, social and legal need and support for marriage by getting any privileges granted to married couples, including tax allowances, withdrawn, and recognition extended to different types of households and relationships. This has reached the Orwellian stage of editing references to marriage out of the lexicon, led by government removing the term ‘marital status’ from official documentation and replacing husband/wife/spouse with ‘partner’, which assimilates them with cohabiters and flatmates. Since the control of language brings the control of thought, which brings the control of action, so there is (hopefully) the perception, acceptance and practice of a world of provisional and fluid relationships, where men move around siring and ‘parenting’ children as ‘partners’ of essentially lone mothers. This is just about the most adverse environment for child welfare one could create.
Patricia Morgan The War between the Family and the State
