MPs debate dads but never mention marriage

Last month, MPs spent nearly an hour and a half debating fathers, and not one of them said the word “marriage”. So I discuss the importance of dads and marriage in part two of my conversation with Rabbi Shlomo Levin MBE. Coalition for Marriage (C4M) supporters come from all faiths and none, and we love to hear from anyone who supports man-woman marriage.

Rabbi Levin points out that the Ten Commandments put the father first when they tell us to honour our parents, while Leviticus puts the mother first when it tells us to fear them. The commentaries explain, he says, that a child naturally honours a mother and fears a father, so each command demands what doesn’t come naturally. The lesson is that “the relationship with a father is different” from that with a mother, and “each has a unique contribution to make to the child’s upbringing”.

There are fewer fathers in families, he says, because the balance between rights and responsibilities has shifted. “Marriage is about responsibility as much as it is about rights, but rights are secondary to responsibility… Becoming a father is more about a responsibility to a family and to a child than it is about my right to be the kind of person that I would choose to be for myself”, he tells me.

Yet when MPs debated fathers on 10 September, one of them told the House that “a child does not need a father in the house to flourish”.

Rabbi Levin won’t write off any child who grows up without a father. But he’s clear that “there is a difference when there is both a mother and a father”. Marriage, he says, “is the preferred way and statistically it is the way that's going to work best”. The figures back him. Of couples who were cohabiting when their child was born, 27 per cent had split up by the child’s fifth birthday, against 9 per cent of those who were married.

Now the Government wants the family courts to stop presuming that both parent’s involvement is good for a child. But the Ministry of Justice’s own review found that: “No research was identified that explored the impact on child welfare of the cessation of parental involvement.”

The Courts and Tribunals Bill, which ends that presumption, returns to the Commons on Tuesday 13 October. Please write to your MP before then and ask them to oppose Clause 17. You could tell them that the presumption should always be that a child is better off with both parents in their life, as long as it’s safe, at writetothem.com.

To bring fathers home, Rabbi Levin says, people need to see what’s in it for them. So we have to “sell the sizzle, not the sausage”. That means presenting fatherhood and marriage “in a way that makes it look absolutely mouthwateringly wonderful”. The reward lasts into old age, because for your grandchildren, he says, “you are a hero”.

The best place to sell the sizzle is in our own marriages. I lead Astonish the World, a seven-session course that helps any marriage flourish. If you’d like me to bring it to your church or organisation, why not get in touch by replying to this email?

At C4M, we know that a mother and a father each give their child something the other can’t, and that marriage is what keeps them both there. Parliament may have forgotten the word, but the more marriages people see flourishing, the more they will want one.