Dear FRONTLINE,

I'm sorry to say I think the #1 problem with marriages today is that a lot of the men are just no good.

Why should a good woman be married to a bad man? All these single women are good women, doing their duties and taking good care of their families. The men just don't measure up and the women don't have to put up with it anymore.

Any changes have to start with the men. Men need to be responsible and take care of their families. Most men don't do this. Men today have so many issues it isn't even funny. When someone starts talking about that, then something might change.

Susan Larssen
Oklahoma City, OK

Dear FRONTLINE,

European countries have essentially eliminated the problem of single mothers with too many children. Yet, young Europeans don't get married nearly as much and nearly as early as Americans.

So how do they do it?

They all have national health care systems with free access to contraceptives, as well as relatively easy and free access to abortion though most countries only allow early term abortions, and very little social or religious pressures against pre-marital sex.

It's obvious people, the solution to this specifically American problem is better and cheaper planned parenthood, not more marriage. Why is it that the problem is more accute in the Bible Belt? Simple: people there get married quickly because of the the religious pressure against sex outside of marriage. That's why they also divorce more.

The pragmatic solution won't please the conservatives:

encourage pre-marital sex, encourage young couples to live together before committing to marriage and children, and provide free access to contraceptive as well as free access and counseling for early-term abortions. This policy totally eliminated the problem in Europe.

America is the only developed country with such a problem, and also the only developed country without a national health care system, and the only developed country with such a strong influence of religious conservatives on social policies.

Don't look any further for the root causes of the problem.

Middletown, NJ

Dear FRONTLINE,

I have enjoyed watching the Frontline episode on marriage. I have never married and don't plan on getting married because I feel that most people do not go into it with the necessary level of commitment and dedication.

But what sticks out in my mind even more in this show is the out of wedlock births. Why oh why oh why aren't people using birth control!?! Why is one woman having 7 kids with 3 guys?! Why is one guy having 8 kids with god knows how many women?! Rich or poor, there are no bonus points for having multitudes of kids with multitudes of different mothers and fathers. I am not a republican, I am not a conservative by any stretch of the imagination, but the bigger issue is not marriage, it's the birth control, or lack of it, and the result of not using birth control that is the real issue. Marriages will have issues with or without children, but entering into a bad marriage for the sake of having a family unit and for the sake of the children is not the solution either.

It doesn't matter if you are black, white, purple or green, the show says that marriage has to be improved to keep families together for economic and social reasons. But if people were using birth control, there wouldn't necessarily be a need for marriage for at least the economic reasons.

Marrying for economic reasons is doomed to fail.

G Garniss
Lowell, MA

Dear FRONTLINE,

Yes divorce and lack of proper parenting is a major problem in american society. as a teacher of 26 years i see each and every year the distruction of divorced families on children. but equally as bad are the dysfunctional parents who should not have had children. Yes, the republicans are right about the issue, but should the government intervene ? Yes, if only to shame parents into being resposible to their children. How effective beyond this can the government be? i don't know , but rest assured only this will reform education and create a better society. Everybody knows that this root of our educational woes.

bob storm
niles , mi