The New Morality Threatens Us All.

Fifty years ago Nikita Kruschev prophesied, "We will bury you". While this statement may be ambiguous, the direction our society has taken is not ambiguous. We have become willing accomplices in our own execution. We have dug our own graves.

LIBERATION NOW

In 1884, Friedrich Engels, the lifelong friend of Karl Marx and co-author of the Communist Manifesto, wrote a major citation of 'liberation' literature entitled "On the Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State". 1. This article outlined the blueprint for the liberation of men and women from binding family relationships and the 'oppression of monogamy'.

Engels saw two problems in the practice of lifelong, monogamous marriage. The first problem: after marriage a woman becomes the private property of her husband. Consequently unmarried men are able to find very few women willing to give themselves to them outside of prostitution. Engels contended that the exchange of sex love for money "degrades the character of the entire male world".

The second problem: marriage makes women the slave of their husbands. The husband earns and controls the economic base of the family, keeping the woman dependent upon him.

A NEW MORALITY

Engels proposed the solution to both of these problems by outlining a new morality and a new social order which involved:

* drawing "the entire female sex into public industry",

* making men and women equal "in rights and responsibilities",

* passing "the means of production into common property",

* abolishing the family as "the economic unit of society",

* transforming private housekeeping "into a social industry", and

* having society "take care of all children equally irrespective of whether they were born in wedlock or not".

SEX LOVE REPLACES COMMITTED FAMILY LOVE

Engels contended that this new social organization would give rise "to more unrestrained sexual intercourse, and along with it, a more lenient public opinion regarding virginal honour and feminine shame". The new moral standard for judging sexual intercourse would not be whether it is legitimate, but "whether it arose from mutual love or not."

From these changes will spring the new morality that Engels identified as Sex Love. "If only marriages that are based on love are moral, then also only those are moral in which love continues". Because "the urge of individual Sex Love differs," when affection is "displaced by a new passionate love", separation becomes a blessing.

Engels' new morality attacked and sought to overturn the behavioral and authority patterns of committed family practices. He outlined basic changes in social and personal interaction patterns and responsibilities.

OUR CULTURAL ORGANIZATIONS BOUGHT IT AND SOLD IT TO US.

In the last 50 years the mainstream media, liberal influences in the universities, and social legislation have replaced the foundation of family love with support for sex love.

When changes are made, some things of value may be gained but others are lost.

Can such ideas lead us to greater happiness, or will such disposable love lead us to the even greater oppression of our own passions?

CONSIDER THE CONSEQUENCES

# Before 1960, the expectation of marriage was to "love and cherish, till death us do part, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health".

In 1960, the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act outlined No-Fault divorce laws where fault was eliminated as a grounds for divorce. The first No-faultlaws were established in California in 1970, and within 10 years most of the other states followed. These laws removed power from the person wanting to remain married and gave it to the person wanting to leave a relationship.

The number of divorces in the United States rose rapidly, creating large numbers of single parent homes and emotional, financial, and structural problems for adults and children.

# Divorce accelerated the feminization of poverty. After divorce, the man's income generally rises, while the income of women and children falls, often drastically.

Children suffer in a divorce in many ways. Besides losing the nurturing presence of a parent, a study by the Census Bureau found that children could expect to become 37% poorer following the divorce of their parents. 2.
The effects of divorce on children often accumulate over time, getting worse instead of better. 3.

# Another troubling spinoff of divorce occurs when one parent, in violation of court orders, violates conditions of visitation or tries to remove a child from contact with the other parent. It is estimated that 350,000 parental abductions occur each year. The child is traumatized and the offending parent becomes a criminal. 4.

# Venereal disease has risen to epidemic proportions. Sex outside of committed, monogamous relationships has become normalized in our society, even among teens. In March of 2008, researchers at the federal Center for Disease Control announced that 1 in 4 teen girls has at least one sexually transmitted disease. The most common, the human papilloma virus, causes cervical cancer. The second most common, Chlamydia, can lead to infertility. 5.

The cumulative estimated deaths of persons with AIDS in the United States in 2005 was 530,307 persons. The first cases were reported in 1981 in the homosexual community. 77% of those affected with AIDS are male. Bisexual behaviors have transferred the disease to the heterosexual community. 6.

# In the wake of Roe v. Wade in 1973, more than 45 million abortions were performed in the United States by the year 2000. 80% of abortions are to unmarried women, and 52% are to women younger than 25 years of age. 7.


WHERE WILL THE CONSEQUENCES OF OUR BEHAVIOR END?

As we consider the acceleration of our descent into destruction, it becomes evident that we must change if we are to regain control of our relationships and our society.

If we are unable to remove the blinders from our eyes and see beyond the Pollyana smiles that tell us all is well, if we are unable to regain our moral convictions, and more importantly, the courage of our convictions, we may discover that the prophecy of Kruschev becomes the prophecy of the poet T.S. Eliot, who predicted:

THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD WILL END.

This is the Way the World Will End.

this is the way the world will end.

Not with a BANG, but with a whimper.


References
1. Engels, Friedrich. "The origin of the family, private property, and the state". In: The Marx-Engels Reader. Robert C. Tucher (ed.) NY:Norton. 1978 (1884) pgs. 743-751.
2. Boublin, Gina. "Study: Children lose more than just parents in divorce." Bryan/College Station Eagle (TX) March 2, 1991.
3. Wallerstein, Judith. The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25 Year Study.
4. Child Abduction Statistics. The National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Throwaway Children (NISMART). http://www.lostchildren.org/statistics.htm. Nov. 28, 2008.
5. The Associated Press. March 11, 2008. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23574940.
6. Center for Disease Control Statistics. July, 2006. http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheet/print/msm.htm.
7. Center for Disease Control - Abortion Surveillance - U.S, 2000.