Black Fathers in Contemporary American Society: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Strategies for Change

3. THE MARRIAGE MYSTERY: MARRIAGE, ASSETS, AND THE EXPECTATIONS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FAMILIES

45 Chapter 3 THE MARRIAGE MYSTERY: MARRIAGE, ASSETS, AND THE EXPECTATIONS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FAMILIES RONALD B. MINCY AND HILLARD POUNCY Many people have noted that the out-of-wedlock birth rate of African Americans, 70 percent, is much higher than the rates for whites and Latinos (20 percent and 40 percent, respectively). This difference is so great that some—including some contributors to this volume—ask whether black fathers are necessary. In many cases, lowincome black fathers themselves behave as if they did not believe they were necessary (Anderson 1999; Sullivan 1985, 1993). Such feelings seem to be less prevalent among their low-income white and Hispanic peers. In explaining high unwed birth rates within the African American community, some black fathers tell ethnographers that they cannot afford to “play house”—that is, operate as responsible fathers. Given the manner in which some black mothers behave, several studies have concluded that the mothers of these men’s children also believe that black fathers are not necessary to their households (Wilson 1996, chapter 5; Patterson 1998; Edin 2000). Social policy in the United States functions as though policy makers, too, have concluded that black fathers may not be necessary. The welfare system is mainly geared to two types of families, neither of which involves fathers: those formed by divorce or widowhood, and those formed through out-of-wedlock pregnancy. The government laments high rates of unwed pregnancies but nonetheless provides support for single mothers and their children. In this way, the state seems to endorse the decision to keep fathers out. If behavior and policy speak loudly, then there is good reason to ask whether they are expressing the right views. In response to high out-of-wedlock birth rates, fatherhood organizations led by persons of color—such as the National Center for Strategic Nonprofit Planning and Community Leadership and the 46 BLACK FATHERS IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN SOCIETY Center for Fathers, Families, and Public Policy—implicitly and sometimes explicitly suggest either that marriage is an unrealistic policy goal for the African American community or that marriage is not essential to effective fatherhood (Mincy 2001, 2002). Their positions contrast with those taken by the Institute of American Values, whose view is that fatherhood is most effective inside marriage (Gallagher 1999; Mincy and Pouncy 2001). It turns out that African Americans have a comparative advantage in creating wealth through marriage. Specifically, marriage significantly improves the economic well-being of black men. If black fathers and black parents acted in accord with the contributions marriage makes to their well-being, they would be the group most committed to the institution of marriage. Paradoxically, however, if practitioners serving African American fathers were to shift their positions and advocate marriage to their clients, the consequences could be fatal to their credibility and effectiveness, for cultural conditions and the practices of the nation’s social service agencies have neutralized their ability to advocate marriage (Mincy and Pouncy 2001; Mincy 2002). In this chapter we review the sources and studies on which the discussion of marriage is based; outline the magnitude of the problem; review the evidence that marriage promotes child well-being; summarize the current state of the institution in the black community and the meaning of these trends for black children; and examine the costs and benefits of marriage for adults and the meaning of these data for African American wealth creation. Last, we make some suggestions as to how the context in which practitioners have to operate can be changed and what steps they can take even under present circumstances to exploit the advantages marriage offers fathers, their children , and their families. MARRIAGE AND CHILD WELL-BEING Does marriage promote child well-being? Black fatherhood groups believe that the answer to this question is not so clear because studies of the effects of marriage on child well-being compare children in married households only with their counterparts in divorced or separated households. They do not compare children who begin life in nonmarried households, the modal formation among African Americans, with their counterparts who later experienced life in a married household . A married household formed after an out-of-wedlock birth can be more troubled than an otherwise equivalent single-parent house- hold (Edin 2000). In addition, single-parent households begun through an out-of-wedlock birth frequently evolve into households run by mature, competent, successful mothers (Stack 1974...