Child Abuse and the Family: Traditional Marriage and Fidelity Protect Children

There have been many studies evaluating the safety of children relative to the family. The Heritage Foundation has several important papers on this. One describes a "seminal study" from the U.K. where cases of child abuse from 1982-1988 were analyzed. A important summary statement from the British study is this:

The safest environment for a child--that is, the family environment with the lowest risk ratio for physical abuse--is one in which the biological parents are married and the family has always been intact.

Heritage points out that similar studies in the U.S. on child abuse are few. And they report the findings of the British study:

The British Data 

The study conducted by the family education Trust in Great Britain meticulously explored the relationship between particular types of family structure and abuse, accumulating clear data on family configuration in actual cases of abuse from 1982 to 1988. The results of this study shed light on a pattern that is highly correlated with child abuse today in both England and the United States: the absence of marriage and the presence of cohabitation.
The evidence from Great Britain is especially significant because, to date, this is the only study to explore the relationship between family structure and abuse. Specifically:

• The safest environment for a child--that is, the family environment with the lowest risk ratio for physical abuse--is one in which the biological parents are married and the family has always been intact.

• The rate of abuse is six times higher in the second-safest environment: the blended family in which the divorced mother has remarried.

• The rate of abuse is 14 times higher if the child is living with a biological mother who lives alone.

• The rate of abuse is 20 times higher if the child is living with a biological father who lives alone.

• The rate of abuse is 20 times higher if the child is living with biological parents who are not married but are cohabiting.

• The rate of abuse is 33 times higher if the child is living with a mother who is cohabiting with another man.

According to the British data, similar risks apply in cases of fatal child abuse. The overwhelming number of child deaths occurred in households in which the child's biological mother was cohabiting with someone who was unrelated to the child.

It's obvious that the family, as history shows, is the building block of stable communities. A few years ago I my husband and I visited Jamestown and watched the introductory film which included the information that, after the initial settlement was founded in 1607 which was all men, the Virginia Company realized the importance of bringing women to establish permanency and stabalize the colony. The first Jamestown wedding took place in 1608 when Anna Burras married carpenter John Laydon three months after her arrival.

Marriage and family have always been the building blocks of society. Is it any wonder that our love affair in the U.S. with divorce, adultery, fornication, and LGBT lust is destroying the country? Return to basics, folks. Love God first, then your family, then your neighbor.

For more go here and here.