Dear Sir,

After reading about "traditional family life being in decline" in today's Telegraph, I would like to point out the need for society to adapt its attitudes and laws to biological reality, instead of vainly trying to bend reality to suit modern convenience (Traditional family life 'is in decline', 27 March 2000).

In the past a couple married officially in church, following which their marriage was "consummated" through sexual intercourse. If they failed to do so, the marriage remained unconsummated and could be declared invalid.

This reflected the fact that "marriage" is far more the act of sexual union between a man and a woman than any official, legal contract they may make (with or without God's blessing).

As a result of reliable methods of birth control and changed social attitudes, during the past 30 years or so we have turned things on their head. But this does not change the underlying biological reality.

So long as no children are produced, such unofficial marriages - serial polygamy or polyandry, as it is also called - are not necessarily a problem, provided we accept that life-long monogamy/monoandry is now the exception rather than the rule.

However, when a child is born, whether in or out of wedlock, its parents are truly joined and married - in that child. The fact that they can get divorced, split up, or perhaps were never together except for one night, does not change this underlying biological reality.

A child is the absolutely unique product of the union between a particular man and a particular woman (i.e. their  gametes, sperm and egg, as it is necessary to add nowadays). No matter what the official, legal situation may be, they are married in that child, and nothing, except the child's death, can change it.

In its early years the mother is especially responsible for her child, while the father is especially responsible for them both. This is not just a matter of opinion or law, but a matter of biological fact.

A parent or society may refuse to accept this, but it remains true all the same. It is a gravely mistaken, though widely held, belief that biological parents, particularly fathers, are dispensable or replaceable. They are not.

A mother cannot love her child without also loving its father. If she rejects him, she rejects a part of her child. Many single mothers do not seem to realise that if they fail to provide their child with a loving biological father, they have let it down terribly.

Whether a child is brought up in wedlock is not what counts, but whether it is brought up by its two loving biological parents. That may not always be possible, but it is still extremely important, and should not be downplayed as it so often - and conveniently - is.

This does not mean that it is not sometimes, or perhaps often, best for a child's parents to split up. But this should never mean that it has to loose one of them. Both remain its parents, and until it grows up are jointly responsible for it.

The church makes a terrible mistake in encouraging pregnant girls and women not to terminate or release for adoption, despite not having a loving partner. In so doing they inadvertently encourage the ever increasing numbers of single mothers, who do not understand the extent to which they are depriving their children. The biological father is not only extremely important himself for his child, he also provides it with 2 grandparents, 4 great grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. 

Instead of emphasising the importance of "official marriage", society would do better to emphasis the natural and far greater importance - and responsibilities - of biological marriage and parenthood, as well as the importance and potential of extended family - something indigenous Brits could learn about from their Asian neighbours.