Melanie Phillips: "Pay men to commit to their families"

Article here. Excerpt:

'Devastating new research by sociologist Geoff Dench shows that not only is one in four mothers single, but more than half of such mothers have never lived with a man at all and are choosing to live alone on state benefits.

They believe they have no need for a man in their life and that their children have no need for a father.

The founding premise of the Government's £280million sex education strategy - that young mums get pregnant through ignorance - is thus very far from the truth.

It is, therefore, hardly surprising that Britain still has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe.
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With so much flailing around over the family, I have a modest proposal to help break through the confusion.

It is that the Government should introduce a Man Benefit.

Before people assume that I have confused today's date with this time next month, let me say that my somewhat light-hearted proposal is based on a deeper point that I believe has been generally overlooked.
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For the great unsayable is that Child Benefit acts as a huge incentive to have children outside marriage.

When it was introduced in the Seventies, it replaced child tax allowances, which were set against the earned income of fathers. It was, therefore, hailed as a transfer of family income 'from wallet to purse'.
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Since marriage has always helped turn young men into responsible adults, this marginalisation gave them a green light to be as irresponsible as they wanted - thus creating a vicious circle in which girls would dismiss these wastrel youths as a 'waste of space'.

What's needed, therefore, is to help turn men once again into an attractive, marriageable proposition.'