In a piece for The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates examines the decline in the marriage rate among black families and is not bothered it. He says that women today are determining if marriage advances "their interests as much as it once did," and people should consider what women in the past had to endure in order to sustain their marriages.
Again, you see a big shift in 1960. But that's true for both black and white families, and it's a shift that has been oft-commented upon. The change in marriage is not a "black" problem, and I am not even convinced that it is a "problem." People who want us to go back to 1880 should have the intellectual courage to advocate for the entirety of their vision, not just the parts they like. It is not simply a question of "Is marriage good for kids?" It's "Are shotgun marriages good for kids?" "Should marriage be valued at all costs, including enduring abuse or ill-treatment?" "Should women marry men regardless of their employment prospects and their contact with the correctional system?"
My sense is democratic. I think that human beings are pretty logical and generally savvy about identifying their interests. Despite what we've heard, women tend to be human beings and if they are less likely to marry today, it is probable that they have decided that marriage doesn't advance their interests as much as it once did. It's worth noting that it is not simply women with children who aren't marrying, but women period. Indeed, black women today who are unmarried are having fewer kids than at any point in our recorded history. Mouthing platitudes about culture is fun if you want to be right. But if you really want to know, it's a little harder.
Read Ta-Nehisi Coates' entire piece at The Atlantic.
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