Until the 1960s, it was widely assumed that marriage was a universal or nearly universal institution for licensing parenthood. Marriage assigned paternity rights to fathers (and their families) and guaranteed social recognition and economic support to...

Illegitimacy is a label once commonly assigned to individuals whose parents were not married. In most European nation-states (Scotland being the most notable exception), the child of unmarried parents was not a legitimate heir in law to its father's...

"Sex Codes Among Inner-City Youth" is the title of a remarkable paper presented this week by University of Pennsylvania Professor Elijah Anderson to a seminar at the American Enterprise Institute. Its 40 pages describe in excruciating detail the sex and abandonment "game" played by...

When it comes to illegitimacy, there's finally good news: The white rate is steeply rising. That's an odd kind of "good news" I bring you, but it's import is unmistakable: In a little while, both the problem of illegitimacy and the term "underclass" will...

Anti-war activists consider 1st Lt. Ehren Watada a hero for his refusal to go to Iraq.The Army accuses him of betraying his fellow soldiers.At a court martial that began Monday at Fort Lewis, south of Seattle, the 28-year-old faces four years in prison if convicted...

Freedom: As thousands of monks marched on Rangoon last week, a velvet revolution seemed near. But barbarism destroyed the road to democracy. Burma's rulers sent a message that tyranny pays. It must stop. Burma is often characterized as a pariah state in the Western media,...