'Marriage Is for White People'
By Joy Jones, March 26, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/25/AR2006032500029_pf.html
I grew up in a time when two-parent families were still the norm, in both
black and white America. Then, as an adult, I saw divorce become more
commonplace, then almost a rite of passage. Today it would appear that many --
particularly in the black community -- have dispensed with marriage altogether.
But as a black woman, I have witnessed the outrage of girlfriends when the ex
failed to show up for his weekend with the kids, and I've seen the
disappointment of children who missed having a dad around. Having enjoyed a
close relationship with my own father, I made a conscious decision that I
wanted a husband, not a live-in boyfriend and not a "baby's daddy," when it
came my time to mate and marry.
My time never came.
For years, I wondered why not. And then some 12-year-olds enlightened me.
"Marriage is for white people."
That's what one of my students told me some years back when I taught a career
exploration class for sixth-graders at an elementary school in Southeast
Washington. I was pleasantly surprised when the boys in the class stated that
being a good father was a very important goal to them, more meaningful than
making money or having a fancy title.
"That's wonderful!" I told my class. "I think I'll invite some couples in to
talk about being married and rearing children."
"Oh, no," objected one student. "We're not interested in the part about
marriage. Only about how to be good fathers."
And that's when the other boy chimed in, speaking as if the words left a
nasty taste in his mouth: "Marriage is for white people."
He's right. At least statistically. The marriage rate for African Americans
has been dropping since the 1960s, and today, we have the lowest marriage rate
of any racial group in the United States. In 2001, according to the U.S.
Census, 43.3 percent of black men and 41.9 percent of black women in America
had never been married, in contrast to 27.4 percent and 20.7 percent
respectively for whites. African American women are the least likely in our
society to marry. In the period between 1970 and 2001, the overall marriage
rate in the United States declined by 17 percent; but for blacks, it fell by 34
percent. Such statistics have caused Howard University relationship therapist
Audrey Chapman to point out that African Americans are the most uncoupled
people in the country.
How have we gotten here? What has shifted in African American customs, in our
community, in our consciousness, that has made marriage seem unnecessary or
unattainable?
Although slavery was an atrocious social system, men and women back then
nonetheless often succeeded in establishing working families. In his account of
slave life and culture, "Roll, Jordan, Roll," historian Eugene D. Genovese
wrote: "A slave in Georgia prevailed on his master to sell him to Jamaica so
that he could find his wife, despite warnings that his chances of finding her
on so large an island were remote. . . . Another slave in Virginia chopped his
left hand off with a hatchet to prevent being sold away from his son." I was
stunned to learn that a black child was more likely to grow up living with both
parents during slavery days than he or she is today, according to sociologist
Andrew J. Cherlin.
Traditional notions of family, especially the extended family network,
endure. But working mothers, unmarried couples living together, out-of-wedlock
births, birth control, divorce and remarriage have transformed the social
landscape. And no one seems to feel this more than African American women. One
told me that with today's changing mores, it's hard to know "what normal looks
like" when it comes to courtship, marriage and parenthood. Sex, love and
childbearing have become a la carte choices rather than a package deal that
comes with marriage. Moreover, in an era of brothers on the "down low," the
spread of sexually transmitted diseases and the decline of the stable
blue-collar jobs that black men used to hold, linking one's fate to a man makes
marriage a risky business for a black woman.
"A woman who takes that step is bold and brave," one young single mother told
me. "Women don't want to marry because they don't want to lose their freedom."
Among African Americans, the desire for marriage seems to have a different
trajectory for women and men. My observation is that black women in their
twenties and early thirties want to marry and commit at a time when black men
their age are more likely to enjoy playing the field. As the woman realizes
that a good marriage may not be as possible or sustainable as she would like,
her focus turns to having a baby, or possibly improving her job status, perhaps
by returning to school or investing more energy in her career.
As men mature, and begin to recognize the benefits of having a roost and
roots (and to feel the consequences of their risky bachelor behavior), they are
more willing to marry and settle down. By this time, however, many of their
female peers are satisfied with the lives they have constructed and are less
likely to settle for marriage to a man who doesn't bring much to the table.
Indeed, he may bring too much to the table: children and their mothers from
previous relationships, limited earning power, and the fallout from years of
drug use, poor health care, sexual promiscuity. In other words, for the
circumspect black woman, marriage may not be a business deal that offers
sufficient return on investment.
In the past, marriage was primarily just such a business deal. Among wealthy
families, it solidified political alliances or expanded land holdings. For
poorer people, it was a means of managing the farm or operating a household.
Today, people have become economically self-sufficient as individuals, no
longer requiring a spouse for survival. African American women have always had
a high rate of labor-force participation. "Why should well-salaried women
marry?" asked black feminist and author Alice Dunbar-Nelson as early as 1895.
But now instead of access only to low-paying jobs, we can earn a breadwinner's
wage, which has changed what we want in a husband. "Women's expectations have
changed dramatically while men's have not changed much at all," said one
well-paid working wife and mother. "Women now say, 'Providing is not enough. I
need more partnership.' "
The turning point in my own thinking about marriage came when a longtime
friend proposed about five years ago. He and I had attended college together,
dated briefly, then kept in touch through the years. We built a solid
friendship, which I believe is a good foundation for a successful marriage.
But -- if we had married, I would have had to relocate to the Midwest. Been
there, done that, didn't like it. I would have had to become a stepmother and,
although I felt an easy camaraderie with his son, stepmotherhood is usually a
bumpy ride. I wanted a house and couldn't afford one alone. But I knew that if
I was willing to make some changes, I eventually could.
As I reviewed the situation, I realized that all the things I expected
marriage to confer -- male companionship, close family ties, a house -- I
already had, or were within reach, and with exponentially less drama. I can do
bad by myself, I used to say as I exited a relationship. But the truth is, I
can do pretty good by myself, too.
Most single black women over the age of 30 whom I know would not mind getting
married, but acknowledge that the kind of man and the quality of marriage they
would like to have may not be likely, and they are not desperate enough to
simply accept any situation just to have a man. A number of my married friends
complain that taking care of their husbands feels like having an additional
child to raise. Then there's the fact that marriage apparently can be hazardous
to the health of black women. A recent study by the Institute for American
Values, a nonpartisan think tank in New York City, indicates that married
African American women are less healthy than their single sisters.
By design or by default, black women cultivate those skills that allow them
to maintain themselves (or sometimes even to prosper) without a mate.
"If Jesus Christ bought me an engagement ring, I wouldn't take it," a
separated thirty-something friend told me. "I'd tell Jesus we could date, but
we couldn't marry."
And here's the new twist. African American women aren't the only ones
deciding that they can make do alone. Often what happens in black America is a
sign of what the rest of America can eventually expect. In his 2003 book,
"Mismatch: The Growing Gulf between Women and Men," Andrew Hacker noted that
the structure of white families is evolving in the direction of that of black
families of the 1960s. In 1960, 67 percent of black families were headed by a
husband and wife, compared to 90.9 percent for whites. By 2000, the figure for
white families had dropped to 79.8 percent. Births to unwed white mothers were
22.5 percent in 2001, compared to 2.3 percent in 1960. So my student who
thought marriage is for white people may have to rethink that in the future.
Still, does this mean that marriage is going the way of the phonograph and
the typewriter ribbon?
"I hope it isn't," said one friend who's been married for seven years. "The
divorce rate is 50 percent, but people remarry. People want to be married. I
don't think it's going out of style."
A black male acquaintance had a different prediction. "I don't believe
marriage is going to be extinct, but I think you'll see fewer people married,"
he said. "It's a bad thing. I believe it takes the traditional family -- a man
and a woman -- to raise kids." He has worked with troubled adolescents, and has
observed that "the girls who are in the most trouble and who are abused the
most -- the father is absent. And the same is true for the boys, too." He
believes that his presence and example in the home is why both his sons decided
to marry when their girlfriends became pregnant.
But human nature being what it is, if marriage is to flourish -- in black or
white America -- it will have to offer an individual woman something more than
a business alliance, a panacea for what ails the community, or an incubator for
rearing children. As one woman said, "If it weren't for the intangibles, the
allure of the lovey-dovey stuff, I wouldn't have gotten married. The benefits
of marriage are his character and his caring. If not for that, why bother?"
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Joy Jones, a Washington writer, is the author of "Between Black Women:
Listening With the Third Ear" (African American Images).
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