Remember love and marriage? - Medved

Mon Sep 25 20:37:57 EDT 2000

subject: Remember love and marriage?

from: Smart Marriages

9/25/00  
USA Today 

Remember love and marriage?

By Michael Medved 

US Weekly 's cover just featured a softly lit close-up of two of the world's
most admired movie stars, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones,
blissfully cuddling their 2-week-old son, Dylan.

Inside, under "Family Ties," the magazine provides more full-color photos
showing the baby with his happy parents, as well as grandparents on both
sides. An accompanying interview features 55-year-old Douglas enthusing over
his 30-year-old companion.

"Love is something that's so rewarding ‹ it just makes you feel great to
have something to cherish, something to protect, something to nurture," he
purrs.

When asked about the values she wanted to instill in baby Dylan, Zeta-Jones
replies: "I just want him to be a good, solid boy, knowing right from wrong.
I'm already dreaming of when he's getting married. I'm having these vivid
dreams of me and Michael standing in the church, and he's squeezing my
hand." 

Perhaps at some point before they participate in this touching scene,
Michael Douglas might consider taking her into another church for another
wedding ‹ their own.

Like many other contemporary celebrities, these two lovebirds ‹ held up as
the ultimate in romantic fulfillment for all of their adoring fans ‹ never
bothered to exchange vows before the birth of their baby. Despite the fact
that Zeta-Jones assures the media that plans for some future wedding are
"now back on course, " and might unfold as early as November, little Dylan's
blessed birth classifies for that old-fashioned, unpleasant designation:
illegitimate. Michael and Catherine say they want to give their baby boy
everything in the world, but they denied him the greatest birthday gift of
them all: two parents married to one another.

Considering our national epidemic of illegitimacy, this is no laughing
matter. This past year, 33% of all U.S. babies were born to unmarried
mothers, up from 26% in 1994. While the teenage birthrate has begun to
register a notable and welcome decline, the overall percentage of
out-of-wedlock births remains virtually unchanged because more female adults
choose to bear children outside of marriage.

They are influenced, at least in part, by the dramatic decline in the social
stigma that once applied to their circumstances and by the unprecedented
aura of glamour and trendiness that Hollywood figures seem to associate with
illegitimacy.

Unfortunately, such attitudes ignore the studies of out-of-wedlock birth
showing that these children will face significantly greater risks of drug
addiction, mental illness, failure in school, criminal activity and suicide.
Privileged progeny such as Dylan Douglas may remain protected from such
outcomes by the power of their parents, but millions of other children
raised outside of marriage ‹ particularly those in the inner city ‹ won't be
so fortunate.

Sociologists now recognize the devastating role played by illegitimacy in
perpetuating the intergenerational cycle of poverty and despair, and rightly
applaud reductions in the birthrate for unmarried teenage mothers. Yet if
out-of-wedlock child rearing represents destructive behavior for the
underclass, why then should it earn praise or admiration for spoiled,
self-indulgent celebrities?

Unlike couples confronting dire poverty and the daily struggle for survival,
these pop-culture potentates enjoy enough options to easily arrange some
sort of wedding before the birth of their children.

The media provide adoring accounts of Madonna and her two illegitimate
babies from two different fathers, and reports that even though she recently
received a ring from one of them, she says, "We can't decide whether
marriage is something that's necessary."

Richard Gere and his model girlfriend, Carey Lowell, tell Entertainment
Tonight they're "totally devoted" to their newborn, but can't find time to
think about marriage.

Al Pacino and his new "gal pal" Beverly D'Angelo also draw enthusiastic
media coverage with their announcement of their "over the moon" delight at
the fact that they are now expecting twins.

These and countless other luminaries led the way in severing the age-old
connection between child bearing and the institution of marriage. For
beloved public figures, this cannot remain a purely personal matter.

Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones received a reported fee of more
than $1 million from a British tabloid for their first intimate baby
pictures. They babbled proudly about breast-feeding, burping their child and
cutting his umbilical cord. By the nature of the careers that they've chosen
for themselves, normal standards of privacy hardly apply. Like it or not,
they serve as role models.

Presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush say they feel worried
about the corrupting messages Hollywood imparts to our kids; but for most
American parents such concerns go far beyond movie violence. When Gore
honored Michael Douglas as one of the featured stars at his Radio City Music
Hall fundraiser, did it ever occur to him that the actor's much-publicized
illegitimate fatherhood sent a destructive message to kids? Has the
institution of marriage become so passé, so irrelevant, that no one
questions Douglas' status as an officially designated United Nations
"ambassador of peace"?

Many Americans, with far fewer resources or options than Douglas and
Zeta-Jones, manage to make the investment in time and money to go through a
marriage ceremony. Brides may even be pregnant during the process, an
age-old expedient representing a commitment to do the right thing for the
future child at the risk of temporary embarrassment to his parents. Even
Romeo and Juliet, in their brief, fictional and star-crossed lives, found
time to tie the knot before their tragic demise.

With their example in mind and the consciousness of the vast social cost of
out-of-wedlock birth, we ought to affirm the obvious truth that there is
nothing romantic or glamorous about Hollywood's adolescent addiction to
illegitimacy.

Film critic Michael Medved hosts a nationally syndicated daily radio talk
show and is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.

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