Commitment, Partnership, and Family: African American Men's Concepts of Marriage and Meaning

There has been increased interest in African American family structure since the 1960s when demographers began noticing significant declines in marriage rates among African American adults. To this end, researchers have documented various individual and structural factors facilitating these declines. Despite the contributions of these studies, very few of them have collected in-depth, nuanced data directly from African American men and even fewer have collected such data from men from a variety of economic backgrounds. To fill this gap in the literature, the current study analyzes qualitative interview data from 33 African American men focused on their conceptualizations of marriage, the meaning they ascribe to it, and the life experiences that have shaped their perspectives. The findings revealed that counter to many studies of African American men and marriage, the majority of our participants desire to be married and can articulate the benefits they derive from it.