Two publications by Martin Daly and Margo Wilson (see Bibliography) cite statistics that show that reported child abuse in the USA and Canada was several times higher for families which included step-parents, as compared with families which contained two natural parents. The younger the child, the greater the difference. In the USA, reported child abuse in 0-2 year-olds was six times as high for families which included step-parents, and in Canada, in 0-4 year-olds, it was more than 26 times as high for families which included step-parents. These are old figures (from the 1980s), because you can bet your bottom dollar that the feminists who dominate the social science departments in universities have been working hard to stifle any more research along these lines, as much as possible!

This is about feminism, to a large extent. It was the feminists who sold the line that women needed to be liberated from the so-called patriarchal institution of marriage (i.e. from men), and it was feminists who facilitated this epidemic of family breakdown by:

It is much harder for a step-parent (I would think) to control a child, because a child tends to miss and respect his absent natural parent (father). It is easy to see abuse taking place, when child and step-parent do not respect and love each other. Daly and Wilson prefer the explanation that males want to facilitate the survival of their own genes (i.e. their own natural children), rather than the survival of the competing genes of some other male, who happened to be in their place earlier. Either way, it is easy to see abuse taking place, when child and step-parent do not respect and love each other.

So I suggest that the key is to go back to a time when divorce and separation were harder to get.

Bibliography

Daly, Martin, and Wilson, Margo (1987):
"Children as Homicide Victims", in: Gelles, Richard J. and Jane B. Lancaster (eds.), Child Abuse and Neglect: Biosocial Dimensions, 1987, New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Daly Martin, Wilson, Margo (1988):
"Homicide". Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.

See also

• Fake News Meets Fake Education:The Gross Incompetence of Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, Associate Professor Ian Lambie and TV3's Lisa Owen; also the Gross Corruption of the Ministry of Justice

• The Wellbeing of Maori children