It is better to be single for 25 years than to spend even six months in a bad marriage.
From the USA Today
The plight of single black women has received widespread attention in recent years - cover stories in Essence and Newsweek magazines and countless newspaper articles. This year, the movie Something New even opened up the possibility of dating outside the race since some 42.4% of black women might never marry because of the dearth of marriageable black men. Nationally, there are 10 single black women for every seven single black men. The picture looks worse if you subtract those who are incarcerated and unemployed
But the obsession with the black female marriage problem has overshadowed an equally daunting fact: Many black marriages don’t survive.
Last month, the Department of Health and Human Services awarded $118 million in grants for research, projects and programs designed to encourage healthy marriages. The operative word for these grants being “healthy” because studies over the past 10 years suggest that marriage for blacks isn’t a cure-all, either:
•The University of Illinois tracked 199 black and 174 white couples during their first years of marriage. The study found that after three years, 17% of the black couples were divorced or separated, three times the white percentage.
•Analysis of a national survey of 13,017 adults by sociologists Mark Rank and Larry Davis at Washington University in St. Louis found that married blacks more so than whites believed that divorce would improve their finances, career, social life, sex life and parenting.
•In 1970, according to Census data, 57% of black men and 54% of black women were married. By 2005, those figures had dropped to 42% and 35%, respectively. And 68% of white men and 63% of white women were married in 1970, compared with 59% and 57% respectively last year.
Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson has spoken to many black husbands and wives who are disappointed, dissatisfied or disloyal. One overriding problem, according to Patterson, is the issue of sex roles. “Our men still have male-dominant attitudes toward their spouses,” he says, but contemporary black women have more independent views about their roles.
And while some might find being a single black woman distressing, married women reported being in poorer health. This according to “The Consequences of Marriage for African Americans,” published last year by the pro-marriage Institute for American Values, a non-profit aimed at improving marriage.
Hopefully, the grants will help unlock the code to a healthy marriage. Until then, remaining single might be the key to wellness and contentment.
Filed under: Race
That’s why I strongly put CHARACTER first before race. Sure, I could easily find a black man to date, but if the only reason for dating him is for maintaining “racial purity” then there’s no point in getting involved in a loveless relationship.
If my future man is black, great…but he’s got to have good qualities and similar interests as well. I wish other black women would see the light.
That study about womens health going down in marriage seems suspect to me. Are they blaming marriage or maybe its womens attitudes toward marriage. If you have a bad attitude about something, I suppose the stress can make you sick.
I don’t think they are blaming marriage itself as an institution.
I also don’t think they are entering the marriages with a bad attitudes. However when things turn sour, it can have a negative effect on one’s health.
This is part of the reason I say that it is better to be single than to get into a bad marriage.
I know that some disagree though
Well I had the article forwarded to me a couple of times and each time it was framed that marriage makes Black women unhealthy. The emphasis should be on BAD marriages. And are the authors of this article advocating Black women remain celebate? I doubt it. No women should be in bad marriage but what can we do educate men and women so that good marriages can develop.
Alhamdulillah, single, black, and proud.
Lol @ this article..anybody that’s ever taken and made an exceptional grade in college statistics knows those figures are skewed — they took samples of a population study, the stats dont represent the entire population. Alot of what we read in papers is based on inference, not cold hard stats.
First Black women were bad off because they were not married, now we’re bad off because we are? C’mon, can we put our thinking caps on?
Black folks, stop reading mainstream newspapers to learn about yourselves…
may the peace , Mercy ,and blessings of Allah be upon you .
first of all i thank Allah who made me be among muslim people (i mean i am born as
a muslim guy alhamdulilah ).
to me the marriage to black women or white is the same in the sight of islam .
as a matter of fact i welcome both of coulors ( black or white women) .
i am actually searching for a muslimah for marriage and i ask Allah to make this dream comes true , she could be black american or canadian ,any country .
here is my eamil address : b_kolano@yahoo.com
may Allah bless all of you .
Abderrahman
salaam,
noor, i was totally thinking the same thing! like “wtf?…looks like somebody skipped out on research stats class!” anywho, perhaps i’ve given in to the hype but i’m more content being single with each day that passes.
men, all men not just African Americans, have become accustomed to the type of woman who has lowered her standards to a point which i am not willing to delve. and they wonder why they are unhappy? it isn’t rocket science! the amount of effort you put into a marriage (especially from the begining) is a reflection of its chances for success. you can’t build a house in a week and be surprised when the foundation crumbles!
the lack of strong examples is at the root of this problem…so we’ve gotten ourselves into quite the quagmire: we can’t have realistic expectations of marriage b/c we lack sufficient role models, and those who do bother to try marriage fail b/c they don’t know how to handle it.
Sheeesh. i have a solution in mind but it would really be facist and socially unacceptable…