This should have been obvious at the time

Washington Post:

20 years later, it turns out Dan Quayle was right about unmarried mothers

I suspect that many single moms wish they were in a caring relationship with a husband.  But life is sometimes made up of poor choices that have a compounding negative effect, on the mom and especially the kids.   Neal Boortz has observed that many people are poor because they keep on doing the things that made them poor. It is clear that having children before you are married is a ticket to poverty for most people who are not already independently wealthy.  So why do people choose to do so?  The children in these situations have much fewer opportunities in life and many of them wind up engaged in criminal activity.  There has to be a better way and marriage has proved itself to be better for most people.