I’ve decided to keep a record of some of the things which I have previously got wrong. Not everything; just those things that pertain to marriage and family which I have propounded here, or in comments elsewhere. I expect these posts will be short. I do not expect any of them to be world-shattering. It’s about decluttering, not Richter events.
The plan is to have a linked page at the top which puts links to these in an easy to browse format, and that perhaps my reconsiderations will be beneficial to others.
I’m not sure when it was abandoned (let’s say well before the mid-20th Century [corrections appreciated in the comments]), but the term bastard fell out of cultural favor, and it ceased to be an social impediment as it previously had been. Until recently I have been in favor of this change because it seemed unfair to me that a child should suffer for his parents’ sins. Well, that’s feelings for you. They get in the way of observing and proclaiming reality.
First, it just is reality that a child born out of wedlock suffers. His situation is not improved by ignoring the grisly truth that our sins can and do affect others in profound ways and with lasting consequences.
Second, I no longer believe that protection of the child was the goal when bastard was trashed. It was to protect the ears, reputations, and incomes of the women who bore them. Once bastard was tossed, then the way was cleared for whore pensions to replace marriage as a family’s foundation. The consequence of which has been to further tempt women to be brazen whores, and to create more bastards.
Third–and this is really important and what wholly threw me over to the other side–, bastard status is not immutable. A bastard can be legitimized by his father, and the stigma of bastardy significantly reduced, if not eradicated altogether.
Bringing back bastardy and the power of legitimization does at least a three things:
- It causes the power of family formation to be clawed back from courts into the hands of fathers, as God intended, as makes civilization possible, and as can be no other way no matter how bureaucrats try to hide reality with lies.
- Mothers of bastards are incentivized to make peace with the fathers. Currently, bastard mothers are incentivized to be at war with the father, and to threaten him with no access to his child. She is incentivized to recruit the power of the courts against him because it is her best bet financially; even though it is the worst bet for the bastard’s spiritual, mental, and emotional good. “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
- It makes people see truth. It makes them think and examine the consequences of their actions. This one is last, but it is far from least. Right now everything is muddled. All actions and consequences are gauzed with plausible deniability. It would be helpful to know how many bastards your church produced. It would say something about your congregation, and show where repentance is needed.
Things that We have Heard and Known 
Also adds weight to the old tradition of the shotgun wedding, where Fathers would have a backup plan that discouraged boys going after wayward daughters.
Spot on. Not only is child support evil for encouraging single motherhood in the first place, but once the child is born the system is crafted to create acrimony between fathers and their children. One of the arguments against Republican welfare reform is that it introduced a new class of fatherless children into the child support model. As a result, welfare reform actually provided moral cover to a new class of single mothers (it isn’t welfare, it is the state covering for that deadbeat dad who made her a single mother), and it also drove a wedge between children and their fathers where the bond was most tenuous. I’ve written about this before, and I’ll probably do a follow up post with a link here in the next few days.
In the OT, bastards and their descendants were not allowed in the Congregation of the Lord for 10 generations!
“A bastard shall not come into the congregation of Jehovah; even his tenth generation shall not come into the congregation of Jehovah.” Deut. 23:2 Darby Translation
>”Second, I no longer believe that protection of the child was the goal when bastard was trashed. It was to protect the ears, reputations, and incomes of the women who bore them.”
While I agree, you’ve also yet to show how you arrived at such a conclusion.
The Feminist can always respond with the “But our intentions were good (thinking about the child)!” line.
Prepare to fight to use the word. I’ve used it for about 3 or four years now,and its surprising who objects and for what reasons.
That being said, its a good fight to have. May you do so with grace and victory.
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@White
While feminists and conservatives are both enthusiastic in their support of the new single mother headed family model, it is ironically feminists who are most honest about the incentives the new structure creates for mothers to separate children from their fathers. See the pingback above for my most recent post on this for an example from a law professor on the left. Another example is the article in The Shriver Report titled What About the Fathers? For relevant (and damning) quotes and a link to the article see: https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2015/11/12/what-about-the-fathers/
@White
I can live with that and refuse to explain things to Feminists anyways. Explaining the realities of civilization to Feminists is like explaining the internal combustion engine to Feminists: You will talk about the need for a proper mixture of fuel, air, and spark and they will come back with a demand for a bigger pink key because everyone knows its keys that make cars go.
They don’t lack explanations. That’s not their problem.
As I said at the top of the OP I don’t mean for a CoE to be a detailed argument. Think of them as a jumping-off point for further thought.
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@Cane
Yes but you did mention that bastard status not being immutable, was a sort of turning point that threw you over to the other side. I’m not sure I follow. Yes, a bastard didn’t always stay one. Yes, fathers used to be able to legitimize a bastard. Yes, fathers cannot do that anymore because the concept of bastards has been trashed… Therefore doing away with bastards is not to serve the child but to serve women and single mothers. Huh???
Again, I agree with your premise and your conclusion. I just fail to see how a father’s (former) ability to legitimize bastards is “smoking gun” evidence, or a “turning point”.
@Dalrock
Thanks for the links. Long time lurker, I’ve been trying to leave comments on your blog since 2014/2015, none of them got through. Gave up by 2016. Perhaps your spam list really hates me lol. Would appreciate if you looked into that 🙂
Child support for bastards was enacted, not by legislation but by the Supreme Court, in the same term which decided Roe v. Wade. Prior to the decision (Gomez v. Perez 409 US 535 1973) most states forbade payment of child support to unmarried mothers since their assertions of paternity were often false or speculative, but, more importantly, because the act of a man promising before God to have and to hold from this day forward was recognized to have more honor and more responsibility than bending some drunk chick over in an alley.
The voiding of all states’ laws on these matters was the real end of “traditional marriage”.
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Being a bastard ( I am one and I am illegitimate as well), used to have a huge impact on the bastard. There was a time where I could not inherit or go to college. I was set apart from the rest of the children in society. Adoption was supposed to separate the mother, father, and child, be a form of punishment and hide the bastardness of the child. Losing my family did not make my life better or make my father or mother’s life better either. With DNA testing, being a bastard lost its last sting. Now we know whose your daddy. Child support was started for children like me so that I did not have to lose my family and end up in the system. My parents were both married, just not to each other.