Give them full marks for bluntness. But you don't have to be June Cleaver to realize that feminists such as Dixon and Millet harbor an animus that seems almost pathological.
Even after the Age of Aquarius was well behind us, feminist opposition to marriage continued. By 1990, for example, the group Radical Women was claiming the traditional family was "founded on the open or concealed domestic slavery of the wife." (Wait until my husband sees that one.)
Today, the voices of radical feminism cloak their opposition in different terms. The Center for Women Policy Studies says President Bush's proposal is not "an appropriate public policy strategy – if our goal is truly to put a dent in women's and children's poverty." Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization of Women, says, "Marrying women off to get them out of poverty is not only backward, it is insulting to women."
But their economic arguments don't hold water. More than 80 percent of those who spend more than half their childhoods in poverty live in never-married or broken households. Children who grow up in single-parent households are seven times more likely to live in poverty, and six times more likely to go on welfare themselves than those whose parents are married and living together.
As for this being "insulting to women," that doesn't wash either. Not when even most unwed parents say they want to marry their partner. Not when survey after survey reveals that married women are happier and healthier than their single counterparts. Or when other surveys turn up largely the same responses from their husbands and children.
Men and women will continue to marry, of course, the claims and wishes of radical feminists notwithstanding. The question is: Should they simply mate like animals, or should they accept the responsibility of shaping the young lives they bring into the world together, as God intended?
That's all President Bush is aiming for with his proposal – to nudge things in the right direction. Who could oppose that?