"Marriage is for white people"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/25/AR2006032500029.html

by andreyf • 17 years ago

72 79 17 years ago

andreyf• 17 years ago

I'm really torn between whether this is about those crazy black kids that won't get off my lawn, or the future our society is heading in... ideas?

jibiki• 17 years ago

Sorry, can someone explain why this comment has been downmodded? The original article is quite ambiguous: the author saw the decline of marriage as both bad and good (or at least practical.) This is a common attitude to hold towards change, and I don't see why pointing it out would be improper etiquette.

sown• 17 years ago

Maybe it'll be like europe some how where people seem to not get married in large numbers.

eru• 17 years ago

And they do not get a lot of kids either. (In most parts.) Though that does not seem to correlate. Fertility in Scandinavia is relatively high for European standards, and they do not care too much about wedlock any longer.

thras• 17 years ago

I wouldn't worry. Whites are going down the crapper pretty fast too. Take a look at this chart: http://blog.american.com/?p=714

Marriage is for wealth-preservers and wealth-creators. That's not the direction that society is trending.

skwaddar• 17 years ago

Blacks and their slavery shoulder chip, GET OVER IT

Newsflash : "more Irish were sold as slaves to the American colonies and plantations from 1651 to 1660 than the total existing “free” population of the Americas"

http://www.ewtn.com/library/HUMANITY/SLAVES.TXT

http://www.scoilgaeilge.org/academics/slaves.htm

From 1641 to 1652, over 500,000 Irish were killed by the English and another 300,000 were sold as slaves. Ireland's population fell from about 1,500,000 to 600,000 in one single decade. Families were ripped apart as the British did not allow Irish dads to take their wives and children with them across the Atlantic. This led to a helpless population of homeless women and children. Britain's solution was to auction them off as well.

During the 1650s, over 100,000 Irish children between the ages of 10 and 14 were taken from their parents and sold as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia and New England. In this decade, 52,000 Irish (mostly women and children) were sold to Barbados and Virginia. Another 30,000 Irish men and women were also transported and sold to the highest bidder. In 1656, Cromwell ordered that 2000 Irish children be taken to Jamaica and sold as slaves to English settlers.

http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-...

arien3• 17 years ago

That's like, totally irrelevant to what the article is about. The author points out the fact that it's strange that the marriage rate was higher during slavery than in present times. It's just an observation, not a whine.

The article overall is very interesting (from a woman's point of view, at least) and IMO applies to most modern women nowadays, not just black women. But the title smells of linkbait.

emmett2• 17 years ago

First - great collection of links. The history of slavery deserves a more thorough understanding than what's normally taught in high school.

And yet, it was not the Irish who couldn't vote as late as the 60s, nor were the Irish the ones in segregated schools through the 70s, nor were there Irish divisions of the armed forces in World War II sent on the most dangerous missions. There were not masses of Irishmen enslaved in the south (de jure, and then defacto) through the 1800s and 1900s.

Are black people the only people to be oppressed and discriminated against in history? Clearly not. But as late as 4 decades ago, well within the lifetime of people still alive, black people have suffered a far greater weight of discrimination than any other ethnic group in America.

The after-effects of recent black slavery and segregation continue to be felt today. Saying "get over it" suggests a lack of understanding of the ways that those effects still persist.

rdouble2• 17 years ago

First - great collection of links.

Eternal World Television Network, Rasta Livewire and the Gerry Tobin Irish Language School is a great collection of links?

DanielBMarkham2• 17 years ago

The problem is that using the criteria of "well within the lifetime of people alive" is arbitrary. Nazis killed six million Jews -- an evil much worse than slavery -- well within the lifetime of people alive. All sorts of people having been doing all sorts of mean things to other people well within the lifetime of people alive.

I'm in my 40s, which means that I never knew a society that wouldn't allow blacks to vote. I certainly had nothing to do with slavery. I used to find this identity politics justified, then amusing (as I thought through it some more), and now it's just feeble.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those that start each day looking for opportunities and those that start each day looking to the past. I'd rather be the second kind of person. So I don't discriminate based on color, won't put up with others who do, and am finished with considering race an interesting or important issue.

As an aside, there's a serious issue with segregating population based on skin color (as opposed to any other random collection of genes)for purposes of commentary -- it actually reinforces the idea that somehow people of one color are different than another. Of course we all know that patterns appear in the genetic pool, but using skin color as a predominant discriminating factor is, as best, misguided. At worst, it can cause the exact types of behavior we all agree is so bad.

sokoloff• 17 years ago

If you agree (as I do) that the sooner a population "gets over it" and starts looking forward rather than back to improve their situation, the better it is for them, then suggesting that they "get over it" is good prescriptive advice.

The longer that a community keeps bringing up the past as a "reminder of what you did to us", the longer those after-effects persist. Nevermind that in almost every cse, the "you" isn't the one that did those things, and that the "us" wasn't the one to whom those things were done. (Where it is, by all means avail yourself of the remedies available in the legal system.)

Do you feel that scientists have made an adequate recovery from the persecution (and in instances, executions) of the past? Do you think that Christians have made an adequate recovery to a position of at least equality with the Romans?

I acknowledge that terrible, unconscionable things have been done to different groups of people by other different groups of people over time. We can concentrate our efforts on forcing atonement and punishment for the past acts of others who look like us, or we can shrug all that shit off and say "today and tomorrow are new days; let's make them the best days we can." Some people will choose the former and some the latter strategy. On balance, those who choose the latter strategy will be more successful and happier, whether they are members of the previously "superior" or "persecuted" population.

fatdog7899• 17 years ago

Actually, the Irish were sold not as slaves but as life-term indentured servants. It's a crucial difference, legally (if not practically) -- indentured servants were treated as people, not property.

billswift• 17 years ago

I remember reading something (it was decades ago and I can't remember the source) that said indentured servants, especially short-term indentured, were treated worse than slaves. The slaves were an investment, as were their offspring, where indentured servants' children were free and short-term indentured (the more common kind) had to be freed at the end of their term, so their masters tended to use them up since they would shortly become valueless to the masters. That was also why Irish immigrants (free men) were used to build the railroads, the work was too dangerous for slaves, since they were a substantial investment of their owners. (The last part about the railroads is common in many libertarian books and I think, but am not sure, that it was in Fogel and Engerman's "Time on the Cross", an economic history of slavery.

steveeq1• 17 years ago

And how does this relate to hacker news?

kqr2• 17 years ago

From the HN guidelines:

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

asdlfj2sd33• 17 years ago

The HN-worthiness of this article aside, I continue to be amazed just how quickly and how far anyone who posits the question is down voted.

It's surprising how all the diverse interests here share such an extreme intolerance for this meta discussion. It's a fascinating dynamic.

TomOfTTB6• 17 years ago

It’s a stretch, I’ll grant you that (I didn’t submit it). But to me this is an interesting challenge to the technology community. Having people in good marriages is a positive thing. It’s good for society (it promotes stability in a population), it’s good for individuals (who always have someone to rely on no matter how tough things get) and it’s good for children (divorced parents show up as a negative factor in every study that includes it).

So people not wanting to marry is a problem.

It’s already been proven that technology has the potential to correct social ills that modern society inflicts. For example, sites like eHarmony step in and use profiling for busy adults who don’t have time to hang out in bars every night looking for the right person. That in mind read this quote from the article...

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.

You see, there’s a disconnect here. One technology can fix. One that should be presented to people who can fix it (namely, people who read Hacker News). Again, posting it here is a stretch but I’m not sure it’s an unacceptable one.

P.S. It also might help solve problems with hacker news. Like...I wish there was a "QUOTE" tag...for example

gnaritas• 17 years ago

> 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.

I hardly think this is unique to black men and women, this seems a general description of all men and women and is easily compensated for by the fact that women tend to marry older men and men marry younger women.

lionhearted3• 17 years ago

> Sex, love and childbearing have become a la carte choices rather than a package deal that comes with marriage.

The American legal system right now is absolutely draconian and broken to men. A man can try to be a good father and husband, do nothing wrong except be a bit of a putz, then his wife divorces him, gets full custody of the kids, and 30-50% of his after-tax income. She receives more money if he doesn't get custody of the kids, so women who don't like a man often fight for that.

So people mention prenups as a way to make sure these things are understood. Unfortunately, prenuptial agreements "that weren't fair enough" routinely get thrown out of court. If the prenup was "under duress", it gets thrown out. That includes the man saying he won't get married without the prenup - that means it was under duress and coerced, toss that sucker, split everything up.

Now most guys give it a try anyway, and say, "Well, I'm different, I'm going to have a stronger relationship and do xyz and zyx and...." - and that's admirable. But a lot of people look at the courts and want nothing to do with it. Anyone who is familiar with how otherwise good and nice people act when they're given ridiculous leverage and power gets a little scared at the court system.

There's other factors. But black people know this. I had the radio on yesterday, and "celebrity news" came on. A rapper named Nas - black man who was married to a black woman - is now getting divorced. One child. He's got to pay $150,000 per month in alimony and child support.

Some teenager hears that on the radio, thinks it's crazy, and decides he's rather uninterested in marriage. If the laws were made less brutal, I think you'd see more people marrying, marrying at an earlier age, having more children, and paradoxically - I think the divorce rate would go down. Certainly, it'd be hard to make something worse than the current state of affairs.

jacquesm4• 17 years ago

The American legal system has lots of things that are very hard to explain to foreigners. The sheer amount of case law and the jury system make for lots of income for lawyers and very little justice.

Child support should be limited to what it actually costs to rear a child, not some arbitrary multiple of that.

pyre• 17 years ago

It varies from child to child. If someone's child is in some rich boarding school, I personally think they should be allowed to continue on at that school unless it is financially infeasible for both parents to live apart and still afford it.

If the 'bare minimum' of raising a child is $300/month, then I don't think they the child should necessarily be forced out of their school and into the public school system or something just _because_ that's the bare minimum. I think that these factor should be taken into account.

disclaimer: I am _not_ a rich person, nor do I have any children.

{edit} That said, if the monthly child-support is determined to be really high based on the child going to an expensive school, the child-support payment should be reduced if the custodial parent decides to pull the child out of that school for a cheaper one {/edit}

christofd• 17 years ago

Case Law is in-transparent and tough to navigate through vs. Civil Law Code (Roman Law) from Continental Europe, where law has to be derived from higher written-down principles. It's mostly the Anglo-Saxon societies that have Case Law.

My intuition is that legal costs are higher in Anglo-Saxon countries, which is the direct result of the Case Law system.

China and Japan adapted Civil Law (Roman Law) as their system, which they then customized internally. They compared different legal systems and concluded Civil Law to be efficient.

fatdog7899• 17 years ago

There are so many inaccuracies in that comment I don't know where to begin.

1) Contrary to popular belief, most prenups are not thrown out -- the only requirements for a valid prenup to survive legal challenge is that both the (future) husband and wife were separately represented by counsel, AND that both spouses disclosed ALL properties (real and personal) they possessed. The validity of a prenuptial agreement is measured at the time it was signed, unless extraordinary circumstances justify re-evaluating it at the time of divorce -- and in such cases, the re-evaluation takes into account the relative importance of holdings. For example -- a normal person selling a startup for millions is an extraordinary event. Warren Buffet selling a company for millions is not. EDIT: Note that I am simplifying the requirements; the others involve a lawyer, so the lawyer will let you know what they are if you ever do a prenup.

2) Spousal support -- does not include money for the children. It is solely to "equalize" income between the former spouses, and can be readjusted on petition at any time by either spouse.

3) Child support -- the custodial parent may not use child support for their own benefit (unless that benefit is incidental to the benefit to the child). If the custodial parent does use child support for their own benefit, the non-custodial parent is entitled to reimbursement for that amount, and possibly a reduction in child support.

Interlude: Nas. Nas is a millionaire. He had a kid, with a woman, and lived a lavish lifestyle. B/c of that, on divorce, his wife and kid get to continue living a lavish lifestyle via alimony (wife's standard of living during marriage) and child support (child's standard of living during marriage). Lesson to learn: If you're rich, live a normal lifestyle and you won't pay (relatively) much in support.

4) Poor people -- whether black or white -- do not trust the legal system. The reasons are mostly obvious. However, a good portion of it is that poor people base their understanding of the law on shows like Judge Judy and Jerry Springer, not realizing that these shows are staged and/or not real courts.

5) The divorce rate for first-time marriages is less than 30%. (20% is the figure I hear most often). The divorce rate for people who have been married before increases by about 10-20% for each subsequent marriage. If you take out the multiples, divorce is actually fairly uncommon. Note too, that the divorce rate amongst college-educated couples (both spouses) is less than half of the divorce rate amongst couples where neither spouse went to college (stats for first-time marriages).

5) Harsh divorce laws discourage divorce. Think about it -- the easier and less painful it is too divorce, the more likely people are to go through with it. Divorce rates jumped when no-fault divorce laws were passed.

lionhearted3• 17 years ago

> There are so many inaccuracies in that comment I don't know where to begin.

You could begin by sourcing your claims :) I wrote my reply casually, based on my knowledge of the law, statistics, studies, and a number of personal anecdotes. This time, I'll source myself and provide links to official statistics and the actual law this time, as you're mistaken on a few counts.

> 1) ...The validity of a prenuptial agreement is measured at the time it was signed, unless extraordinary circumstances justify re-evaluating it at the time of divorce...

This is simply not true. For instance, here's the California legal code:

"Any provision in a premarital agreement regarding spousal support, including, but not limited to, a waiver of it, is not enforceable... if the provision regarding spousal support is unconscionable at the time of enforcement."

California Family Code, Section 1612.7, part c. Convenient link here:

http://law.justia.com/california/codes/fam/1610-1617.html

That hinges on the word "unconscionable"? In the real, practical world, that means that SUBJECTIVELY THE JUDGE DOESN'T THINK IT'S RIGHT BASED ON AMERICAN VALUES. Yes, that's actually how it goes.

Edit: Here's the legal definition and some discussion of unconscionable for curious people. Practically, it leaves it up the judge's... conscience. Subjective.

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Unconscionable

> 2) Spousal support -- does not include money for the children.

Correct. If the woman sues for full custody, and gets it, she gets more than equalization of income. Therefore, pressing for full custody and no father's custody rights = more money. Big problem.

> Interlude: Nas. Nas is a millionaire. He had a kid, with a woman, and lived a lavish lifestyle. B/c of that, on divorce, his wife and kid get to continue living a lavish lifestyle via alimony (wife's standard of living during marriage) and child support (child's standard of living during marriage).

Right, I think that's crazy. He had her to host parties for him, cook for him, keep the home, help him keep his finances. All of that is gone. His quality of living will go down, it is shot, he no longer receives enjoyment of having his child around to play with when he comes home from a hard day. She's used to living a $150,000 per month lifestyle and thus deserves to keep it? He's used to having a supportive wife behind him, that keeps the home, that helps, that he can bounce ideas off of. That's gone. He should pay her close to $2 million a year because it'd be a shame for her quality of life to go down while his is getting shot up? The system is crazy.

> Lesson to learn: If you're rich, live a normal lifestyle and you won't pay (relatively) much in support.

So then you live modesty, and save, and invest, and the assets are split 50/50 if you divorce instead. Not much better.

> 5) The divorce rate for...

A lot of the statistics overlap and there's a lot of noise there, but divorce rates are high here. For instance, "The National Center for Health Statistics recently released a report which found that 43 percent of first marriages end in separation or divorce within 15 years. The study is based on the National Survey of Family Growth, a nationally representative sample of women age 15 to 44 in 1995. Bramlett, Matthew and William Mosher. "First marriage dissolution, divorce, and remariage: United States," Advance Data From Vital and Health Statistics; No.323. Hyattsville MD: National Center for Health Statistics: 2 1.

http://www.divorcereform.org/rates.html (first one in Google for "divorce rates", looks relatively unbiased and cites sources)

The divorce rates are high in the States. Subjectively, I think it'd be a good thing if they were lower and would lead to more individual happiness and a stronger society on the whole. You can debate how high the rates are when controlling for certain statistics, but they're clearly really way too damn high (again, in my subjective judgment).

> 5) Harsh divorce laws discourage divorce.

Yes and no. Harsh divorce laws against both partners discourage divorce. Harsh divorce laws against one gender increase divorce. One quick and dirty way to figure out which side a country's divorce laws are slanted is to look at who initiates divorce proceedings by gender.

United States? Over 2/3rds initiated by women. It's close to 70%.

http://health.discovery.com/centers/loverelationships/articl...

I tried searching divorce rates by country to find the statistics for you, but I couldn't find a link - so this is going off personal recall, but I remember seeing some crystal clear statistics. Divorce rates close to 50/50 in much of Continentinal Europe, slanted 70/30 men in many Islamic countries, and 70/30 women in the USA and UK. Those are just numbers - but my subjective judgment call? Things are messed up here. I ended my original comment with a statement that wasn't quite right. I'll amend it:

If the laws were made less brutal to men, I think you'd see more people marrying, marrying at an earlier age, having more children, and paradoxically - I think the divorce rate would go down.

garnet73• 17 years ago

You totally miss the biggest problem lionhearted pointed out: through no fault of the father, if the mother decides she wants a divorce the legal system will pretty much by default strip the father of his children and hand them over to the mother. Regardless of any other circumstances.

That's the main reason why men should not get married and have kids in the USA.

jwinter• 17 years ago

"Rogers [Nas's ex-wife] will receive $30,471 in spousal support per month; the couple's son will receive $9,027, according to the court records."

from:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/07/23/arts/AP-US-People...

nopassrecover4• 17 years ago

What is the American obsession with race? I'm sure there's a more useful explanation behind these rates (perhaps family tradition of marriage, income, place of living etc. etc.).

TomOfTTB6• 17 years ago

I've always said I'm a victim of the liberal educational system. They taught me to treat people of all skin colors equal and then threw me into a world where everyone with a different skin color (I'm white) treats me unequally.

The problem, it seems to me, is that people of other races don't realize there will always be prejudice. That someone who has prejudice against another because of their skin color is no different than a person who has prejudice against someone for any other reason they couldn't prevent (grew up in a certain place, speaks in a certain way, etc...)

So racial prejudice will never fully go away and people who think they can define themselves by race until it does will always define themselves by race.

arien3• 17 years ago

Personally, I believe that it has to do with the role of women in the current society, not exactly with the race. I don't live in America, but I think the trend is present in most western countries anyway. We're jumping from the "dependant housewive" to the "independent worker". I remember my mom used to say when I was a kid that I had to find a good husband. But now I have my own house and a good job... I don't need to marry a man to provide myself.

It sounds cruel, but I don't think people married in the past just because they loved each other so much. As said in the article, it was a necessity, but such thing is ceasing to exist, so the disposition of people for marriage is decreasing.

nopassrecover4• 17 years ago

I don't think people would marry today just because they love each other either. The system is setup in such a way that people often have an incentive to leave the marriage and perhaps with more women being financially independent they are just as concerned with the fallout of a marriage as compared to a good long-term relationship.

TomOfTTB6• 17 years ago

That doesn’t track for me.

Look at men in the past. It’s against men’s evolutionary nature to marry yet they still got married just as quickly (and they didn’t need wives to support them). So your argument that women are taking a role traditionally held by men before and hence aren’t marrying doesn’t seem to hold water.

Here’s the problem: The feminist narrative currently out there is a myth. It says women were always kept down and only now are rising to positions of power. But look at history and you’ll see there were women in positions of power going back thousands of years (Most pre-industrial societies gave power over a nation to the Queen if her King died first and societies like the Egyptians were ruled over by women even without men)

To me this seems like a societal misfire. It seems like the majority of women in the past wanted to stay home and take care of their family (as evolutions suggests they do). Then that became their accepted role and the minority who didn’t want that felt trapped in their circumstance. They became the original feminists and rightfully won the ability to do whatever they want. Then the next generation feminists developed some kind of resentment towards women who did stay at home and attacked them. So now we have a society that has forgotten how valuable housewives were and in doing so has created a value system in which women who want to be housewives are told their inferior to those who don’t. But the housewives were the ones who were driving most men to get married.

So with women feeling they’d be inferior to want to be married with a family and men screwing everything that moves (as evolution has taught them to do) we have a society where no one’s pushing marriage (and I think we’re worse off for it)

jacquesm4• 17 years ago

That's definitely not uniquely American, racism is unfortunately alive and well all over the world.

Skin colour is the single item you can tell about a person at 100 meters distance, even before you can tell their gender. That makes it a prime candidate for differentiation and differentiation is a first step towards racism.

If everybody would be born exactly the same shade of medium brown as of tomorrow I'm sure we'd focus on hair colour next. And anybody with red hair knows how true that is.

gaius3• 17 years ago

And anybody with red hair knows how true that is.

Well, that's different. The ginger gene is recessive; a community that's mostly ginger has a high probability of being inbred. Other signs include webbed feet and hands, and extra nipples.

nopassrecover4• 17 years ago

Racism certainly isn't, but I think the making a big point about race is. In Australia and the U.K. for instance, I don't think you would (at least in the media) focus on the different marriage rates between races.

9oliYQjP• 17 years ago

I'm not American, but Americans get a bad rap on race relations. Go to other westernized countries and racism is far more systemic. I mean for crying out loud, you have the gypsies all across Europe who are marginalized, Spanish fans taunting a black F1 driver with the "N" word, Japan is a completely xenophobic mess, etc. All otherwise comparable countries in terms of standard of living. Except the United States is in a state where most races live side-by-side and tolerate each other. No, things aren't perfect and people aren't fully accepting of each other. It's 2009, but interracial marriage is still bothersome to some folks. But honestly, the United States gets a really unfair reputation for having poor race relations. Say what you will, but at least Americans don't sweep their race relation problems under a rug like some other countries.

indiejade• 17 years ago

Say what you will, but at least Americans don't sweep their race relation problems under a rug like some other countries.

Good point. Besides, America is a young country, relatively speaking to white settlement. I have actually attempted to really think logically about why I'm almost never . . . um, "attracted" to white blondes from the western hemisphere, and have reached the conclusion that it's all about diversity in the gene pool. After tracing some of my genealogical roots to Native American ancestry, I guess I'm also partially resentful to the dominance of white culture and its concept of property usurping. That, and I'm pretty revolted by the concept of inbreeding.

Anyway. It actually makes little sense for countries to hold fast to their racism, if they want to survive and thrive. There are two genetic mutation varieties that occur in heavily homogeneous populations: mutation and recombination. They either ensure the continuation of a line of genetics, or destroy its chances for survival. With inbreeding, the mutations / recombinations are usually manifested in unattractiveness or stupidity. Not trying to be mean, just stating my observations.

So since in the USA we have this huge population of immigrants, our gene pool is actually primed to produce better people (survival of the fittest). Not specific to any race.

noonespecial• 17 years ago

As an American with lots of time abroad, I can second this. Americans are extremely uptight when it comes to race, but that might be a good thing. With all of the talk in America about race, you might start to expect, as I have caught myself doing several times, that the US must be a race relations disaster. Upon returning, I was shocked to rediscover that it wasn't any worse than the other places I'd been, and in many cases better.

The thing I really like about Americans, is they're just don't throw up their hands and say "oh well, that's the way its always been, can't do anything to change it now." (The gypsies definitely come to mind here) For better or worse, they try.

nopassrecover4• 17 years ago

Good points. I didn't mean Americans are more discriminatory, just that they are more obsessed. It's always about a person's race.

fatdog7899• 17 years ago

Americans are more open about race b/c we recognize how fucking important it has been to the development of our country. Britain, too, is fairly open about race, for somewhat similar reasons, but have less "draw"

alanthonyc• 17 years ago

Many of the conclusions drawn about marriage apply to many Americans...regardless of race.

Mz• 17 years ago

"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?"

Well, for one thing: Welfare. Welfare was created at a time when most poor, single moms were "the deserving poor" -- ie widowed -- and having a child out of wedlock was a big taboo and hardly done. Welfare, while well-meaning, was (unfortunately) designed in a manner that rewards women for becoming poor, single moms -- and thus actively grew the population that fits this profile by changing the social contract. Although (iirc) most people on welfare are white, the small amount of money involved in getting food stamps and welfare is more alluring to people who are very poor and live in neighborhoods where the mentality is one of hopelessness, with no expectation that one can get ahead honestly. Add in the fact that blacks are "last hired, first fired" and the tendency for young black males to be the biggest victim of that reality, and you have a situation ripe for developing a culture where a woman has a baby by one man, gets on welfare, breaks up with him and then finds a different boyfriend -- in part because a father is expected to provide for his kids (and gets booted out the door when he cannot) but mom's new boyfriend is seen as generous for doing anything for the kids, even if he doesn't actually provide for them. "Gifts" are enough.

There are some books, articles and studies about such things. I've read a fair amount of stuff like that over the years.

On the upside, I've seen some stuff that indicates that black women tend to have more say in how the money is spent when they are part of a couple than white women do. The paychecks of black women are more needed for a black couple to make it at all. The paycheck of a married white woman who has kids is more likely to be seen as "fun money" -- something the family can spend on vacations and other extras but not really needed for basic necessities -- and this tends to carry with it less "voting" power when financial decisions are made.

patio11• 17 years ago

At the risk of stepping on a landmine, what if the issue isn't so much black people aren't marrying as (a large portion of) black men are unmarriagable? (Unemployed or underemployed, have drug problems, involved with the criminal justice system, etc. Pick any socioeconomic system you want to look at, young single black males do not come out looking great in aggregate.)

Combine that with a cultural norm in (a large portion of) the black community to not get married outside of one's race, and you'd expect to see this.

You could construct other situations where marriagable women outnumber marriagable men and see what that does to the marriage rates, too. Example: college practically anywhere in the United States in the 2000s, compared to college in past generations. When the population is about fifty-fifty male/female, the equilibrium favors a lot of pairings. When it is 60/40 F/M, at least 1/3 of women are structurally incapable of being in a traditional monogamous relationship. (Then add in the cultural change that happens once some portion of men realize this and act on it -- the "hookup culture".)

RK2• 17 years ago

Combine that with a cultural norm in (a large portion of) the black community to not get married outside of one's race, and you'd expect to see this.

You'll notice that the author never suggests that black women look to men in the other 78% of the US population for a potential husband. I guess that would be worse than never getting married.

RK2• 17 years ago

Edit: should be other 87% of the US population.

gcheong• 17 years ago

"He believes that his presence and example in the home is why both his sons decided to marry when their girlfriends became pregnant."

How about just not getting girls pregnant in the first place?

nazgulnarsil• 17 years ago

don't get government sanctioned contracts involved in personal relationships. doubly so if you aren't even religious.

people used to get married out of necessity and social pressure. that necessity is disappearing.

"Marriage is for white people"

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