For progressives and liberals who have reservations about what are widely believed to be the positive results of the 1996 welfare law and question whether the law has helped poor women and their children, the issue raises difficult questions about the goals of helping children under the current welfare law and the rights of women. States that aggressively enforce child support laws go a long way toward reducing the number of non-marital births, he said. The promoters of the pro-marriage programs say that it's worth trying to reduce the number of children who are brought up without two involved parents. It's helping children lead better lives. It's new thinking and it scares some people because they think it is government legislating morality.
Some women say that's exactly what it is.
She adds that laws that promote heterosexual marriage discriminate against poor lesbian and gay parents. Encouraging women to get married in order to achieve economic security may put them in the unstable position of counting on men who may not always be there, women's advocates say. Men, marriage or the market. None of them is too reliable right now. And for some observers, the motivation behind efforts to promote marriage for poor women is power rather than reform.