Download or read book Is Marriage for White People written by Ralph Richard Banks and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A distinguished Stanford law professor examines the steep decline in marriage rates among the African American middle class, and offers a paradoxical-nearly incendiary-solution. Black women are three times as likely as white women to never marry. That sobering statistic reflects a broader reality: African Americans are the most unmarried people in our nation, and contrary to public perception the racial gap in marriage is not confined to women or the poor. Black men, particularly the most successful and affluent, are less likely to marry than their white counterparts. College educated black women are twice as likely as their white peers never to marry. Is Marriage for White People? is the first book to illuminate the many facets of the African American marriage decline and its implications for American society. The book explains the social and economic forces that have undermined marriage for African Americans and that shape everyone's lives. It distills the best available research to trace the black marriage decline's far reaching consequences, including the disproportionate likelihood of abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, single parenthood, same sex relationships, polygamous relationships, and celibacy among black women. This book centers on the experiences not of men or of the poor but of those black women who have surged ahead, even as black men have fallen behind. Theirs is a story that has not been told. Empirical evidence documents its social significance, but its meaning emerges through stories drawn from the lives of women across the nation. Is Marriage for White People? frames the stark predicament that millions of black women now face: marry down or marry out. At the core of the inquiry is a paradox substantiated by evidence and experience alike: If more black women married white men, then more black men and women would marry each other. This book not only sits at the intersection of two large and well- established markets-race and marriage-it responds to yearnings that are widespread and deep in American society. The African American marriage decline is a secret in plain view about which people want to know more, intertwining as it does two of the most vexing issues in contemporary society. The fact that the most prominent family in our nation is now an African American couple only intensifies the interest, and the market. A book that entertains as it informs, Is Marriage for White People? will be the definitive guide to one of the most monumental social developments of the past half century.

Download or read book The Decline in Marriage Among African Americans written by M. Belinda Tucker and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 1995-07-13 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a time when the American family has undergone dramatic evolution, change among African Americans has been particularly rapid and acute. African Americans now marry later than any other major ethnic group, and while in earlier decades nearly 95 percent of black women eventually married, today 30 percent are expected to remain single. The black divorcee rate has increased nearly five-fold over the last thirty years, and is double the rate of the general population. The result, according to The Decline in Marriage Among African Americans, is a greater share of family responsibilities being borne by women, an increased vulnerability to poverty and violence, and an erosion of community ties. The original, often controversial, research presented in this book links marital decline to a pivotal drop in the pool of marriageable black males. Increased joblessness has robbed many black men of their economic viability, rendering them not only less desirable as mates, but also less inclined to take on the responsibility of marriage. Higher death rates resulting from disease, poor health care, and violent crime, as well as evergrowing incarceration rates, have further depleted the male population. Editors M. Belinda Tucker and Claudia Mitchell-Kernan and the contributors take a hard look at the effects of chronic economic instability and cultural attitudes toward the male role as family provider. Their cogent historical analyses suggest that the influence of external circumstances over marriage preferences stems in large part from the profoundly damaging experience of slavery. This book firmly positions declining marriage within an ominous cycle of economic and social erosion. The authors propose policies for relieving the problems associated the changing marital behavior, focusing on support for single parent families, public education, and increased employment for African American men.

Download or read book Bound in Wedlock written by Tera W. Hunter and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-08 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Stone Book Award, Museum of African American History Winner of the Joan Kelly Memorial Prize Winner of the Littleton-Griswold Prize Winner of the Mary Nickliss Prize Winner of the Willie Lee Rose Prize Americans have long viewed marriage between a white man and a white woman as a sacred union. But marriages between African Americans have seldom been treated with the same reverence. This discriminatory legacy traces back to centuries of slavery, when the overwhelming majority of black married couples were bound in servitude as well as wedlock, but it does not end there. Bound in Wedlock is the first comprehensive history of African American marriage in the nineteenth century. Drawing from plantation records, legal documents, and personal family papers, it reveals the many creative ways enslaved couples found to upend white Christian ideas of marriage. “A remarkable book... Hunter has harvested stories of human resilience from the cruelest of soils... An impeccably crafted testament to the African-Americans whose ingenuity, steadfast love and hard-nosed determination protected black family life under the most trying of circumstances.” —Wall Street Journal “In this brilliantly researched book, Hunter examines the experiences of slave marriages as well as the marriages of free blacks.” —Vibe “A groundbreaking history... Illuminates the complex and flexible character of black intimacy and kinship and the precariousness of marriage in the context of racial and economic inequality. It is a brilliant book.” —Saidiya Hartman, author of Lose Your Mother

Download or read book African American Relationships Marriages and Families written by Patricia Dixon and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-05-25 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African American Relationships, Marriages, and Families, Second Edition is a historically and culturally centered research-based text designed for use in undergraduate, graduate, and community-based courses on African American relationships, marriages, and families. Complete with numerous exercises, this volume can be used by current and future helping professionals to guide singles and couples by increasing single and partner-awareness, and respect and appreciation for difference. In addition, singles and couples learn skills for effective communication and conflict resolution and ultimately how to develop and maintain healthy relationships, marriages, and families. This second edition includes updates and revisions to current chapters and also features two new chapters: one on parenting and one on same-gender loving/LGBTQ.

Download or read book Black Women Black Love written by Dianne M Stewart and published by Seal Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this analysis of social history, examine the complex lineage of America's oppression of Black companionship. According to the 2010 US census, more than seventy percent of Black women in America are unmarried. Black Women, Black Love reveals how four centuries of laws, policies, and customs have created that crisis. Dianne Stewart begins in the colonial era, when slave owners denied Blacks the right to marry, divided families, and, in many cases, raped enslaved women and girls. Later, during Reconstruction and the ensuing decades, violence split up couples again as millions embarked on the Great Migration north, where the welfare system mandated that women remain single in order to receive government support. And no institution has forbidden Black love as effectively as the prison-industrial complex, which removes Black men en masse from the pool of marriageable partners. Prodigiously researched and deeply felt, Black Women, Black Love reveals how white supremacy has systematically broken the heart of Black America, and it proposes strategies for dismantling the structural forces that have plagued Black love and marriage for centuries.

Download or read book To Joy My Freedom written by Tera W. Hunter and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1998-09-15 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the Civil War drew to a close, newly emancipated black women workers made their way to Atlanta--the economic hub of the newly emerging urban and industrial south--in order to build an independent and free life on the rubble of their enslaved past. In an original and dramatic work of scholarship, Tera Hunter traces their lives in the postbellum era and reveals the centrality of their labors to the African-American struggle for freedom and justice. Household laborers and washerwomen were constrained by their employers' domestic worlds but constructed their own world of work, play, negotiation, resistance, and community organization. Hunter follows African-American working women from their newfound optimism and hope at the end of the Civil War to their struggles as free domestic laborers in the homes of their former masters. We witness their drive as they build neighborhoods and networks and their energy as they enjoy leisure hours in dance halls and clubs. We learn of their militance and the way they resisted efforts to keep them economically depressed and medically victimized. Finally, we understand the despair and defeat provoked by Jim Crow laws and segregation and how they spurred large numbers of black laboring women to migrate north. Hunter weaves a rich and diverse tapestry of the culture and experience of black women workers in the post-Civil War south. Through anecdote and data, analysis and interpretation, she manages to penetrate African-American life and labor and to reveal the centrality of women at the inception--and at the heart--of the new south.

Download or read book Marriage in Black written by Katrina Bell McDonald and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-03-19 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the messages we hear from social scientists, policymakers, and the media, black Americans do in fact get married—and many of these marriages last for decades. Marriage in Black offers a progressive perspective on black marriage that rejects talk of black relationship "pathology" in order to provide an understanding of enduring black marriage that is richly lived. The authors offer an in-depth investigation of details and contexts of black married life, and seek to empower black married couples whose intimate relationships run contrary to common—but often inaccurate—stereotypes. Considering historical influences from Antebellum slavery onward, this book investigates contemporary married life among more than 60 couples born after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Husbands and wives tell their stories, from how they met, to how they decided to marry, to what their life is like five years after the wedding and beyond. Their stories reveal the experiences of the American-born and of black immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean, with explorations of the "ideal" marriage, parenting, finances, work, conflict, the criminal justice system, religion, and race. These couples show us that black family life has richness that belies common stereotypes, with substantial variation in couples’ experiences based on social class, country of origin, gender, religiosity, and family characteristics.

Download or read book God s Amazing Grace Reconciling Four Centuries of African American Marriages and Families written by Terry M. Turner and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2017-12-18 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “God’s Amazing Grace: Reconciling Four Centuries of African American Marriages and Families is an insightful study that will be welcomed by thoughtful practitioners and all who ponder the African American family’s complexity. Readers familiar with the deep, rich reservoir of African American family literature will recognize many of the black scholars referenced in this work. Readers unfamiliar with these sources will be grateful to discover them and the effective use of disparate literature. “This work will become a different kind of guide for studying American history through the lens of the African American family. Underneath all the research is the search for answers to the compelling questions: Is there a correlation between slave owners’ denial to slaves, God’s design for the family, and the familial chaos that has plagued African American families for more than a hundred fifty years? And if there is connection, what is it? “The author has brought something new to a familiar topic of discussion—the Bible. The unique moral compass that steered this study is solidly anchored in the bedrock of holy scripture. In this work, the history and sociology of African American marriages are examined in light of the questions asked by Holy Scripture. In so doing, Dr. Turner skillfully attempts to help readers make sense of the story of black families in America. May this book mark the beginning to a new reality for African American families” (Dr. Willie Peterson, senior executive advisor, adjunct professor of Pastoral Ministries, Dallas Theological Seminary).

Download or read book Interracial Marriages Between Black Women and White Men written by Cheryl Yvette Judice and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interracial marriages between African Americans and Caucasian Americans in the United States are the least common of all interracial marriages, with marriages between black women and white men being the less frequent of the two combinations. Since the 1990s, however, increasing numbers of black women have been marrying white men. This book examines the dynamics of race, social class and marriage in contemporary American society specifically with respect to marriages between African Americans and Caucasian Americans, comparing and contrasting the experiences of couples in both intermarriage patterns. Despite being the focus of extensive sociological and psychological research during the latter half of the twentieth century, most research on black-white intermarriage focused on African American men who married white women. Sociological research focused on the deviant nature of these marriages while psychological research focused on various pathologies attributed to couples who crossed the color line to marry. Little research was directed towards marriages between African American women and white men with even less attention given to delineating differences in the two black-white marital pairings. As marriages between African American women and white men have become more common, it is important to understand why this trend has emerged and how this marriage type differs from the more prevalent African American man, white woman marriage combination. This book is one of the first published on interracial marriages which focuses specifically on marriages between African American women and Caucasian American men in contemporary America. The author examines the historical, social, and legal contexts from which these marriages emerged while demonstrating how the race and sex of each partner is important to understanding how the marriage is socially experienced. Interracial Marriages Between Black women and White Men is an important book for collections in African American studies, sociology, and racial studies.

Download or read book Out of Wedlock written by Larry Wu and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2001-07-12 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, one third of all American babies are born to unmarried mothers—a startling statistic that has prompted national concern about the consequences for women, children, and society. Indeed, the debate about welfare and the overhaul of the federal welfare program for single mothers was partially motivated by the desire to reduce out of wedlock births. Although the proportion of births to unwed mothers has stopped climbing for the first time since the 1960s, it has not decreased, and recent trends are too complex to attribute solely to policy interventions. What are these trends and how do they differ across groups? Are they peculiar to the United States, or rooted in more widespread social forces? Do children of unmarried mothers face greater life challenges, and if so what can be done to help them? Out of Wedlock investigates these questions, marshalling sociologists, demographers, and economists to review the state of current research and to provide both empirical information and critical analyses. The conflicting data on nonmarital fertility give rise to a host of vexing theoretical, methodological, and empirical issues, some of which researchers are only beginning to address. Out of Wedlock breaks important new ground, bringing clarity to the data and examining policies that may benefit these particularly vulnerable children.

Download or read book Soul Mates written by W. Bradford Wilcox and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-04 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1994, David Hernandez, a small-time drug-dealer in Spanish Harlem, got out of the drug business and turned his life over to God. After he joined Victory Chapel-a vibrant Bronx-based Pentecostal church-he saw his life change in many ways: today he is a member of the NYPD, married, the father of three, and still an active member of his church. David Hernandez is just one of the many individuals whose stories inform Soul Mates, which draws on both national surveys and in-depth interviews to paint a detailed portrait of the largely positive influence exercised by churches on relationships and marriage among African Americans and Latinos-and whites as well. Soul Mates shines a much-needed spotlight on the lives of strong and happy minority couples. Wilcox and Wolfinger find that both married and unmarried minority couples who attend church together are significantly more likely to enjoy happy relationships than black and Latino couples who do not regularly attend. They argue that churches serving these communities promote a code of decency encompassing hard work, temperance, and personal responsibility that benefits black and Latino families. Wilcox and Wolfinger provide a compelling look at faith and family life among blacks and Latinos. The book offers a wealth of critical insight into the effect of religion on minority relationships, as well as the unique economic and cultural challenges facing African American and Latino families in twenty-first-century America.

Download or read book Unmarried Couples with Children written by Paula England and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2007-10-17 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, a third of American children are born outside of marriage, up from one child in twenty in the 1950s, and rates are even higher among low-income Americans. Many herald this trend as one of the most troubling of our time. But the decline in marriage does not necessarily signal the demise of the two parent family—over 80 percent of unmarried couples are still romantically involved when their child is born and nearly half are living together. Most claim they plan to marry eventually. Yet half have broken up by their child's third birthday. What keeps some couples together and what tears others apart? After a breakup, how do fathers so often disappear from their children's lives? An intimate portrait of the challenges of partnering and parenting in these families, Unmarried Couples with Children presents a variety of unique findings. Most of the pregnancies were not explicitly planned, but some couples feel having a child is the natural course of a serious relationship. Many of the parents are living with their child plus the mother's child from a previous relationship. When the father also has children from a previous relationship, his visits to see them at their mother's house often cause his current partner to be jealous. Breakups are more often driven by sexual infidelity or conflict than economic problems. After couples break up, many fathers complain they are shut out, especially when the mother has a new partner. For their part, mothers claim to limit dads' access to their children because of their involvement with crime, drugs, or other dangers. For couples living together with their child several years after the birth, marriage remains an aspiration, but something couples are resolutely unwilling to enter without the financial stability they see as a sine qua non of marriage. They also hold marriage to a high relational standard, and not enough emotional attention from their partners is women's number one complaint. Unmarried Couples with Children is a landmark study of the family lives of nearly fifty American children born outside of a marital union at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Based on personal narratives gathered from both mothers and fathers over the first four years of their children's lives, and told partly in the couples' own words, the story begins before the child is conceived, takes the reader through the tumultuous months of pregnancy to the moment of birth, and on through the child's fourth birthday. It captures in rich detail the complex relationship dynamics and powerful social forces that derail the plans of so many unmarried parents. The volume injects some much-needed reality into the national discussion about family values, and reveals that the issues are more complex than our political discourse suggests.

Download or read book Becoming Married Staying Married written by Marcus Small and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2017-11-10 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's easy to fall in love and to get married. But what does it really mean to be married? And how do you stay married? In Becoming Married, Staying Married, couples will be encouraged to see marriage as a process that never ends. Together they will reflect on current realities particular to African American couples. They will also discover nine key principles that are required for healthy marriages, including concepts like self-awareness, flexibility, maturity, and forgiveness. Practical suggestions on how to further enhance each quality are included, in addition to African proverbs and biblical Scripture that relate to marriage. Questions for discussion and reflection are included at the end of each chapter. This insightful resource can be used by African American couples at various stages of their relationship, but it is especially helpful to engaged and newly married couples. Pastor may also choose to use this book as a discussion starter for premarital counseling.

Download or read book Celebrating African American Marriages written by Annie W. Rivers and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2009-09-30 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an examination of the marital lifecycle experiences of African American couples. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with couples who have been married from 33 years to 50 years, and from diverse backgrounds. The couples were asked about their experience as a couple, parenting, launching children into young adulthood, life as a couple again, becoming grandparents, and retirement. Understanding; marital success as describe by the couples in times of strength and challenge provides important insight to loving, and healthy relationships. Their stories revealed several themes: intimacy, communication, commitment, spirituality, parental role models, and education as keys to marital success.

Download or read book God s Amazing Grace written by Terry M. Turner and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2017-12-18 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "God's Amazing Grace: Reconciling Four Centuries of African American Marriages and Families is an insightful study that will be welcomed by thoughtful practitioners and all who ponder the African American family's complexity. Readers familiar with the deep, rich reservoir of African American family literature will recognize many of the black scholars referenced in this work. Readers unfamiliar with these sources will be grateful to discover them and the effective use of disparate literature. "This work will become a different kind of guide for studying American history through the lens of the African American family. Underneath all the research is the search for answers to the compelling questions: Is there a correlation between slave owners' denial to slaves, God's design for the family, and the familial chaos that has plagued African American families for more than a hundred fifty years? And if there is connection, what is it? "The author has brought something new to a familiar topic of discussion-the Bible. The unique moral compass that steered this study is solidly anchored in the bedrock of holy scripture. In this work, the history and sociology of African American marriages are examined in light of the questions asked by Holy Scripture. In so doing, Dr. Turner skillfully attempts to help readers make sense of the story of black families in America. May this book mark the beginning to a new reality for African American families" (Dr. Willie Peterson, senior executive advisor, adjunct professor of Pastoral Ministries, Dallas Theological Seminary).

Download or read book Fighting for Your African American Marriage written by Keith E. Whitfield and published by Jossey-Bass. This book was released on 2001-09-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fighting for Your African American Marriage gives you solid solutions to the challenges your marriage faces every day. The book contains a unique perspective and presents the powerful, proven strategies of the highly acclaimed PREP(Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program) approach for helping black couples beat the odds and master the skills that can prevent marital distress and divorce.

Download or read book Stormy Weather written by Anastasia Carol Curwood and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The so-called New Negroes of the period between World Wars I and II embodied a new sense of racial pride and upward mobility for the race. Many of them thought that relationships between spouses could be a crucial factor in realizing this dream. But there