You won't find any 24-hour wedding chapels here. It's very destructive. When unmarried couples with children separate, fathers tend to get short shrift from the courts in Scandinavia because tradition favors the rights of the mother, complain fathers' rights advocates such as Rune Harald Raekken, chairman of the Joint Custody Assn. of Norway. Legal custody is skewed toward the mothers, and there are no legal bonds between the father and child. We have to change the laws, but more importantly, we have to change people's attitudes.
Every child has the right to two parents.
He regrets that it is no longer shameful to have children out of wedlock, speculating that the failure to make a commitment at the start of family life leaves the door open for one partner's departure when the going gets tough. Norway's divorce rate has actually stabilized over the past few years, but sociologists take little heart from that statistic because so many fewer couples are getting married in the first place. The data also might suggest a rising animosity between men and women. They think it has to be summer, good weather and happiness all the time. His organization offers advice to fathers seeking joint custody or visitation rights.