The Return of Patriarchy

Across the globe, people are choosing to have fewer children or none at all. Governments are desperate to halt the trend, but their influence seems to stop at the bedroom door. Are some societies destined to become extinct? Hardly. It's more likely that conservatives will inherit the Earth. Like it or not, a growing proportion of the next generation will be born into families who believe that father knows best.

BY PHILLIP LONGMAN | FEBRUARY 17, 2006

If we could survive without a wife, citizens of Rome, all of us would do without that nuisance.” So proclaimed the Roman general, statesman, and censor Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus, in 131 B.C. Still, he went on to plead, falling birthrates required that Roman men fulfill their duty to reproduce, no matter how irritating Roman women might...

This article is available to subscribers only. To continue reading, you must first log in. Note: If you created your account before June 2009 you may need to create a new one.

 

Phillip Longman is Bernard L. Schwartz senior fellow at the New America Foundation. He is the author of The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What to Do About It (New York: Basic Books, 2004).

Facebook|Twitter|Reddit
 SUBJECTS: CULTURE, RACE/ETHNICITY