An Exploratory Study of the Meaning of Marriage for African Americans

Curran, Melissa A.; Utley, Ebony A.; Muraco, Joel A.

doi:10.1080/01494929.2010.528314

Cited by 25 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…In addition, researchers focused on how young adults are similar in terms of marital meaning to one another (Hall, 2006). Further, in both samples of young adults and other individuals, marital meaning has been examined in terms of demographic characteristics, including age (Hall, 2006), ethnicity (Curran, Utley, & Muraco, 2010), and gender (Nock, 1998;Waller & McLanahan, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Associations Between Marital Meaning and Reasons to Delay Marriage for Young Adults in Romantic Relationships

Muraco

Curran

2012

Marriage & Family Review

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Using symbolic interactionism we developed an open-ended question to examine marital meaning for young adults (N ¼ 111). Themes to emerge were love and commitment. Participants were placed into clusters: contractual (low love, high commitment), optimisticrealistic (high love, high commitment), romanticizing (high love, low commitment), and casual (low love, low commitment). We examined marital meaning and associations with reasons to delay marriage, conceptualized as relational doubts and financial concerns. Optimistic-realistic and casual individuals reported fewer relational doubts than contractual individuals. Longer relationship length was associated with fewer financial concerns for optimisticrealistic individuals when compared with all others. We conclude that although love and commitment are central to marital meaning, for some, specific pairings of these themes have implications in understanding reasons young adults delay marrying.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Associations Between Marital Meaning and Reasons to Delay Marriage for Young Adults in Romantic Relationships

Muraco

Curran

2012

Marriage & Family Review

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“…Additionally, the sample reflected a somewhat homogenous group in that a majority was European American, educated, and employed. Studies on the meaning of marriage have been conducted for more diverse groups (e.g., Curran, Utley, & Muraco, 2010), although to our knowledge, information about infidelity and divorce expectations has not previously been reported.…”

Section: Strengths and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Newlywed Women's Marital Expectations: Lifelong Monogamy?

Campbell

Wright

Flores

2012

Journal of Divorce & Remarriage

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“…Second, for the majority of African American young adults, traditional middle-class norms of marriage and family formation remain important goals (Edin and Nelson 2013; Wood, Avellar, and Goesling 2008), although perhaps less firmly entrenched by African American men than women (Anderson 1999; South 1993). These “positive attitudes toward marriage, coupled with a decrease in the number of African American marriages, suggests that there may be something unique as to how African Americans define the institution of marriage” (Curran, Utley, and Muraco 2010:347). If the meaning of marriage is rooted in culture (i.e., norms and expectations), African American marriages may mean something different from marriages among other groups (Orbuch and Fine 2003).…”

Section: Theorizing Desistance From Crimementioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the Mechanisms of Desistance at the Intersection of Race, Gender, and Neighborhood Context

Doherty

Bersani

2016

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency

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Objectives This study tests theorized mechanisms of desistance, and whether the process of desistance is conditioned by social structural position. Methods We investigate how marriage promotes desistance from crime among urban African American males raised in the Woodlawn community, a disadvantaged neighborhood in Chicago. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we test the resiliency of the marriage effect by observing offending trajectories following marital dissolution; is the marriage effect conditional upon staying married, indicating situational effects? or does the effect persist when marriage is taken away, indicating enduring effects? Further, we test if the process of desistance is conditional upon contextual disadvantage. Results While initial findings show an increase in violent and property offending upon divorce, further analysis shows evidence that this effect differs by neighborhood structural context; the increase in offending upon divorce is apparent only for African American men who experience continued disadvantage across the life course. Those who moved to relatively more advantaged areas by adulthood show no increase in offending upon marital dissolution. Conclusions How marriage matters for desistance is partially influenced by social structural position; context matters. These findings invigorate criminological research on the mechanisms driving the marriage effect and provide insight into the interactive nature of person and context.

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An Exploratory Study of the Meaning of Marriage for African Americans

Cited by 25 publications

References 44 publications

Associations Between Marital Meaning and Reasons to Delay Marriage for Young Adults in Romantic Relationships

Associations Between Marital Meaning and Reasons to Delay Marriage for Young Adults in Romantic Relationships

Newlywed Women's Marital Expectations: Lifelong Monogamy?

Understanding the Mechanisms of Desistance at the Intersection of Race, Gender, and Neighborhood Context

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