Dangle benefits to boost marriages, senator urges
Published:Saturday | January 26, 2019 | 12:00 AM
Government Senator Ransford Braham has urged the State to incentivise marriage in Jamaica because socio-economic data indicate that such unions offer better outcomes for families.
These incentives, Braham told The Gleaner after his address in the Senate on Friday, could be provided through special benefits through the National Housing Trust and other state agencies.
In his contribution to the State of the Nation debate in the Senate, Braham asserted that the family model in Jamaica was “not in the best of shape”, and that there was an economic benefit to having stable families.
“The statistics support it. Our children do better, they are provided for better, the struggle is easier, and they do better, generally speaking,” the attorney-at-law and lay preacher said. “It is a much better way for the teaching of values and attitudes.”
ECONOMIC COOPERATION
In addition, he said that marriage reduced the likelihood of enmity and jealousy among siblings and provided a “unit for economic cooperation”.
“The families that have two people … , if you have five children with one woman, it is easier to spend a thousand dollars among the five than with three mothers.
“If it is that you grow up in a situation where you grew up elsewhere and one side of the family, some of the brothers and sisters, appear to have had the benefit of the father or the mother or the benefit of going to a certain high school, it leads to resentment and jealousy,” the former attorney general continued.
However, Braham sought to make it clear that he was “not condemning anybody” or “any situation”. He indicated, too, that he was expressing a personal view.
“All I am saying is if I look at my society and I’m thinking what is a firm bedrock, we should encourage our people, as many as possible, to get married before they start their family or at some point in that period of time,” said Braham.