Editing Single parent (section)

==History==
Single parenthood has been common historically due to parental [[mortality rate]] due to [[disease]], [[war]]s, [[homicide]], [[work accidents]] and [[maternal mortality]]. Historical estimates indicate that in French, English, or Spanish villages in the 17th and 18th centuries at least one-third of children lost one of their parents during childhood; in 19th-century [[Milan]], about half of all children lost at least one parent by age 20; in 19th-century [[China]], almost one-third of boys had lost one parent or both by the age of 15.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.faqs.org/childhood/Me-Pa/Orphans.html|title=Orphans|author=Gay Brunet|publisher=Internet FAQ Archives|series=Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society}}</ref> Such single parenthood was often short in duration, since remarriage rates were high.<ref>Dupaquier J, Helin E, Laslett P, Livi-Bacci M, Marriage and remarriage in populations of the past, London: Academic Press, 1981.</ref>

[[Divorce]] was generally rare historically (although this depends on culture and era), and became especially difficult to obtain after [[the fall of the Roman Empire]], in [[Medieval Europe]], due to strong involvement of [[ecclesiastical courts]] in [[family]] life (though [[annulment]] and other forms of separation were more common).<ref>''Kent's Commentaries on American Law'', p. 125, n. 1 (14th ed. 1896).</ref>

Single parent adoptions have existed since the mid 19th century. Men were rarely considered as adoptive parents, and were considered far less desired. Often, children adopted by a single person were raised in pairs rather than alone, and many adoptions by lesbians and gay men were arranged as single parent adoptions. During the mid 19th century many state welfare officials made it difficult if not impossible for single persons to adopt, as agencies searched for married heterosexual couples. In 1965, the Los Angeles Bureau of Adoptions sought single African-Americans for African-American orphans for whom married families could not be found. In 1968, the [[Child Welfare League of America]] stated that married couples were preferred, but there were "exceptional circumstances" where single parent adoptions were permissible.<ref name="Single Parent Adoptions">{{cite web|title=Single Parent Adoptions | url= http://pages.uoregon.edu/adoption/topics/singleparentadoptions.htm |work=The Adoption History Project| publisher= University of Oregon|date =  24 February 2012 |access-date=23 April 2014}}</ref>