Intro to Sociology
IS Marriage In The Black Community Extinct?
Thomas Berryman
June 30, 2014 In many cases the actual turn out from marriage in today’s society is different from earlier times. Psychology Today (2014) describes marriage as the process by which two people who love each other make their relationship public, official, and permanent. It is joining of two people in a bond that putatively lasts until death (http://www.psychologytoday.com). Though the idea of marriage is the same, the outcome of many marriages have ended by divorce instead of death. Studies have shown many possible factors that may have lead to this problem, and who is a large part of the population that divorce involves. Studies have shown that Blacks are a large part of the population. According to http://www.demographic-research.org/default.htm(2003), 32 percent of African American couples end with a divorce compared to the 21 percent compared of white couples and the 22 percent of Hispanic couples. A more disturbing suggestion for the black community is that African Americans are more likely to get a divorce and less likely to get married. According to studies done by Dr. R. Kelly Raley and Dr. Larry Bumpass (2003),“70 percent of Black women’s first marriages end in divorce.” Though age and income are factors that affect all races when it comes to marriage, they have a more profound affect on Black couples. Children born in the Black community have a 70 percent chance of being born to an unmarried couple. According to Dr. Pamela Thompson an Atlanta psychologist, Black couples don’t have a fighting chance when it comes to marriage. She states this because females in many cases earn more money than her male counterpart, and that throws off the role of the male being the head of the