Fractured Fairy Tale: How Men Lost their Kids
Lenny Schafer
How men lost their parental rights - a fractured fairy tale
Many years ago, men had full "property rights" to their wives and
children. If the man became tired of his wife, he could simply take her
to the market and sell her to the highest bidder. <picture man standing
on box, trying to encourage people to bid on fat, nasty-looking wife>.
The law said that the wife had to agree to this but that really didn't
matter because if she didn't agree... well, accidents do happen.
<Picture fat woman stepping off cliff in fog>
Of course, wives never left their husbands because they controlled the
food supply and sometimes meat became tainted. <Picture man eating
mushrooms, turning bright red, grabbing his chest, and falling over.>
Children provided free farm labor and were viewed as an asset which could
be used to secure a debt. <Picture children sitting on table as people
play cards.>
Fathers always kept the children and sometimes the children even remained
with the father's estate because only men could own property and children
were property. <Picture children lined up for tax assessment.>
Sometime near the Victorian Age, it became a status symbol to posess an
idle wife... a woman who did not work outside the home. Also, as people
left the countryside and moved to the city, children ceased being good
assets and became a liability. <Picture apartment overcrowded with
crying children>
Since women were feeble-minded and incapble of supporting themselves
except in a manner which every moral woman considered "a fate worse than
death", it was decided that men should continue supporting their wives
after putting them aside for other, younger, more attractive wives who
didn't work. Naturally, no man would want a discarded wife. <Picture
men surrounding a pretty woman while ignoring a fat, matronly one.>
America looked to England quite heavily during this time and emulated
many of their practices. <Picture man looking across ocean to see what
men are doing in England.>
The existence of a ruling queen in England no doubt added to the court's
decision to properly care for these helpless females. Since their only
"job" was to be a mother and children no longer had real value, courts
started adopting the idea that mothers should keep the children... the
idea being that these children would then support their mothers in their
old age so their former husbands wouldn't have to do so. <Picture old
woman on knees before children, begging for money.>
Although children never really regained their property value (except in
common law), fathers began to realize how much they had lost. Their
early efforts fell on deaf ears as judges looked at the wife <picture a
poor woman sacrificing everything for her children> and then the husband
<picture man seated in sporty 1950's car next to beautiful, well-built
blonde>. Judges continued giving custody to women regardless of
circumstances despite some real horror stories.
<Picture poor child in ragged clothes begging (on knees) her richly clad
mom for food and receiving bread and water.>
Men were powerless against these judges until one day a female attorney
became disgusted with the legal system and invoked the power of the
computer networks to serve as a method of communication among dads. As
local organizations gained contact with one another and men became more
knowledgeable, they began media and letter campaigns to make their voices
heard. <Picture map of country with lights dotting the area to represent
local groups.>
Alas, this is a never-ending story and I cannot tell you what the future
holds.
Only the members of this organization and all the other grassroots
organizations out there can predict the outcome.
[F.R.E.E., a fathers rights national network, can be reached at
bit-listserv.free-l]
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sch...@netcom.com