‘Marriage matters’: former MP defends family and fatherhood

Miriam Cates has called for society to rediscover that marriage matters and fathers are important.

Speaking to The Express, GB News presenter and former MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge explained that despite marriage’s value, the “tax system actively discourages” it.

She highlighted the Centre for Social Justice’s report, ‘Lost Boys: State of the Nation’, which reported 550,000 young men between 16-24 years old who have been impacted by Britain’s “epidemic of family breakdown” and are not in employment, education, or training.

‘Marriage matters’

Cates emphasised that society needs to rediscover “the fact that marriage matters, like the fact that men and women are different, like the fact that fathers are important”.

“It’s not a Hollywood romance. The civilisational purpose of marriage is to tie women and men together so that the children get the attention of both their mother and their father and are not abandoned. That is the point of marriage.”

She added: “If you get married you are many times more likely to stay together than if you don’t get married.”

Fathers

Addressing fathers, Cates stated: “You’re not disposable and you are different to mums and have a different role. Of course mums are unbelievably important, nobody is saying otherwise.

“But dads are different – they have a different role and they are particularly important for boys in being a role model of what it means to be a man, what it means to be a good man, what it means to treat women well, what it means to be strong and courageous and all those other masculine virtues.”

The journalist reiterated: “Stick around. You’re really needed and you’re really important.”