A bachelor tax is a punitive tax imposed on unmarried men. Such measures historically would be instituted as part of a moral panic due to the important status given to marriage at various times and places. As far back as Ancient Rome and more recently in the legislatures of New Jersey and Michigan, the supposed libertine or delinquent status of bachelor men was debated and taxes proposed as a solution. Still other locations would find reason to instantiate a bachelor tax for racial reasons (such as in South Africa), nationalistic reasons, to help cover welfare programs, or more simply as a pure revenue measure. More recently, bachelor taxes have been viewed as part of a general tax on childlessness, which were used frequently by member states of the Warsaw Pact.