Yesterday I posted an excerpt from the introduction to my recently published book, Is Marriage for White People?. Today, Thursday and Friday I will examine three central issues the book examines.
Black women more frequently than any other group of women marry men who are less educated or lower earning than they are. More than half of college educated black wives have husbands who are less educated than they are. These relationships are more prone than relationships among socioeconomic equals to be conflict ridden and prone to divorce. Two different types of problems arise.
One problem is that both spouses may be uncomfortable with a situation in which the wife earns more than the husband. When the wife supports the family because the husband cannot, the husband may feel threatened, emasculated. Less discussed but not less important is that the wife may also think less of a husband who earns less than she does. Professionally accomplished wives may support their family financially, but they were not raised expecting to do so.
Of the empirical findings that support this interpretation, my favorite is this: When the husband earns the bulk of the income, the spouses are equally likely to have final say about financial decisions. When the wife earns the bulk of the income, in contrast, the wife is twice as likely as the husband to have final say about financial decisions. This finding mirrors a pattern that I noticed among the couples whose stories I recount in the book: His earnings are joint, but her earnings are hers. This is but one aspect of the incomplete transformation of gender roles.
A second problem is that professional women with working class husbands often experience a sort of cultural conflict. Although they share the same race, their educational and professional experiences differ and as a result their aspirations, outlooks and values may be distinct as well.
The prevalence of what I term marry down relationships thus contribute to striking racial disparities in divorce rates. Although good data about the likelihood of divorce is difficult to come by, as many as 2 out of every 3 marriages among African Americans end in divorce. Data do confirm that half of African American marriages dissolve within 10 years, compared to a third of whites’ marriages.
Marrying down has not been given much attention in the media or even by scholars, but for African Americans it undermines the well-being of adults and children alike.
noblesse says:
“Marrying down has not been given much attention in the media or even by scholars, but for African Americans it undermines the well-being of adults and children alike.”
Or, outmoded attitudes about gender roles undermine relationships involving women (particularly black women?) who earn more than their spouses.
September 7, 2011, 8:22 pmmatt c says:
i am getting a divorce because my income is ours and my wife’s income is hers. i cannot take the stress of it all and she knows it
September 7, 2011, 8:25 pmPJens says:
“A second problem is that professional women with working class husbands often experience a sort of cultural conflict.”
Sounds like the TV sitcom King of Queens.
September 7, 2011, 8:32 pmanon says:
An interesting take on your Salon interview can be found here: Interview Shows Disconnect in Debate About Marriage and Families http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/?p=19058
September 7, 2011, 8:33 pmMMK says:
nobless, matt c,
Do either of you deny that women seek higher status men in a relationship? If so, you have no idea how sexual attraction works.
September 7, 2011, 8:43 pmZack says:
That Salon interviewer is pretty terrible.
September 7, 2011, 8:56 pmSean says:
Noblesse, my interpretation of the “problem” of “marrying-down” mirrors yours – that it’s mostly about the internalization, by both men and women, of gender roles and “breadwinner” norms – but I don’t believe Prof. Banks’s argument about why Black Americans’ marriages often fail requires that he make the step to feminist analysis. I imagine, but I may be wrong because I haven’t seen the book, that he is not arguing that black women should instead “marry their class.” At least, I hope that’s not what he’s arguing. Instead, I imagine he is simply diagnosing, on many fronts, a problem that has not received much attention heretofore.
September 7, 2011, 9:20 pmMark Field says:
Your post is a bit unclear to me. Are the conclusions you cite regarding women who “marry down” conclusions which apply to black women only, or to all women and you’re now applying the lesson to black women? Also, have you (or has anyone) studied marriages in which the partners begin as class equals but the husband loses his job so that the wife becomes the principal earner (as opposed to beginning the marriage that way)?
September 7, 2011, 9:22 pmSean says:
MMK – You make it sound as if such attraction is natural, but you probably would not agree that men, in general, seek “higher status” (than themselves, I assume) women for partners/spouses. If that is so, then it seems to me much more likely that both women and men have been acculturated to believe that men should be the “stronger” ones in a relationship rather than that men just instinctively do not want strong women as wives, and thus what you seem to think of as “natural” in “sexual attraction” is anything but.
September 7, 2011, 9:26 pmGarrett says:
How does this data separate education from earnings? For example, someone who is a plumber but no degree might be making 3 times as much as someone who has a master’s in art history. Clearly the degree-holder is marrying down in terms of education (or education certification), but up in terms of earning potential.
Also, do women who are the primary earners who keep the primary financial say controlled for given that black men are statistically much more likely to be incarcerated? That is, a women making more money might rationally be worried that her husband might just simply disappear in the future and therefore not want to yield control. I know so little about the methodology involved that I’m not even sure if the question makes sense.
September 7, 2011, 9:31 pmChrisHo says:
It isn’t all about how much they earn, they have a second class status within their own race. Black men marry non black women without nearly the family pressure that a black woman would face. When the black man marries outside of race the children are black and raised as such, but that becomes questionable when the positions are reversed, while the children will obviously look black how would they be raised.
There are some historical issues with white men and black women that seem get dredged up either purposefully or subconsciously.
September 7, 2011, 9:34 pmtheobromophile says:
Couldn’t that be because couples fight most about sex and money and women initiate most divorces? Ergo, if you are uncertain about money, feeling as if you are earning it all, and then wonder what you’re getting out of the marriage, you’re more likely to leave.
Last I checked, women aren’t as happy in their marriages as men are. It sounds like these women are thinking, “What are you bringing to the table?”, coming up with, “Not much”, and then filing for divorce. Will let others do the speculating as to why this is so.
September 7, 2011, 10:05 pmDebrah says:
“When the husband earns the bulk of the income, the spouses are equally likely to have final say about financial decisions. When the wife earns the bulk of the income, in contrast, the wife is twice as likely as the husband to have final say about financial decisions.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Professor Banks has entered some very provocative territory with his book; however, this particular gem would seem to need further exploration.
From one side of the prism, this issue could be given a humorous patina, but through another side there might be a few practical reasons within a marriage why such a dynamic would exist.
September 7, 2011, 10:26 pmMatt says:
Black women are faced with a catch-22: either marry down or marry outside their race. The black middle class is statistically over-represented in fields that aren’t especially man-friendly to start with, and they certainly aren’t black man-friendly. I’m talking about education, data entry, etc.
One in every 100 high school teachers is a black male.
September 7, 2011, 10:33 pmRandolph says:
That’s my thinking also. Assuming that women are going to continue to be educated and employed at the same level that men are a societal rule that women can’t “marry down” doesn’t sound very sustainable.
September 7, 2011, 10:36 pmChrisTS says:
@Garrett:
I suspect that the quotation, below, addresses your point (which I think is well taken), in part.
We might ask how many black men have higher ed. degrees as compared with black women. I believe the disparity is rather strongly in favor of the women.
So, we are looking at ‘better educated’ wives who may or may not earn more than their spouses. Perhaps it is the case that, in many cases, anyone with (say) a Bachelor’s degree will earn more – over a lifetime – than the average plumber. If so, then black women who complete college will not only earn more than their black husbands but also have a different perspective, etc.
It would be very helpful to know what the correlations between education and earnings are for men and women of color.
September 7, 2011, 10:39 pmChrisTS says:
@theobromophile:
I think you raise an excellent [set of] point[s].
That said, I believe that women are quite willing to ‘invest’ in a husband who shows promise of bringing ‘more’ sooner or later. The ‘more’ need not be material, of course. But if a woman realizes she can do as well or better not only financially, but also emotionally and in parenting, without said spouse, I imagine such a woman might see divorce as a desirable option.
September 7, 2011, 10:45 pmDebrah says:
“Marrying down has not been given much attention in the media or even by scholars, but for African Americans it undermines the well-being of adults and children alike.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Of course it hasn’t been given much attention. Sensitive questions that deal with race and the sexual dynamics within a “minority” group are not covered in the PC media manuals.
Black women have the same basic needs as all women, especially educated women. In a complex world of trying to raise a family and have a career, what woman would be happy supporting a man?
If a couple have children, the woman automatically has a more difficult role than does her husband. What exactly is the husband needed for if not to enhance her life instead of being a dead weight who occasionally fills the role of sex partner?
No romance without finance.
September 7, 2011, 10:47 pmnyccine says:
You *clearly* have no idea how sexual attraction works among humans, just as MMK stated. There’s no excuse for this; there are reams and reams of studies on this subject, and no amount of tantrums thrown by feminists like Naomi Wolf will change the realties of human attraction.
Sexual reproduction amongst all species evolves competatively, not cooperatively, as a result of each side trying to maximize their success based on the tools available to them. For us, the basic driving force is the reality that sperm is cheap, but eggs are expensive.
Men would, if they can get away with it, mate with the widest variety of fertile women available, and you’ll find men aren’t generally that picky (barring instances of specific fetishes); principally, we are attracted to the markers of fertility – youth, good health, but it’s a waste to try and mate with a woman who invests much into achieving status *because that takes time she doesn’t have* – there is a reason why pregnancies over 35 are referred to as geriatric pregnancies, and even with all the money thrown at reproductive technologies the failure rates for older women trying to get pregnant remain high. In environments where men are expected to have to commit resources to a relationship, they are still looking for youth – in fact, they have greater incentive to do so, since they are investing more – and are also looking for traits that would indicate a low-risk of paternity fraud so they don’t get cuckolded, things like loyalty, submissiveness, and such.
Women, on the other hand, don’t have the luxury of simply sleeping with whoever is available – she is only fertile for a limited period each month, can only realistically get pregnant about once a year, and it takes a lot, biologically speaking – not just the development of the fetus, but raising and feeding the child even to the point that he/she can forage for themselves takes a lot. Even in the modern era, with welfare states and zealous enforcement of child support laws, being a single mother is *hard*, and the ratio of success stories to de facto poverty factories is very, very low; thousands of years ago, and it was fatal – there were no single female cavemen lawyers, being all sexy and self reliant. They, and their offspring, were dead. Evolution has steered women into trying to get the best possible genes for their offspring (i.e. the sexy son hypothesis), *and* get the most commitment out of males, during the time she is most likely to be able to reproduce successfully. Thus, her biological urge is to find a man with the best status, and you can still see this even among the career-minded women http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/n_9495/ Just look at the comments by those women; they can’t stand being married to men who aren’t their superior.
September 7, 2011, 11:52 pmrilkefan says:
What do the distributions of income disparity look like in the two cases? And the distribution of the lower-income spouse? I can imagine that in many cases where the man is not earning any money the wife runs the finances, while perhaps in the opposite case the wife is running the household (including raising kids) and thus doing equivalent labor.
September 7, 2011, 11:54 pmnoblesse says:
I bet you’re right about that, though that’s not what prof. Banks said in his post (imo). No question it’s a subject worth investigating, regardless of his normative views.
September 8, 2011, 12:10 amJohn A. Fleming says:
To marry outside your group, is to make a statement that your group is lacking in some essential characteristic. And marriage is a public statement.
So to marry down, is to state that there’s nothing wrong with your group.
Gaah, that’s a tough choice to make.
September 8, 2011, 12:51 amAkbar Hayat Khan says:
A women making more money might rationally be worried that her husband might just simply disappear in the future and therefore not want to yield control.
September 8, 2011, 1:09 amricky says:
It’s amazing to me how many people will, upon discovering that the world does not match their prejudices, decide that it’s the world that ought to change.
The commenters in this thread would benefit tremendously from reading the analysis posted by anon at 8:33PM.
September 8, 2011, 2:17 amPeter says:
Just caught this and he pretty much said the same thing I just posted on the first thread. It’s definitely not just a black issue though, they are simply first major US movers on a greater problem that started in Japan twenty years ago who have similar rigid gender roles to the US, i.e. we aren’t Sweden in the context of this particular problem. I believe this problem will become more prevalent as time passes given the current cultural emphasis on over-promoting women at the expense of men (in the vast middle, not the up/lower 5%)
Matt C: Amen and I am going through the same problem with my soon-to-be ex-wife. I.e. I am OK with traditional roles or actual equality but I am not OK with the current trend of cake and eat it to.
September 8, 2011, 4:58 amNorthern Dave says:
It is always a joy to encounter women who are up front about their mercenary approach to love! Thanks Deb!
(There is a further complication to the issue under discussion as there is an implicit point system with marrying outside what one considers one’s peer group. The humour being that many groups consider each other to be marrying “down” :-). )
September 8, 2011, 6:42 amSmooth, Like a Rhapsody says:
Another sociological factor here—esp in the lower 50% of the income/education ladder—is the propensity for white women to seek black men to couple with. I see it continually in my job; and the stats bear out that the vast majority of black/white relationships are black man and white woman.
September 8, 2011, 8:34 amI am not sure why white women seek out black men, but I would guess it is a reaction to cultural signals that “black” = “cool”, or “transgressive”.
ragebot says:
When I was a student I lived with a girl from Puerto Rico but also had a good female friend from Venezuela; and was a little put off by the two of the fighting like cats and dogs. While I had painted Hispanics with a broad brush of basic equality there is a real pecking order of different Hispanic groups.
I would also point out I have seen some of my black friends make a distinction between Northern Blacks and Southern Blacks. I would be interested in seeing black marriage analysis controlled for geography.
September 8, 2011, 8:37 amragebot says:
I am not sure why you think this is a one way attraction; could be that black males seek out white females.
September 8, 2011, 8:39 amtamerlane says:
One factor that hasn’t been discussed is pure sexual attractiveness. There have been studies done of the relative sexual attractiveness of men and women by race and/or skin color. One can argue whether sexual attractiveness is determined more by culture or by biology but studies examining sexual attractiveness in terms of race and/or skin color find that on average black women are not as attractive to men as other women. I’m wondering if Professor Banks examined this body of research in his study of why black women are more likely than others to marry down within their race.
September 8, 2011, 8:47 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
To some extent it is the husband’s choice to feel that way. To that extent, he can choose to get over it. I think that extent is greater than a lot of people acknowledge because they talk at length about how men whose wives are the primary breadwinner “are made to feel” this and that without specifying who is making them and what kind of jedi mind control tricks they are employing.
September 8, 2011, 8:59 amSmooth, Like a Rhapsody says:
Yes; I agree that it is a two way street. I am remarking more on the apparent propensity of white women to “couple down” (they rarely, in my experience, “marry”), and the added pressure that this behavior by white women places on black women in the romance market.
September 8, 2011, 9:10 amRicardo says:
On the previous thread, I cited a study of speed dating that showed this probably is not a significant factor (it should be accessible by googling “interracial speed dating study”). White men discriminate against black women but only weakly — at least the sample of white guys who go for speed dating are pretty open to dating someone of any race (and same goes for men of other races they studied, also). Rather, the result the researchers found was that black women had very strong preferences to only date black men.
Whatever people’s impressions of sexual attractiveness are, that’s only one factor that goes into whether to date or especially marry someone.
September 8, 2011, 9:23 amCalderon says:
Ricardo said:
I reviewed the study you linked, and don’t think this is an accurate description of its findings. A more precise statement would be that the study found that black women were open to dating almost any black man (90% willingness), and also were willing to date white and hispanic men at rates that were about at the average for women as a whole to date men as a whole (around 40%). (And of course there always are questions about whether the study can be generalized, narrow and non-typical subject group, etc.)
September 8, 2011, 9:41 amRicardo says:
That’s a good point but it certainly does not contradict the hypothesis that black women strongly prefer black men to men of other races. For economists anyway, all “prefer” means is that if given a choice, you are more likely to choose A than B. When a sample of black women were given a choice between men of various races in this experimental context, they were more likely to choose black men than non-black men. Q.E.D.
This happens to coincide with the available Census data on interracial marriage, as well. Black man/white woman marriages were more common than white man/black woman marriages by a ratio of 2:1. This data is from 1992 so a lot could have changed since then but I haven’t seen much evidence so far that non-black men are the limiting factor here.
P.S. I just remembered Roland Fryer has a paper interracial marriage among blacks. I haven’t read it yet but I’m sure that must have some relevant details and data as well.
September 8, 2011, 9:55 amCalderon says:
Ricardo — well, not to get to Bill Clinton-esque, but I guess it comes down to how you define the word “prefer.” One understanding of prefer is that you select A to the exclusion of B. The study shows that black women are not excluding white men (or vice versa, for that matter; the study shows that white men were more willing to date black women than Asian women, which certainly goes against a common stereotype of white men’s preferences).
The study is a mixed bag for Prof. Banks’ claims, as I understand them. On the one hand, the study appears to go against Prof. Banks’ arguments because (as I understand it) one of his claims is that black women should be more open to dating men of other races, and the study you cite shows they already are. On the flip side, black women are “too open” to dating black men, which supports his claim that black women suffer in the relationship market with black men (though note that black men also are willing to date black women at a high rate, around 67%).
As for interracial marriage, I would not be surprised at all if circumstances have changed significantly from 1992. Moreover, looking at separate age cohorts rather than the population as a whole likely would give you a better indication of trends. For example, I would not be surprised if the black women / white men marriages were far more common among people in the 20′s or early 30′s than people in their 50′s and up.
I agree that the study supports that non-black men’s preferences are not a limiting factor.
September 8, 2011, 10:09 amDebrah says:
Ha!
September 8, 2011, 10:19 amGiant Frog says:
Anything to do with marriage? Or lack thereof?
Blacks are more narcissistic
September 8, 2011, 10:20 amJohn Bennett says:
Outmoded gender roles? Who gets to determine whether a gender role is outmoded? A small cadre of dubiously-qualified and curiously out-of-step activists/academics?
September 8, 2011, 10:26 amHow dare anyone suggest that a gender role is outmoded when a significant number of educated and thoughtful women hold that gender role as their ideal. Whether we’re talking about marrying up or being a mother, women presumably know what they want and need. So when women voice criticism of single-parent families, or when they are unhappy working long hours in high stress jobs that make men miserable, their views deserve to be taken seriously.
People vote with their feet. We as a society decide when a gender role is outmoded, not some isolated complainers.
MAM says:
Things are a changing. B/M W/F marriages were, I believe, initially based on: 1. love; 2. the perceived forbidden fruit/upgrade by black men or 3. white women knowing that they had better odds finding a black man, particularly a professional black man, than finding a comparable white man. Two and three are opposite sides of the same coin. The dating/marriage game is competitive for white women too, but they have the advantage of being white. That value allows them, sometimes regardless of pedigree, to find successful black men b/c the pool in which black men swim has a great number of successful black women but fewer premium or even average white women.
Another reason, I believe, black men sought out white women is because they thought white women would be more passive. I tend to think that some white men seek asian women for the same reason. The stereotype of black women is one of being domineering, not feminine, and not affectionate. Maybe this stereotype was born out of slavery or Jim Crow where black women played roles that white women did not.
September 8, 2011, 10:35 amCJColucci says:
I decided to consult a genuine expert, Chris Rock. Rock says it’s simply a matter of black women not being attracted to run-of-the-mine white men. Yeah, they’ll jump a pretty white boy like George Clooney or Matthew Mc-however-the-Hell-you-spell-it (the one whose standard movie contract requires him to remove his shirt at least once every film), but the average or even slightly above average white male doesn’t do it for them. If you see a sister with an ordinary-looking white man, the sister is in deep financial trouble.
September 8, 2011, 10:42 amWhen my black wife and I watched Rock’s routine, I had the good sense to keep my mouth shut.
MAM says:
CJ is a threadwinner or looks like George Clooney!
September 8, 2011, 10:45 amHouston Lawyer says:
The same dynamic of how to marry up applies to female attorneys. If you are 25 years old and making big law type money, the number of eligible single men making equal or better money than you is small.
September 8, 2011, 10:58 amanon says:
Yeah, you wouldn’t want to consider our stupid ape minds.
September 8, 2011, 11:20 amwm13 says:
That seems wildly inconsistent with human psychology as it exists in the real world. If pretty much everyone you meeet looks down on you and/or feels sorry for you (which is the case for men whose wives significantly out-earn them), it isn’t something you can “get over.” People who are utterly impervious to others’ opinions are psychopaths or losers, not mentally healthy or admirable.
September 8, 2011, 11:34 amgeokstr says:
Reminds me of a scene in an old movie, where the lights go out, and you hear Lili say to Sheriff Bart: “Is it twue what they say about you people? Oh, it’s twue! It’s twue! It’s twue!“
September 8, 2011, 11:35 amgeokstr says:
Reminds me of a scene in an old movie, where the lights go out, and you hear Lili say to Sheriff Bart: “Is it twue what they say about you people? Ohhh, it’s twue! It’s twue! It’s twue!“
September 8, 2011, 11:35 amGreg Q says:
Sean, have you really never heard of “trophy wives”? Here’s a hint: when rich middle aged men go looking for trophy wives, they’re not looking for financially successful equals or superiors.
Everyone wants “better”. But only a completely delusional and, dare I say it, “anti-science” person thinks that men and women have the same definition of “better”.
September 8, 2011, 11:42 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
I think you need to meet a different set of people.
Some people have something to think about other than whether a man they have met is sufficiently masculine. One might also wonder how “everyone you meet” instantaneously finds out what your income and your spouse’s income are. I know I don’t go around asking complete strangers how much money they and their spouse make.
There are two other households just on our cul-de-sac besides ours in which the men have gone through periods of unemployment and the wives’ incomes carried the families. If they feel looked down upon, they have not expressed this. Maybe they run with people who aren’t materialists to the exclusion of every other consideration?
September 8, 2011, 11:50 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
It’s more like I am arguing with me that you don’t have a stupid ape mind, and you are arguing back that you do.
September 8, 2011, 11:53 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
That is, I am arguing with you that you don’t …
Don’t know what happened there.
September 8, 2011, 12:00 pmLN says:
Obviously the best way to get over it is to divorce your high-earning wife and either be single or marry a lesser-earning woman. Then sit back and watch the respect flow in.
September 8, 2011, 12:10 pmwm13 says:
I am confident that (i) everyone who met your unemployed neighbors felt sorry for them, (ii) they themselves hated the experience, and (iii) all their friends worried about whether it would strain their marriages.
Many men would be happier in a lower-income zip code with friends who make the same as they do, rather than being the poor appendage to a high-earning wife in a ritzy neighborhood. (E.g., to be concrete, many men would rather live on First Avenue and hang out with the other civil servants than live on Park Avenue and hang out with their wife’s investment banker friends.)
September 8, 2011, 12:27 pmcurrent3L says:
@Houston Lawyer
In my experience, unavailability of sufficiently-resume-padded men doesn’t end up being much of a problem. People usually don’t live and socialize in a broad cross-section of the entire US population.
Your female biglawyer probably lives in a certain part of town, goes out to certain bars for happy hour and certain restaurants for lunch and a certain gym, most of which probably serve a disproportionate number of young high-earning professionals. She may be involved, as law firms and corporations encourage young associates to be, in community organizations, museums, charities where lots of young ambitious men and women go to make connections and pad their resumes.
Even before she became a biglawyer, she’s probably disproportionately likely to have had at least uppper-middle-class parents and/or relatives, to have gone to a “good” high school, to a good college, to a good law school. She’s disroportionately likely (compared to the entire US population) to have done some other over-achiever stuff at some point where she made friends, e.g. TFA, short stint at a consulting firm or ibank, competitive internships in college.
While not all biglawyers were born rich or even upper middle-class, most of the ones who weren’t entered that social set at some point, whether it started with a scholarship to a private high school or college or a high LSAT score. If you were to look at the facebook friends of biglaw associates, you would not see anything like a representative sample of the US.
September 8, 2011, 12:38 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
How can you be confident of this? You don’t know these people and you don’t know everyone who has met them. I have met them and I don’t feel sorry for them. Maybe I don’t qualify as an “everyone”; maybe I’m a dog or a cat. Even so, you know they hate the experience? How? You know what their friends worry about? How?
wm13, everybody is not a carbon copy of you. There are people who have violently different opinions about things than you do. I know there are people who differ with me about things that are very important to me and I actually find that somewhat liberating, to know that the universe doesn’t sink or swim by my opinion.
Meanwhile, nothing is stopping those poor appendages from divorcing their wives, collecting alimony, and living wherever they want. Oh, – maybe they love their wives and don’t want to divorce them?
September 8, 2011, 12:44 pmcurrent3L says:
To add: I think a female biglawyer who grew up working-class, got a scholarship to an unremarkable public college and got her job by graduating #1 from a Tier 3/4 law school is likely to have a much tougher time meeting equally-earning and/or equally-credentialed men because her social network will probably consist of far fewer of them.
September 8, 2011, 12:50 pmLN says:
This is ridiculous. If you feel like a loser hanging out with investment bankers, you’re really really unlikely to marry an investment banker or someone who socializes heavily with investment bankers.
What’s weird about this discussion is that I’m apparently supposed to believe that there’s some natural order of things that simply can’t be helped (men don’t like spending time with people in higher social classes) and at the same time this natural order can’t prevent people from ending up in miserable situations (these same men somehow marry women from these higher social classes).
September 8, 2011, 1:02 pmwm13 says:
Well, let’s take a poll. How many here don’t feel sorry for and worry about friends or neighbors who lose their jobs? How many have ever been unemployed, or had an unemployed friend, who didn’t hate the experience?
I’m pretty sure I’m typical and Laura is an extreme outlier.
September 8, 2011, 1:08 pmLN says:
Or to put it another way, if “everyone” looks down on a man because his wife makes more money than he does, then why did his wife marry him? If he is helpless and must succumb to social pressures, why isn’t she in the same boat? And if she can disregard what other people think because she sees something in him, why can’t he have the same confidence in himself? Weird.
In reality the interesting cases are not so black-and-white. An academic may marry an investment banker, or a poor kid may go to an elite college. While these “crossover” cases pose challenges, it would be silly to say that “everyone” disrespects the poor kid who gains admission to a higher social class through hard work and brains. Life is more complicated.
September 8, 2011, 1:10 pmLN says:
I may feel sorry for someone who’s unemployed. I’m not going to feel sorry for them because their spouse carries their family through unemployment. That part of the story seems like a blessing, like a curse.
September 8, 2011, 1:14 pmgospace says:
Been married for 33 years, am causcasian. Knew before getting married that my wife’s attitude was, “What’s mine in mine, and what’s yours is mine.”
Women never get past that 2 year old stage, regardless of ethnic background.
Similar attitude with gifts. To her, if it is useful, it is not a gift. To me, “Wow, new tools!”.
September 8, 2011, 4:36 pmMaximus says:
Wow–quite the apologia for prostitution. Maybe Napoleon was right, except re his mother….
b
September 8, 2011, 4:55 pmPedro says:
Don’t know how this will get flamed…
September 8, 2011, 5:19 pmI make 3 times that which my female partner makes.
That’s the way it goes.
She makes most of the financial decisions alone.
We make a few major ones together.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
She has fewer years of post-secondary education than I.
She has never been screwed buying crappy lawnmower as have I.
If men or women have issues with this kind of crap than the US has bigger problems than to few jobs!
Men – et lives and hug yer kids!
Womin – do yer jobs and make the house a home and the bedroom a nest for the both of ya. Then get out and embarass the shit out of your husband!
teapartydoc says:
Dad took off, came back, beat Mom and the kids and then took off for good. She isn’t going to marry a strong man because she can’t trust him. She doesn’t want to be mistreated and abandoned so she marries down and still can’t find it in herself to have a trusting relationship even when she has all the power. The black family was killed by the Democrat Party and will NOT recover. Black women will soon be marrying white men almost to the exclusion of black men–just watch.
September 8, 2011, 5:20 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
You know, just because you married a woman stuck in toddlerhood, that doesn’t mean that every woman is.
I ask my husband before I go to his toolbox and get a damn screwdriver out of it. What’s his is frickin his.
For pete’s sake.
Maybe I should say that men have to think in stereotypes because their brains aren’t complex and they have to put women down in order not to face their own inadequacy. But I won’t say that because unlike you, I won’t take one example of a man acting like a jerk and smear half the human race with it.
September 8, 2011, 5:29 pmSGT Ted says:
What it points to is that men are more prepared to sacrifice, especially financially, for their families, while women are not. Women need to grow up if they want true equality.
September 8, 2011, 5:33 pmChris Travers says:
I used to be incredibly against “my income is ours and my wife’s income is hers” which is the way it works in my family. Granted I earn the bulk of the household income. Then I watched Elizabeth Warren’s lecture “The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class” and had to rethink that.
Today, I am a lot more laid back about that. The fact is that if my income drops because business is slow one month, my wife does come to the rescue. So now I see “my income is ours and my wife’s income is a safety net.” If she wants to send as much of it to her mother or spend it on gifts or whatever, that’s fine. I know the income will be a valuable unbudgetted resource if it’s ever needed.
September 8, 2011, 5:50 pmSarcastro says:
I’ll say one thing for preconceived notions of gender and race – they make finding cause from correlation super easy!
September 8, 2011, 5:53 pmChris Travers says:
Or maybe it is because de facto one income families have a safety net (a second worker whose income can keep the family afloat) that is markedly absent from two income families. Really about the ideal working environment is for the husband and wife to work and the wife’s income to be donated to charity during times when the husband is employed……. I could make mechanical analogies regarding car parts, so think about what happens when a wheel slips and what device is used to manage it…..
September 8, 2011, 5:59 pmFoobarista says:
It depends on how you define “your group”. Many people don’t define it ethnically.
September 8, 2011, 6:05 pmmgwk says:
This doesn’t seem to have come up so far: there’s a corner of the ‘blogosphere’ where folks write and converse about the relationship issues Prof Banks is describing. Not in terms of racial identity, but as the result of the different perspectives and identities of most men, versus most women.
From that point of view, the negative consequences of women “marrying down” are just what would be predicted, in terms of dissatisfaction and high divorce rates.
Unfortunately, I can’t steer interested readers to a post that is directly on topic. The blogs that cover such topics include The Badger Hut and Married Man Sex Life (slightly NSFW).
The most relevant concept that gets discussed is “hypergamy,” which Wikipedia defines as “the act or practice of seeking a spouse of higher socioeconomic status, or caste status than oneself.” Marrying down is a glaringly poor fit with many women’s tendency to seek husbands of higher SES. Whether the reasons are evolutionarily wired or reinforced by culture.
September 8, 2011, 6:06 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
I am really, really tired of the misogyny here. If we’re not dogs, we’re babies. Maybe it’s time for me to take a break.
September 8, 2011, 6:21 pmSarcastro says:
All I know is when I buy a woman drinks in a bar and then she doesn’t sleep with me, that’s proof all women are too manipulative to be of any use to an emancipated man like myself!
Women, can’t live with them….they will not go out with me.
September 8, 2011, 6:35 pmNM Kerr says:
My group is called human, I married inside that group even it my wife was another race, not because I had a problem with women of my own race but because I fell In love with, and am still deeply in love wit, a woman of another race.
If whom you fall in love with is constrained by their race you are a bigot, also an idiot
September 8, 2011, 8:28 pmNM Kerr says:
Foobarista
September 8, 2011, 8:30 pmClark says:
Laura, I am surprised that you are surprised when people who employ the same kind of dehumanizing talk and contempt that is employed in reference to other moochers like workers and members of minority races direct it towards a group of which you are a member.
September 8, 2011, 8:53 pmCraig says:
“Black women will soon be marrying white men almost to the exclusion of black men–just watch.”
Good spread the animosity, We black men are tired off these dead-beat divorce-prone, domineering, Bragging, attitudinal women.
No wonder their sons ended up calling them out of their names in Hip-Hop a decade and a half after they selfishly started divorcing their childs fathers in droves in the 70s.
Raffle in two weeks.
September 8, 2011, 9:07 pmToads says:
This article scratches the surface, but misses the mark.
Everything is being blatantly rigged in favor of women, and men are belatedly adjusting accordingly. I mean, why should a man marry at all, if the ‘rule’ is that what he earns is theirs, but what she earns is hers? This exposes that feminism was never about equality, but about getting special treatment for women.
Read ‘The Misandry Bubble’, which is the most comprehensive article on the subject.
September 8, 2011, 9:16 pmToads says:
Feminism is nothing but a scam to secure more freebies for women in the few areas where they lag (making up bogus stats as convenient) while distracting people from the MANY areas where things are rigged in favor of women (the legal system, universities, hiring practices, social bias, etc.).
September 8, 2011, 9:18 pmgospace says:
I stand by my previous statement. It’s not misogyny; it’s just the way it is.
Speaking middle class incomes here (upper class operate by different rules- where a women will put up with all kinds of crap to maintain her lifestyle- example- the entire Kennedy clan) my observation is that in most of the happy marriages I observe, including my own, the husband gives way to the wife on all decisions that aren’t all that important, and remembers that in the end, there really isn’t that much that is important. Makes life easier.
At about the 25 year mark, had a customer overhear it was my anniversary, and asked my secret- and I told him the above. He was on marriage 3 and looked at me really funny, REALLY funny when I finished. When I asked why, he stated that a few weeks earlier he had asked one his friends with a long term marriage the same question- and got the same answer. And told me he had thought the guy was kidding with him and not serious.
At my part time big box job, had a department head of paint who refused to mix paint for men unless their wives were with them and approved. Never got called out for it, either. We didn’t get a lot of paint returns because they were the wrong color or shade…
It’s just the way that it is.
I sometimes state that we should really regard men and women as two different species that require each other to survive- symbiotes in essence. When I say that, I AM kidding.
September 8, 2011, 9:22 pmyggbv97oufd says:
In recent years there has been a realization that college education is not as cost effective as people used to think. Students are graduating with massive amount of debt, jobs are scarce, and education as a investment is less and less profitable.
You have to consider this trend when you try to understand why some people go to college and others don’t. The answer to “who is smarter” or “who has more sense” might not always be what you expect.
September 8, 2011, 9:28 pmChris Travers says:
“Feminism” is pretty diverse. I’d agree with you about certain corners of feminism. However read real critical feminist literature like “Birth as an American Rite of Passage” by Robbie Davis-Floyd. Feminism can be and often is quite amazing. It can also be entirely self-limiting and self-defeating too.
September 8, 2011, 10:52 pmChris Travers says:
If the husband is the chief executive of the family, the wife is the chief operating officer, and she ends up making nearly all important, non-strategic decisions. The husband is at his best when he reserves his feedback for strategic decisions and operates there collaboratively with his wife.
Not a very PC way of looking at it, I know, but generally helpful IME.
September 8, 2011, 10:55 pmCraig says:
“Feminism” is pretty diverse.”
Yet I still have yet to find the branch of Feminism that tells the others to call down with their incessant Misandry. Til then there ALL pretty much the same-TOXIC.
September 8, 2011, 11:02 pmTina says:
No, I’ve seen unattractive black women marry interracially. Also, most men marry average and ugly ducklings. There’s someone for everyone and Banks found that black women’s best market was with non-white and non-black men. The problem mostly is that black women have limited themselves. Attraction is more than looking hot according to cultural standards, it’s also very much on how you relate to other people and black women limited themselves due to a lack of faith and total ignorance in humanity. Everyone doesn’t have the same opinion toward people, and some folks are naturally more open to others. I’ve known this all along.
September 8, 2011, 11:09 pmToads says:
Craig,
Yet I still have yet to find the branch of Feminism that tells the others to call down with their incessant Misandry. Til then there ALL pretty much the same-TOXIC.
I agree. If 99.9% of feminism is to use the government to transfer money from men to women, I don’t particularly care about the 0.1% that may not be misandric.
However, I am heartened to see :
September 8, 2011, 11:51 pm1) More men speaking up against misandry.
2) The tone these men take against misandry getting harder and angrier.
3) A few women starting to distance themselves from ‘feminism’, and not just by going into ‘feminism-lite’ that many Republicans practice, but an outright condemnation of the excesses of ‘feminism’.
Toads says:
Women need to start paying alimony to men.
If the woman gains weight, or if the man is no longer in love, he should be able to leave his wife on a ‘no fault’ basis and get alimony from her.
Fair is fair. Women currently do the above to men all the time, so men should be able to leave their wives and get alimony from them, if the wife gains weight.
September 8, 2011, 11:53 pmGeoff says:
I’ve heard of studies in the past which looked into which races other races found attractive. African women scored really low.
I don’t remember any underlying reasons. But this was more than just white/black.
September 9, 2011, 12:03 amChris Travers says:
Robbie Davis-Floyd seems to spend a lot of time wondering at latent misogyny in old school feminism.
I think the issue is not Misandry, but instead an effort to erase gender differences, while adopting a male-normal societal model. In other words, there may be a claim to hate men, but this is largely in the context of trying to *become* men.
September 9, 2011, 12:15 amChris Travers says:
Attractiveness is to a large extent cultural. It doesn’t necessarily prove anything other than that different races are differently socially situated in America today.
September 9, 2011, 2:30 amToads says:
Chris Travers
I think the issue is not Misandry, but instead an effort to erase gender differences, while adopting a male-normal societal model.
Wrong. Their is a concerted effort in schools and colleges to reclassify basic male nature as a ‘sickness’, and blatant special treatment of women in the judicial system.
Attractiveness is to a large extent cultural.
Dead wrong. Beauty is pretty much unanimous in its appraisal, and even infants respond more positively to attractive faces.
You are reading garbage that you have read from leftist sources, while a quick observation of the real world will show your beliefs to be wrong.
September 9, 2011, 2:56 amMarian Kechlibar says:
Chris Travers:
I doubt it. Any studies that support your idea?
Except for very superficial level (Danish guy in Brazil is more attractive than in Denmark), the whole aggregated experience of me and my friends says the opposite: men and women seem to be remarkably similar in their preferences all over the world.
Which makes sense, if you accept the presumption that human mind is basically a paleolithic construct with a thin layer of culture on it.
September 9, 2011, 3:10 amgospace says:
Agree with this.
What I find most odd about attractiveness and attractiveness studies, is that gorgeous women are the most average. No, really. If the researchers morph a hundred or more faces together, even mixing races and nationalities, and show the morphed picture along with the rest, the morph being of course, everyone averaged out, the morphed picture invariably gets rated as extremely attractive.
So, gorgeous women are average. Kind of boggles the mind, doesn’t it?
Of course, that’s a general rule. YMMV. Some people like exotic and different. Me, I’m partial to real redheads.
In general, most men around the world, of all racial types, indicate a preference towards blonds.
BTW, thinking of the accusations of misandry before, for the record, I like women, both in general and in particular. I also am realist enough to recognize that women aren’t men, and vice-versa. And that difference goes beyond body part assembly.
September 9, 2011, 3:19 amFoobarista says:
Attractiveness is definitely cultural, and correlates highly with how the wealthy appear in a given society. Many cultures, such as those in China and India, historically valued light skin over dark skin because laborers and farmhands got tanned, while aristocrats were rarely in the sun. Also, fat was beautiful for similar reasons.
In the modern world, aristocrat equivalents play golf, “summer” in nice places, and get lots of sun and exercise, while laborers sit in offices and get pasty and fat. So, tanned and fit is attractive, while pasty and fat, or the look of a 16th century aristocrat, is not.
September 9, 2011, 3:38 amMarian Kechlibar says:
Foobarista, on this most superficial level, yes, but the correlation that you mention is actually very strong everywhere, and a practical “player” could just say that power, social position and wealth are extremely strong attractors for females regardless of culture.
September 9, 2011, 6:25 amMarian Kechlibar says:
Gospace, the key difference here is between average and median.
The computer-generated “average” female faces are actually rare in the wild.
September 9, 2011, 6:27 amChris Travers says:
Maybe, but male gender roles are still those that are to be emulated by the old-school feminists. In essence old school feminists have a bit of a love-hate relationship with masculinity. On one hand they want in on it. On the other hand…..
What’s interest is that some anthropologists have documented that in medical textbooks in this country, male diagrams are more often used for health and female diagrams often used to represent disease (Robbie Davis-Floyd addresses this point in her book). One of her main points is that modern obstetrics is *by nature* patriarchal and misogynistic regardless of the gender of the obstetrician. She makes a very good case for this thesis.
If garbage from leftist sources means every ancient and medieval historical source I can find in translation, then guilty as charged. Oh wait, I thought the Left was against those sources. I am confused now.
One of the most interesting sources here is Ptolomy’s Tetrabiblos, where he talks about the astrological influence on the rest of the world and condemns basically all those cultures outside the Greco-Egyptian world as unattractive for some reason or another. Those to the south are burned by the sun and too dark. Those to the north under the bears are too pale. Those to the east are lecherous and unattractive. Those to the west… I forget but he has something to say about them. But the people of Alexandria and Greece? They are beautiful! How could they not be, being from the center of the world and therefore being the perfect synthesis?
There may indeed be some biological universals to human attractiveness, but the specific shape of what we see as attractive is *social* in most details, and certainly those details probably are sufficient to explain interracial attractiveness differences as a whole.
September 9, 2011, 10:25 amToads says:
A blonde Nordic woman is preferred by the greatest variety of races of men. A black woman by the least.
Cultural preferences of thinness vs. voluptuousness are tiny factors when things like symmetry, good teeth, good skin are universally preferred.
An ugly person in any society is seen as ugly in all societies. A perfect 10 in any society is seen as perfect in all societies. A bit of blurriness on what is considered average is a minor factor.
Again, even infants are shown to respond more positively to attractive faces than ugly ones.
September 9, 2011, 4:47 pmToads says:
gospace,
They once took all the fashion models, weighted them by the ratings men gave their faces for attractiveness. They they did a computer composite of the faces, weighting the highly-scored ones higher.
They created a face that was considered what the greatest number of men would give the highest rating to. The face that most people would agree was perfect.
And that face just happened to look like an actual person living today. Christy Turlington.
So it is fair to say that Christy Turlington, at her peak, had the most perfect human female face. She would get the greatest average score across a poll, vs. any other woman.
September 9, 2011, 4:50 pmNorthern Dave says:
I had a friend who wouldn’t go out with anyone until they submitted bank statements showing significant assets…I thought she was nice but homely (somehow she was offended when at the end of a summer of University Lab work we elevated her to “one of the guys” status as a reward for being well behaved – go figure). She ended up marrying a millionaire. While I would never have submitted to such a process (it going against every grain of my romantic Scots soul) obviously someone did LOL :-)
September 9, 2011, 5:15 pmNorthern Dave says:
Not nearly as attractive as Jolie Richardson (who is a pale imitation of my own lovely wife).
September 9, 2011, 5:16 pmNorthern Dave says:
I’ve noticed this with heiresses, mostly. They are often too plain to qualify for the kind of man they want (in their father’s/brother’s social/financial strata). Most of them remain single. I’ve heard this actually caused a change of legislation in Saudi Arabia to allow women to do some investing since a large part of an entire generation of women wouldn’t marry down – and their father’s generation had on average made more money than the contemporary one is – and are consequently finanically well off but will not be reproducing.
September 9, 2011, 5:20 pmNorthern Dave says:
Good points. I found:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393311554/thevolocons0d-20/
an interesting read as the author came to North America without the vested attitudes and was shocked at many aspects of racial relations (eg. apparently some of the black community rates potential mates according to depth of colour tone – the author was quite stunned by some of the comments made to her).
It would be interesting to see if those attitudes have adjusted in general since the book was written or are more or less static.
September 9, 2011, 5:27 pmBarb says:
I know women who think like this –and I don’t get it. Except in some cases, where the woman thinks her husband is mad about what she buys so she wants her own money. But then a husband should have some free spending power without her approval, too –would she agree with that? Or is all the money under her control?
However, as you suggest by your later remarks –a pretty woman is prized by a man no matter what color she is. Halle Berry. A man wouldn’t turn down her interest in him, just because she was black.
September 9, 2011, 8:22 pmChris Travers says:
How do you weigh in the factors of international television programming and exporting culture?
September 10, 2011, 12:24 amHibernia86 says:
Yes, women are more likely to be concerned about seeking a higher status man and men are more likely to be concerned about seeking a most beautiful woman. But if a man divorced his wife because she wasn’t as beautiful as she was before, society would scorn this. Why is is more acceptable for a woman to divorce her husband only because he hasn’t acheived the same social status that she has? This seems equally petty and immature.
September 10, 2011, 10:23 amAdam Maas says:
@Barb: Halle Berry is a particularly bad example to use to argue your point since most of her visible genetic markers are caucasian, aside from her skin tone and lips. She looks more like a product of Scandinavian & Mediterranean parents than African on one side (which is what she is, being of mixed race).
September 10, 2011, 12:25 pmgospace says:
If I were single, I would not approach her for two reasons.
1. I don’t think she’s particularly good looking, which places me in the minority of all men, regardless of race, creed, or color. personal preference.
2. She’s a smoker. Big blechhhh! in my book.
There are considerations besides looks.
I would not have any interest in Kate Beckinsale due to 2.
Of course, I haven’t got a shot at either one, so I can say anything I want.
On the thing about general preference for males wanting blondes, it has to do with health. It is supposedly easier to tell the health of a blonde by hair condition than any other hair color. Lustrous, shiny, full, etc. being indicators of good health.
Modern salons fool the senses….
September 10, 2011, 5:07 pmleo marvin says:
I’d like to believe that’s true, but is it?
September 10, 2011, 5:30 pmFun With Seven Words « Countenance Blog says:
[...] Volokh: The Puzzle of Black Women’s Marriage Patterns [...]
September 10, 2011, 6:45 pmBarb says:
Really? I never heard that about blonde hair. I find that most blondes look a bit dry and bleached as adults. i would think it’s the young women with straight or moderately wavy/curly brown and black hair who have the lustrous, shiny, full hair you describe as indicating good health. My one daughter’s dark brown hair has always been lustrous and healthy looking.
Actually, there are many healthy heads of hair of all colors and textures –but I remember just one blonde with beautiful hair in my youth –and she did use lemon juice to streak it. Well, come to think of it, my daughter-in-law has pretty dark blonde hair –healthy looking.
Little children have the beautiful blonde hair but it changes on them.
September 11, 2011, 8:36 pmBarb says:
I don’t think it’s acceptable in either case. I bet the problem with the educated woman with the less-achieving husband is how he reacts to her greater education and income –and how they view and use their money together –and how she responds to him if she finds she’s doing all the work and he’s not helping much. If she acts “mannish” in the relationship, then they are probably doomed –especially if he’s resentful of her success.
Any couple that applies Christian Golden Rule and Love Chapter attitudes and behaviors to their marriage, respecting each other mutually, generous with the loving, can make it.
Even a wife who loses her attractiveness can retain a husband’s fidelity and love –and hear him say, “You are always beautiful to me!” Especially when she has been his only source of sexual pleasure. When he thinks of sex, he thinks of her and how good she feels–they have shared children, grandchildren, pleasures, memories –and they will hold each other’s hands (and other stuff) under the covers until death do they part.
September 11, 2011, 8:47 pmgospace says:
http://www.jasonsummers.org/why-men-like-large-breasts-and-blonde-bombshells/
http://www.psych.ualberta.ca/~msnyder/vpodcasts/transcripts/ravindran.pdf
These aren’t where I read it first (a long time ago) but they reference the blonde hair thing.
September 12, 2011, 12:56 amBarb says:
And how many blonde bombshells stay married through life –as, admittedly, Dolly Parton has done. Marilyn Monroe was a mess. Being blonde, pretty and amply bosomed doesn’t tend to attract quality men for marriage –it “attracts” all men, perhaps, but not for matrimony.
I always tell the young girls that if you are pretty, you will attract anybody and everybody–and then it’s your job to be discerning and distinguish the quality men from the jerks. There are some good-looking, hunky jerks out there –prisons are filled with them.
September 12, 2011, 8:12 amBarb says:
True enough–BUT you are still called “black” with afr-am heritage –unless you truly look white. .
While blacks can have some extra large facial features, they don’t all. Take Ethiopians. And some folks are beautiful even without dainty features. Take Barbara Streisand!
I think it’s interesting how I am called bigoted and racist because of my views on homosexuals –but the things said here about racial characteristics are REALLY insulting to the black race and the women in particular. And I think our views of beauty really are more subjective than objective. Before I taught an all-black school, they all looked so similar to me –but no more. And I see them as just as varied as in any other race. Go look at photos of African children who aren’t mixed with white –they are beautiful! Watch the Wototo Children’s Choir from East Africa if you get a chance.
September 12, 2011, 11:56 amB2Blondie3000 says:
This question is asked as if black women have the power to ask themselves “will u marry me” but that power belongs to the men. However, our true power which leads up to being asked the question or not is this, black women have lowered their standards and it don’t matter what side of the economic fence you may live on or the side of the tracks. I remember once upon a time alot of men were not getting sex unless they were in a committed relationship with a women, now they have too many yes women just waiting to have man. We need to go back to high standards and expectations. And if the men are not yet stepping up, then don’t give him another moment of your time and certainly don’t allow him the honor of creating offspring with you! Next. And increase your options by dating other than black or down.
October 2, 2011, 12:36 pm