Today, the black family struggles with these words: class, income mobility, and poverty. The basic truths on the subjects are that entrenched, multigenerational poverty is largely black, and it is intricately intertwined with the collapse of the black family in our country’s social equation.

If we are to follow media hype one would believe the demise of the black family is the sole fault of the marginalised black male, who evolves into the absentee and “wutliss” father. But it isn’t entirely and squarely to be laid at the black male’s feet. It is time we examined the black woman’s role in this social travesty.

Dollars and ‘sense’

But first, why is it important for the black family to stay together, and how does it impact wealth creation? It is fairly popular knowledge that couples who get and stay married can have as much as four times the wealth of their single or divorced peers. One factor is that they can combine their salaries and share expenses once they get married.

However, spouses are better off because of a combination of factors, starting with who is getting married these days. Couples also are able to take advantage of economies of scale; anything from buying just one big TV at Courts or Lucky Dollar, to relying on one another’s health insurance. That allows them to build wealth more quickly than their peers who are single, divorced, or living together romantically.

Advantages go beyond just sharing expenses. People who are married also are able to divide up responsibilities in financially beneficial ways. For example, a married man may work 12 hours a day telecommuting or working from home as seems to be the 21st-century trend, and do reasonably well because he and his wife can divide household duties so she can join the workforce as a teacher or contribute in some other new and dynamic fashion. That’s not as much of an option for a single parent.

So we see the benefits in a socio-economic regard if the black family stays together. We see the benefit to children and education from a united black family. It is with this in mind that the State punishes and penalises deadbeat dads. That is why we have Family Law; it is why the state has implemented child maintenance.

Typically one has the same duty to pay child support, irrespective of sex, so a mother is required to pay support to a father just as a father must pay a mother. In some jurisdictions, where there is joint custody, the child is considered to have two custodial parents and no non-custodial parents, and a custodial parent with a higher income (obligor) may be required to pay the other custodial parent (obligee).

So it is in this vein of thought that I ask, if it is that we see benefit to maintaining family structure in social scheme and on a financial level, we penalise men who don’t care for their children, we posit that we will target and penalise parents who don’t send children to school, then why is that, when a woman gives a man a child who is not his to maintain financially, there is no penalty for this woman and her offence.

The offence

It ought to be a criminal offence. It is tantamount to fraud. When women issue what Jamaicans popularly call “jackets”, there is no social upheaval. Men are traumatised, as is the case with the man who killed a woman who gave him four to five jackets.

Jacketeering disintegrates black families, dissolves and annuls them. Then let us examine the misappropriation of money a woman creates when they ‘raffle’ and ‘auction off’ babies to unsuspecting lovers. This is scamming and fraud of the highest order. Misplaced last names on babies seem like even some sort of identity theft.

If the State is serious about values and attitudes, if it is serious about wealth creation and lowering crime, we need to act. Let us not be embarrassed again when the US Embassy releases the “jacket” statistics after parents file for children from abroad.

We, as a nation, need to address the black family post-haste, tighten loopholes and gaps for women to recklessly reverse the social gains made by feminists and women’s advocates, who surely didn’t lobby for women to become social cancers. And if men are brought to account, then in this grand age of purported equality, women too must be brought to account, if we are to move forward.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa holds a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy (UWI, Mona), and is a writer, artist, law student, and entrepreneur. Send comments to the Observer or yannickpessoa@yahoo.com.