Jan 9, 2016 3 min read

It was 1972, and Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern was staggering toward a historic defeat at the hands of Republican incumbent Richard Nixon in that year’s election.

Despite an image of rectitude and high-mindedness, particularly in comparison to ol’ Tricky Dick – McGovern had briefly been a minister with the Methodist Church – he was crushed by a 23-point margin in the popular vote when Election Day rolled around, and won only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia in the Electoral College.

Could things have possibly gone any worse for McGovern? Believe it or not, yes, they could have. Throughout that woeful campaign, and for the 40 years he lived after, McGovern kept closely hidden the fact that he fathered a child out of wedlock when he was a 19-year-old. If this was revealed during the 1972 campaign – the FBI was aware of it, and, apparently, so was the Nixon campaign – it would have further damaged his prospects, and maybe ended his career entirely.

That was 44 years ago. Our mores changed considerably since, and if you need any further proof, consider both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, two leading contenders for the presidency, fathered children out of wedlock. And it’s barely merited a mention in any of the coverage of their campaigns. There have been no cries of indignation from moralists or scolds. In fact, Trump continues to enjoy solid support from evangelical voters, if recent polls are to be believed. If neither makes it to the White House, it won’t be because of a personal life that, in 1972, would have flown in the face of convention.

But the reality of 2016 is having a child out of wedlock is no longer really all that unconventional. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 40 percent of children are born in America to unwed mothers. If almost half the students in a classroom are born to parents who never walked down the aisle, no one will subject them to the hurt, scorn and rejection the Supremes sang about in the 1969 hit “Love Child.” Children born outside of marriage are surely no less “legitimate” than children born to married parents, and shouldn’t be tagged with the ignominy of being called “bastards.”

The fact remains, however, children born to a married couple, or at least a couple within a firmly committed relationship, generally have better life prospects. A child born to an unmarried mother is less likely to complete high school than a child born to a married mother. That child is also more likely to have problems with emotional and social adjustment.

And, unlike Trump’s offspring, the children of unmarried parents will frequently be living in households where making ends meet is a struggle. Forty percent of families headed by an unmarried mother lived in poverty in 2013, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Being born out of wedlock usually carries greater repurcussions if your father is not a billionaire like Trump, or your mother is not a well-to-do celebrity like, say, Angelina Jolie or Adele.

Going back 88 years before McGovern’s disastrous presidential campaign, Grover Cleveland was making his first bid for the White House and was persistently dogged by rumors he fathered a child out of wedlock. His opponents would chant, “Ma, ma, where’s my Pa?”

After Cleveland won the election, his supporters would retort, “Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha!”

Will supporters of Trump or Sanders be able to chant the same thing?