Black Marriage Through the Prism of Gender,Race,and Class

Abstract

Marriage continues to be a major life goal in the United States. The grim news about the state of Black heterosexual marriage can be found in headlines that bemoan the lack of marriageable Black men, and statistical studies that routinely show Black marriages are difficult to maintain. We argue that the stresses on Black marriages are best understood by looking at them through a prism that highlights the intersection of gender and race. We show that the role of Black wife is particularly challenging. When people reason from an unquestioned White model of marriage and relationships, they often suggest that there is something pathological about the marital patterns of Blacks. Yet using the race/gender prism, we construct an argument that these patterns are pioneering and call into question the logic of the White middle-class model of intimate relationships between women and men.

Keywords

black marriage gender binary race/gender prism Black marital patterns

Marriage continues to be a major life goal in the United States. Images of fancy weddings and the promise of fairy tale endings abound. Yet, there is a grim counterpoint in the news about the state of Black heterosexual marriage. Headlines bemoan the lack of marriageable Black men, and commentators heap steady criticism on unwed Black mothers. Statistical studies routinely show that Black marriages are difficult to maintain (e.g., Broman, 2005; Cherlin, 1998; Dillaway & Broman, 2001; Harknett & McLanahan, 2004; LaPierre & Hill, 2013).

We contend that the stressors on Black marriages are best understood by looking at them through a prism that highlights the intersection of gender and race. Gender organizes the institution of heterosexual marriage, as it does social life, by placing women and men in unequal relationship to one another (Risman, 1998, 2004). The gender binary, or the notion that women and men are opposites, legitimizes this cultural arrangement (Lorber, 2000). Thus, the “his” and “her” marriages first discussed by Jesse Bernard (1974) are still present, and the socially constructed role of wife is more difficult than the role of husband (Loscocco & Walzer, 2013). Yet, the gendered schemas that create and perpetuate unequal marital roles are also racialized. For Black women who enact the role of wife in a society organized around White advantage, the performance of that role is more difficult.

Much of the writings about the challenges of marriage and the role of wife have been single lens studies about White (middle-class) women (e.g., Kingston, 2006; Maushart, 2001), even though they are not always marked as such. Many exemplary empirical studies on marriage use White or mostly White samples (e.g., Blaisure & Allen, 1995; Dryden, 1999; Erickson, 2005; Strazdins & Broom, 2004). The processes they document are often discussed as generic processes (e.g., Stevens, Kiger, & Riley, 2001).

Similarly, the emphasis on the oppression of Black men in discussions of marriage markets and family troubles renders Black women invisible, or worse—responsible (Collins, 2005; White, 2008). In the post-civil rights era, when it comes to discussing marriage, sexism seems to be a non-issue or “a secondary concern that is best addressed when the more pressing problem of racism has been solved” (Collins, 2005, p. 5). Placing the blame for the state of Black marriage on the very people who are given the difficult task of protecting it from a variety of external assaults that stem from structured racism (Chaney, 2010) is not just unfair. It also diverts attention from the real “culprit,” the patriarchal (and racist) institution of marriage (cf. White, 2008).

We use an intersectional approach in this narrative, recognizing that gender and race/ethnicity are always experienced simultaneously within an individual (Collins, 1993; Crenshaw, 1993; Settles, 2006). Gender and race are also intertwined within social institutions such as marriage, and the shared cultural beliefs, or schema, which define the parameters of interpersonal relationships within the institution (e.g., Ridgeway, 2011; Ridgeway & Kricheli-Katz, 2013). It is particularly important to use intersectional approaches when analyzing Black women’s lives because of the complex political and social context in which they live. According to Crenshaw (1993, 1995), Black women occupy a lower social status than both White women and Black men. Black women are not represented in cultural prototypes of “woman” or “black,” rendering them invisible (Collins, 1990; Crenshaw, 1993; Hooks, 1989). Thus, historians tended to overlook how gender affected the domestic lives of Black women, because they focused either on the history of African Americans or that of women (Harley, 1990). As Bell (2004) argues, when it comes to major concerns in Black communities, sexism takes a back seat to racism. She notes that “the Black Men’s Club” is “a not too distant cousin of the White Men’s Club.” The role of Black wife is an example of intersecting identity categories which holds Black women accountable to an ideal crafted for White women, and requires them to cope with Black men who wrestle with hegemonic definitions of masculinity (Connell, 1987; Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; S. A. Hill, 2004).

By emphasizing the whiteness of the institution of marriage, we recast analysis of Black marriages and women’s roles in them. When people reason from an unquestioned White model of marriage and relationships, they often end up suggesting that there is something pathological about the marital patterns of Blacks. Yet using the race/gender prism, it is just as easy to construct an argument that these patterns are logical and pioneering (D. L. Franklin, 1997; R. M. Franklin, 2007; Landry, 2000), and to call into question the White middle-class model of intimate relationships between women and men. In fact, there is an (expanding) literature that establishes various strengths of Black marriages (e.g., Chaney, 2010; R. M. Franklin, 2007; R. Hill, 1972; Littlejohn-Blake & Darling, 1993; Marks, Swanson, Nesteruk, & Hopkins-Williams, 2006; Phillips, Wilmoth, & Marks, 2012; Stanik & Bryant, 2012).

This is important because inequality results from the process of defining difference as deficit (Schwalbe et al., 2000). Even in exceptional studies that take the standpoint of marginalized groups and show that their difference from the dominant ideal is reasonable and actually empowering (e.g., Edin & Kefalas, 2005; Elliott, Powell, & Brenton, 2013), the starting point seems to be that the dominant ideal is a reasonable standard against which the behavior or attitudes of “the other” should be compared (Choo & Ferree, 2010). Of course, there is always a difference between analytic thinking about reimagining dominant ideals (e.g., Lorber, 2000) and the realities of people’s lives in the institutions we have got. Our analysis shines the spotlight on Black wives, living at the intersection of sexism and racism in an institution that embodies the culture’s racism and sexism. To fully understand Black marriage, one must analyze the role of Black wife and how it is affected by gendered racism. This reframes the discussion of marriage troubles as socially structured and emergent, rather than emanating from individual traits (e.g., Lorber, 2000; Loscocco & Walzer, 2013; Risman, 1987).

In the next section, we show the importance of using an intersectional theoretical perspective to examine how race and gender combine to impact Black married women and their relationships with their husbands. Then, we present key dimensions of the difficulties faced by Black wives, including living up to an unrealistic ideal, emotion and impression management, tending the relationship and propping up their men. We use two key institutions—the church and the media—to show how the cultural schema that put undue burden on Black wives are maintained. We conclude with implications for analyzing heterosexual marriage and the unique roles of Black wives.

The Social Institution of Marriage

In general, everything the imagined traditional family ideal is thought to be, African American families are not.

—Patricia Hill Collins (1990, p. 53)

Contrary to what one might think from listening to talk radio or political pundits, there is nothing “sacred” about the contours of marriage. Instead, as social scientists have established, marriage has been socially constructed in response to particular sociohistorical circumstances (e.g., Bernard, 1974; Coontz, 1992; Risman, 1998). Those with access to wealth and power have had the biggest role in shaping the norms and values that underlie institutions such as marriage (Collins, 1990; Schwalbe et al., 2000). The result is that marriage reproduces gender inequality, as feminist analysts have established (Collins, 1990; Lorber, 1995; Risman, 1998; Thorne & Yalom, 1992). The core component of the institution of heterosexual marriage is the gender binary. Women and men, culturally constructed as “opposites,” are supposed to combine their different strengths and interests to create satisfying relationships and stable families. Yet in the social construction of “woman” and “man,” the qualities and activities associated with women are de-valued, while those associated with men are exalted. This basic process creates marriage as a much better arrangement for men than for women (Bernard, 1982; Kingston, 2006; Loscocco & Walzer, 2013; Maushart, 2001).

Yet in the United States, the social construction of this gendered institution has also been highly racialized, though typically unmarked as such. The elite groups with the power to control definitions of marriage were, it may seem to go without saying, not just men, but White men. The “authority to define societal values” associated with marriage “is a major expression of upper class white male power” (Collins, 1990, p. 76).

Thus, the roles of husband and wife that were created, and the values and laws that propped them up, were predicated on whiteness, and, to some extent, a middle- or upper-class social position. Whiteness was such a powerful organizing force that working-class Whites sought to emulate their middle- and upper-class counterparts, often at great sacrifice, in their search to affirm their racial position. Landry (2000) shows, for example, that White immigrant women would send their children away or take in borders, so that they could remain in the home.

As historians (e.g., Allen, 1994; Barrett & Roediger, 1996; Ignatiev, 1996; Roediger, 2005; Vellon, 2014) have shown, European immigrants to the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries worked hard to prove their “whiteness,” as they learned quickly that whiteness brought many advantages. European immigrant groups who began with shaky claims to whiteness nevertheless fought for, and succeeded in claiming, whiteness largely because the economic system of slavery, and the cultural apparatus that justified it, placed Blacks firmly at the bottom of the racial hierarchy. Thus, the new immigrants had a group from which to distinguish themselves (Loscocco, 2009).

With industrialization, the gender binary presents itself in the physical separation between women and men into separate spheres of activity, sharpening the notion of women and men as opposites. Women are relegated to the now de-valued private, domestic sphere, while men head off to the public sphere of paid work. The “cult of domesticity” is central to making sense of this division of labor by sex. Women are seen as naturally suited for hearth and home, and men for the rough and tumble of paid work. Yet the cult of domesticity, or the definition of true womanhood, is in fact the cult of White domesticity. Before they were wrenched from their homelands by U.S. captors, women in African societies apparently combined work and family without seeing much conflict between the two (Collins, 2009). African life was characterized by “neutrality in gender roles,” and the independence and pride of African American women can be traced back to Africa (Burgess, 1994). Slavery altered what work and family roles look like; motherhood and wifehood were not in the realm of possibility for enslaved women, or even most emancipated ones. The institution of slavery certainly did not allow Black women to focus on tending home and hearth for their own families, even though there is ample historical evidence of strong emotional bonds between slave families (D. L. Franklin, 1997; Gutman, 1975). Gutman presents especially compelling evidence from the few letters that historians have uncovered. Husbands and wives, torn apart through the slave trade, express longing to see each other again and clearly hold each other deeply, desperately, in their hearts and thoughts. The separate spheres model, and the cult of domesticity that supported it, were never meant for Black women, because the economic system of slavery required that they be seen as less than human, as something other than “woman” (D. L. Franklin, 1997; S. A. Hill, 2001; Mullings, 1997). Clearly, men could not fulfill normative marital roles either, as they were denied the most basic resources to provide for their kin. The abolition of slavery did little to alter this basic situation. The United States has a long history of actively denying Black men and women the economic opportunities required to live out the separate spheres model of marriage and family (Dill, 1988; D. L. Franklin, 1997; Harley, 1990). Black women continued to tend the homes and hearths of White families at the expense of their own; domestic service was one of the few occupations open to them for decades after slavery was abolished (Branch, 2011). Marriage is one of the central arenas in which men prove their manhood, demonstrating to the world and to themselves that they are “real men.” Yet, deep-seated racial oppression meant that it was extremely difficult for Black men to achieve economic success and accumulate wealth to pass on.

This history is the backdrop against which modern Black marriages and families are formed. Systematic exclusion from the basic building blocks for a “typical” or “healthy” marriage means that Black marriages could never quite measure up. Yet, Black women’s “failure” to conform to “true womanhood” (Collins, 1990; Landry, 2000) and Black men’s difficulties making a go of it in the sphere of paid work are then identified as the source of “problems” in Black families. Black men are depicted as either less able or less willing to achieve traditional gender ideology. The media suggest that a reversed or deviant gender ideology impedes Black advancement. Black communities are depicted as comprised of “weak” men and women who are “too strong” (Collins, 2005, p. 182). As White (2008) puts it, “single Black mothers and their evil twin sisters—unsympathetic, high achieving single professional Black women—are mostly to blame for Black men’s struggles with everything from underemployment to health problems . . .” (p. xv). By “locating the source of cultural differences between African Americans and other groups in flawed gender relations, White elites create a powerful foundation for U.S. racism” (Collins, 1990, p. 85). This is a common component of systems of inequality (Schwalbe et al., 2000). Identity codes such as the cult of true (White) womanhood are created to exclude. The differences in Black marriages and relationships that may come from adaptive or dissident behavior are often viewed as evidence that Blacks deserve to be in the subordinate position in the race hierarchy.

Thus, any differences between Black and White marriages, or between Black marriages and the normative ideal, mark Blacks as culturally deficient. Throughout U.S. history, many Black couples have idealized and embraced the traditional White separate spheres model of marriage that was often just out of reach (S. A. Hill, 2004). Yet, the stability of the White middle-class nuclear family came from rigid, non-egalitarian scripts for “wife” and “husband.” In contrast, Black middle-class women and men pioneered the dual earner family, as Landry (2000) shows. Drawing partly from their cultural traditions, and cast outside the bounds of “true womanhood,” Black women created—and lived—a version of womanhood that combined the private and public spheres, normalized women’s presence in the world of paid work, and encouraged Black men to join them in the domestic sphere. With concomitant changes in social structure and dominant ideologies, this could have presaged a new model of marriage. Yet, the cultural power of the gender binary and the racist society in which it plays out are formidable limiting factors.

In fact, it is common, even among Black leaders, to see the solution to “marriage problems” as a question of adapting to White middle-class norms. The reasoning is that if Blacks would accept traditional gender ideology and strive to develop a politics of respectability which strengthens “weak” Black men, they would combat racism and reverse Black poverty (Collins, 2005). Of course with marriage upheld by the gender binary, this strategy requires weakening strong Black women. The message to Black women is that their assertiveness is holding back Blacks, especially men (e.g., S. A. Hill, 2001). It de-values a history of Black female financial independence from men and the constant, self-sacrificing economic and emotional contributions that women have made to Black families (Collins, 2005; D. L. Franklin, 1997; Harley, 2002; S. A. Hill, 2004). This message also moves analysis away from the structural causes of Black social problems. An unintended consequence is that Black women’s dominance and strength are interpreted by both Blacks and Whites as pathological, contributing to the oppression of Black women (Collins, 2005; Spillers, 2000). Another outcome is a failure to show the value and the potential lessons that can be learned from appreciating the pioneering quality of Black relationships.

Dimensions of Black Women’s Difficulties in Marriage

Families are idealized as a haven (which assumes separate spheres); bonds of love and caring keep people together (Collins, 1990). Yet, Black wives perform their roles in marriages that are not enough of a haven in a very heartless world. Christopher Lasch was probably writing about middle-class Whites when he coined this popular image of the family as a refuge.

Contemporary depictions of Black women as far from the normative conception of woman have their origins in slavery and implications for their marriages today. After all, White middle- and upper-middle-class Americans’ “mainstream culture, with all its confusion and contradictions, provides the backdrop against which most other Americans define their understandings of love” (Swidler, 2003, p. 3). Jesse Bernard’s (1982) well-known conceptualization of “two marriages” that coexist in the context of one emphasized that “Her” marriage was quite different from “His.” Decades later, writers such as Susan Maushart lambast the role of “wife” as de-valued, overwhelming and degrading. As we noted above, most of this type of discussion centers on a White middle-class “default” family. Maushart asks why so many women collude with an institution that asks so much from them. Perhaps White women do so partly because their racial group membership ties them to powerful men. As Hurtado (1989) notes, White women gain advantages from joining their future to those of White men, but women of color do not have access to those White men or derive similar levels of benefit from men of color. Disproportionate numbers of Black women will have no marriage at all. As Ridgeway and Kricheli-Katz (2013) suggest, Black women’s failure to live up to dominant (White) femininity makes them less marriageable than White and Asian women, and also Black men. They cite Galinsky, Hall, and Cuddy (2013) who show that in 2000, 73% of marriages between Blacks and Whites were between Black men and White women; and 86% of Black Asian marriages were between Black men and Asian women. While many Black women will choose to remain single, such choices are constrained by the realities of their positions as subordinates in two key axes of the matrix of domination (Collins, 1990). Black women who remain single are judged, and judge themselves, harshly, as we will see below.

When Black women and men marry, they are at greater risk of divorce (Cherlin, 1992). Bramlett and Mosher’s (2001) study of women 15 to 44 years of age (in 1995) showed that 47% of the Black women’s first marriages ended within 10 years compared to 34% for Latinas, 32% for (non-Latina) Whites, and 20% for Asians (non-Latina). Marital happiness and satisfaction tend to be lower among Blacks than among Whites (Adelmann, Chadwick, & Baerger, 1996; Broman, 1993; Bryant, Taylor, Lincoln, Chatters, & Jackson, 2008; LaPierre & Hill, 2013; Oggins, Veroff, & Holmberg, 1993). LaPierre and Hill (2013) found that Black married couples had more frequent disagreements than White couples concerning many aspects of marriage such as sex, having another child, and money. Broman’s (2005) analysis of the American Changing Lives Survey showed that Blacks were significantly less likely “to feel loved by their spouses” (pp. 437-438). Research shows that the Black women get less from marriage than Black men do (e.g., Blackman, Clayton, Glenn, Malone-Colon, & Roberts, 2005; Bryant et al., 2008; Dillaway & Broman, 2001; LaPierre & Hill, 2013). Goodwin (2003) asked 247 women in the third year of marriage: Who do you feel benefits most from the relationship? Black wives reported significantly lower marital well-being than White wives did and also said that they benefit less than their husbands from the marriage. In a study of Black and White couples, LaPierre and Hill (2013) found that Black wives were less satisfied with the fairness in their marriages than White wives. The findings also indicate that highly educated wives have lower levels of marital happiness than less educated wives of the same race and are more likely to see the division of housework and child care as unfair.

It is important to recognize variability among Black Americans; there are differences in predictors of marital difficulties and the reactions to that difficulty. This story has not been told much, because of the focus on comparing Blacks to Whites, and seeing where Blacks fall short of the (White) cultural ideal. But as Bryant and colleagues establish, Black marriages, like all marriages, are embedded in immediate contexts as well as larger cultural schemas. Thus, variables such as degree of financial strain and experience of discrimination partly explain why some Black marriages survive while others falter (Bryant et al., 2010).

Household and Family Labor

One of the pioneering qualities of African American marriage is the relatively egalitarian division of household labor (S. A. Hill, 2002; John & Shelton, 1997; Kane, 2000). This is an important source of strength in Black marriages that is often overlooked by the “deficit perspective” (Connor & White, 2006, p. 172) on Black marriages and families. Of course even in Black marriages, wives do more of the household labor than their husbands do (Hossain & Roopnarine, 1993; John & Shelton, 1997).

“Household labor” is augmented and intensified in many Black families because extended networks of kin and community have played an important role in Black life. As historian Sharon Harley (1990) points out, “key elements of core black culture” have always been sharing with and giving to those less fortunate (p. 348). Faced with widespread and intense economic and racial oppression, Black families survived in part by caring for one another well beyond the walls of the nuclear family unit. Although the seeds for such patterns were planted in the earliest days of racial oppression, they are still played out today (R. M. Franklin, 2007). Because the United States de-emphasizes what other societies view as basic rights—such as healthcare and family support—and because racial oppression and its legacy continues, caring for those beyond immediate family is particularly important in Black communities. This is why an account of “greedy marriages” that caught the attention of the press did not apply as neatly to Black marriages. For example, Black wives were more likely to help friends than White wives (Gerstel & Sarkisian, 2006).

A study of happy and lasting Black marriages suggests that embeddedness in extended networks is a source of stress for the couples. Joint interviews with husbands and wives yielded a picture of couples caring for aging parents and non-biological children, in addition to their biological children. The couples cite giving out “needed support to family, extended family, fictive kin, or acquaintances as a constant stressor on their marriage” (Marks et al., 2006, p. 176). In fact, the requests for help were so common—whether folks literally or just figuratively showed up at a couple’s doorstep—that the researchers came to refer to these requests as “knocks of need” (Marks, Dollahite, & Baumgartner, 2010; Marks et al., 2008; Marks et al., 2006). The couples in the study were all at least high school educated and gainfully employed. As the authors note, these couples are relatively well off in communities where jobs are hard to find and thus served “as weight-bearing arches of their broader communities” in addition to tending their own family. Because the participants in the study are all in self-reported happy marriages and also because they were interviewed together, the authors give the impression that the couple does this work together. It would be interesting and important to know whether men share equally in this added family work, and whether that contributes to marital happiness as other studies suggest it should (Cooke, 2006). It seems more likely that the strong emphasis on caretaking among Blacks falls disproportionately on women, given that they are defined as both nurturing and strong (Abrams, Maxwell, Pope, & Belgrave, 2014).

The cultural nature of Black family characteristics such as providing assistance to family members, absorbing others into the household, or creating kin-structured networks is shown because these traits transcend class boundaries. In Pattillo-McCoy’s (1999) study of a Black middle-class neighborhood in Chicago, which she calls Groveland, there were a number of young adults who continued to live at home with their parents. In some cases, the adult children of Groveland moved home after experiencing a major financial setback, such as the loss of a job or home. Whenever this occurred, adult children returned with their spouses and children to live with their parents. Many middle-class couples spoke candidly with Pattillo about the stressors they experienced when they found themselves in multigenerational households. Typically, they discussed the challenges associated with being a parent to their adult child and also being a grandparent. While they were able to provide emotional and financial support for their adult children, these couples were ambivalent about functioning in this particular social role.

In addition, there were several middle-class couples in Groveland who informally adopted children of relatives and friends and took care of them when their parents were unable to provide for their needs. In many cases, adult children who were addicted to either alcohol or drugs asked their parents to become the primary caregivers for their grandchildren (Patillo-McCoy, 1999, p. 59).

Given that individualism has been identified as a major stress on American marriage (Cherlin, 2004, p. 852; 2009), Blacks’ embeddedness in webs of kin and kin-like relationships should be heralded as a particular strength and a source of pride. Yet, it is more typically viewed in negative terms, as something deviant, and it is possible that the stress on marriages may counterbalance the benefits. This is especially likely to be true in or near poor communities where married couples are not as common. Yet to ignore this strength of African American communities and its potential to support marriages under better economic conditions reinforces dominant White images of marriage and family.

Emotion Management, Emotional Labor

When it comes to the division of emotional labor in marriages, Black women are apt to do considerably more of it than their husbands do, as is true for their White counterparts (Duncombe & Marsden, 1995; Strazdins & Broom, 2004; Thompson & Walker, 1989). Women are defined by society as in touch with their feelings and emotionally savvy. In direct (socially constructed) contrast, men are defined as emotionally inept, unable to deal with their own or others’ emotions. In heterosexual marriages, this leaves most women with responsibility for the emotional quality of the marriage, and even for helping the man to understand both her emotional responses and his own (Potuchek, 1997). Because Black men are stereotyped as having deviant hypermasculinity, they are perhaps even more likely than their White counterparts to hide emotions behind “cool poses” and other masks (Majors & Mancini Billson, 1992). Duncombe and Marsden (1995) argue that there are two likely gender differences in emotional behavior in (White) heterosexual couples: that women value intimate emotion more than men do and that the women have greater ability than men to be emotionally close. Again we have every reason to expect this to be the case in Black couples as well.

Thus, Black women likely do all the emotion management that White women do, including making sure that the relationship thrives. This may include overlooking behavior that undermines women’s happiness. Black women are taught to accept men’s tendencies to date multiple women, acts of infidelity, and other negative behavior as “boys being boys” (Collins, 2005).

Everyday racism is a source of stress that has to be emotionally managed somehow as well. If one faces small slights and big insults or worse, what happens when you retreat to the marital haven? How do wives, who are tasked with provided emotional support, manage to give it when they and their husbands are up against this source of tension and pressure every day? This is a major potential stressor for Black marriages (Hopson & Hopson, 1995), because even if something is not a direct result of racial bias, one can never be sure. One has to stop and evaluate whether what just happened was the product of racism and it can make you “crazy sometimes” (Pitts, 2007).

Tending the Family Image

Edwards (2004) argues that “managing family identity encompasses a range of mental, emotional and instrumental tasks done to develop and present a particular characterization of one’s family” (p. 516). It involves “anticipatory management”—thinking ahead about what other people might expect—minimizing the negative consequences of social interaction on the family. She began her research with an interest in physical household labor but she soon discovered that the emotional piece of their family work was really important to these women. The “settled women” who Edwards studied make a big emotional investment in their husbands and kids. They “do gender” by managing the family image.

Black women also make vital contributions to keeping families together by teaching children how to navigate a racist world (Davis, 1981). As S. A. Hill (2001, 2002) points out, there are important class differences in how, and how much, parents try to prepare their children for the realities of racism. Still, it is an extra task that Black families face. While husbands surely participate in this task as well, it would not be surprising to find that this task, like so many others that involve the care of children, falls disproportionately to women.

Race Loyalty

Some Blacks accept the culturally dominant thesis that Black men’s and women’s failure to achieve complementary gender norms adequately explains a range of social problems (Collins, 2005). Those who advocate this position suggest that fixing Black heterosexual relationships and families is the solution to reinforcing a more traditional gender binary. This suggestion has deep historical roots. Although “(a)ll women were expected to defer to men,” for Black women deference was a racial imperative. Slavery and racism sought the emasculation of Black men. Black people sought to counter such an effect. Part of the responsibility of Black men was to “act like a man” and part of the responsibility of Black women was “to encourage and support the manhood of our men . . . never intimidate him with her knowledge or common sense, let him feel stable and dominant” (Horton, 1986, p. 70).

As we noted earlier, if Black men need to be stronger, then Black women need to be weaker (because of the gender binary and its intersection with racism). Thus, Black women are counseled to let Black men lead, as we will elaborate further on (Harvey, 2009; Spillers, 2000). Many women struggle with this request. One woman interviewed for the African American Voices Project said, “In relationships I am forced to be much more submissive and appear less capable to keep the peace” (Jones & Shorter-Gooden, 2003, p. 214). Another woman, divorced, found that “it was painful to give myself up” during marriage (p. 216). These women know that lifting up their men is perceived as lifting up their larger community, but it is an awful lot ask of them. In her essay “Black Man, My Man, Listen!” Gail Stokes (1970/2003) puts it this way:

I have accepted you, taken you back. Embraced you, empathized with your pitiful plight because I know how they have used and abused you. I have tried to cease my lamentations and taking your faults, your shortcomings in stride, made you a part of me . . . I eagerly and happily feed you from the plate of motivation knowing that it is difficult for you to help yourself. But, then at times my arms grow weary as I work harder straining myself in order to build you up. (pp. 137-138)

The controlling images of Black women used to justify slavery and oppression—the Mammies and matriarchs—have become well-known through the work of Patricia Hill Collins and Bell Hooks, in particular. Brought to marriages, such stereotypes set women up for marital discord and undue blame. Yet, the stereotype of the strong Black woman, which has more positive connotations, may be more insidious (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2007; Bell, 2004; Townsend Gilkes, 2001). A Black wife’s strength can be co-opted by husbands, children, and kin, and she may even be a willing participant in this gendered and racialized performance. After all, many Black women have been socialized to live up to this stereotyped image from the time they are young (Bell, 2004; S. A. Hill, 2001, 2004). Indeed, 31 of 44 Black women—from both the middle and working classes—define strength in terms of cultural prescription (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2007). Black men have absorbed this cultural image of Black women as well. Perry’s (2013) study found that African American men viewed strength as a desirable trait for an ideal mate. Yet, that strength would be in service to the men. Most of the men described a strong woman as someone who could serve as a support system for them. These men valued a supportive partner who would be loving, accepting, and able to look past their shortcomings.

When cultural prescriptions to be strong are enacted almost universally, it can come to seem that this is “just the way black women are.” This renders the tremendous effort and self-sacrifice such performance requires invisible, perhaps even to Black wives. It also diminishes the tremendous costs to wives who put up with “all kind of stuff off of men” in order to hold onto their marriages, as one of the Beauboeuf-Lafontant’s (2007) interviewees puts it (p. 40). Many of the women did not feel that they could be “real” Black women if they failed to shoulder the difficulties of their marriages without complaint. The cultural expectations of them do not allow such “weakness.” Black wives are socialized into a “code of silence” (e.g., Bell, 2004) in recognition of the harshness of Black men’s lives in a racist society. The image of the strong, successful Black woman is juxtaposed with that of the “endangered” and “vulnerable” Black man (Chavous & Cogburn, 2007). The culture reinforces the gender binary and ignores that racism and sexism combine to place a heavy burden on Black women.

The role of Black wife is certainly different from the role of Black husband; “her” version of heterosexual marriage is not as satisfying as “his” (Bernard, 1982; Loscocco & Walzer, 2013). But it is also different from the role of White wife, containing unique challenges that come from trying to forge intimate ties with men in the context of a racist society, and typically offering fewer benefits than White women get from marriage. As Black women in a White patriarchal institution, Black women are asked to do all that White women do—and much more.

Schwalbe and colleagues (2000) note that men are encouraged to stake their sense of self-worth on the ability to be in control, so that even when it is illusory or difficult to achieve, men will keep trying to get it. If men are denied the opportunity to fulfill it in the public sphere they will seek other spaces, and the marriage is a logical place to expect it, seek it, demand it—because this institution is predicated on men’s dominance and women’s subordination. Beale (2008) has argued that Black men have a false sense of superiority in their intimate relationships with Black women. “Men may be cruelly exploited and subjected to all sorts of dehumanizing tactics on the part of the ruling class, but they have someone below them—at least they’re not women” (p. 114).

There is an important class dimension here, because the accomplishment of masculinity is even more difficult at the bottom of the class hierarchy where men’s options for economic power are severely limited (S. A. Hill, 2004; Hooks, 2004). In an interesting class twist, the Black women who coexist with these men in poverty, like their White and Puerto Rican counterparts, understand their men’s limitations, and opt out of marriage largely because they have internalized the dominant cultural ideal that men should be good providers (Edin & Kefalas, 2005). This is then interpreted by the dominant culture as confirmation of the failed masculinities and femininities of poor Blacks, and often generalized to all Blacks.

The power of the dominant social construction of marriage is that it is reinforced by multiple social institutions. We turn to a discussion of two of the most powerful such institutions providing controlling messages to and about Black wives.

Reinforcing the Gender Binary: The Power of Social Institutions

The Black Church

The church has played a crucial role in resistance to egregious Black oppression, and has always been a central part of Black American lives and culture (Collins, 2005). It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of the church to Black families and communities. As a prominent religious scholar asserts, “religion is never far from the threshold of consciousness, for whether it is embraced with fervor or rejected with disdain, it is the focal element of the black experience” (Lincoln, 1999, p. xxiv).” This is confirmed by Townsend Gilkes’s (2001) research on Black women doing community work, for whom religiosity is so taken for granted that they find questions about its importance unusual.

This pivotal and ubiquitous institution of support and resistance is also very patriarchal (Cole & Guy-Sheftall, 2003; Collins, 2005). In fact, the church’s key role in Black American lives has come partly at the expense of its devoted women (cf. Collins, 1990; Grant, 1982, 2004). Churches and the men who typically head them (Grant, 2004) emphasize the gender binary and patriarchal relationships. It is a response to the depiction of “black promiscuity and immorality” that “fueled racism.” Women are expected to support this “politics of respectability” and are often censured if they do not seem to be doing so (Collins, 2005, pp. 107-108). The bible is used to support the notion that men should be in charge and that women should respect that arrangement. As we noted earlier, because Black men have been thwarted in attempts to enact hegemonic masculinity by racist institutions, they seek out dominance over women in the spaces they do control. Churches have been a major source of Black men’s control (though also of women’s resistance). Thus, these two forces—the patriarchal message of the bible and men’s attempts to live up to dominant image of manhood as in control and having authority—lead to emphasis on marriage. As a key sphere outside direct White control, marriage is seen by ministers as a place where Black men can assert their masculinity; it is a site of traditional gender relations, and subordination of women’s needs and desires to men’s (Cole & Guy-Sheftall, 2003).

An ethnographic study of three innovative, progressive churches—one predominantly Black, one predominantly Latino, and one predominantly White—shows the reach and the staying power of this pattern (Edgell & Docka, 2007). In the Black church, there were breaks with traditional views in terms of emphasis on extended family, important relationships between children and adults, and “strong and emotionally available” male role models.

Yet, there is a strong pro-marriage culture in this church and the marriage being touted adheres to traditional gender ideology. The roles of husband and wife were often discussed at this church. Those roles were seen as spiritually mandated and complementary, while the specter of divorce looms for those who do not hew to their God-given place in marriage.

The ideal family, according to the findings of both men and women in the research team, is one in which the man is the head of the household. The husband is “the authority” and the wife’s job is “to accept and respect that” (p. 35). Members of this progressive church are told that it is the responsibility of both women and men to “know their spiritually mandated, opposite, respective role and adhere to it so as to ensure that the family will remain together” (p. 35). This promotion of “separate spheres” for women and men is interesting, given that Black families have been pioneers of the dual career or dual earner model, which contradicts that social model. Of course, behavior does not necessarily match ideals and values (e.g., Jones & Shorter-Gooden, 2003; Loscocco & Spitze, 2007). As S. A. Hill (2002) points out, although Black couples engage in more non-traditional gender behaviors within the household, they may still be clinging to traditional gender ideology.

There was also an ongoing and thorough critique of “the emasculating conditions that Black men encounter and the forces that undermine their ability to take their rightful place as breadwinners and providers for their families” (p. 47). Marriage is also promoted at this church as a solution to economic instability.

The importance of the church in Black American life cannot be underestimated. If even progressive churches ask women to allow their husbands to dominate them—not just to prop up their men, but for the economic well-being of their communities—that is a powerful request.

Some studies suggest that Black couples for whom religion is important have stronger marriages (Bryant et al., 2008; Wilcox & Wolfinger, 2007, 2008). The religious beliefs and the social support associated with regular church attendance provide couples with better resources for resolving the stresses they experience in daily life. What we do not know is whether those marriages survive because the couples adopted a patriarchal model of marriage or because they have somehow transcended it. Couples interviewed by Bryant and colleagues (2008) provide some evidence for the latter perspective, which is captured by the notion of being “equally yoked.” As one husband said,

If we have a relationship together [and] we both do know God, then it’s my responsibility to hold up her end at home if she’s out doing God’s work. So I don’t look at it as a sacrifice . . . I feel that it’s my job to understand what God is having her to do, and to be able to cover [for] her [here at home], and vice versa, her covering me, if there’s things that I need to do [for our church or community]. I think this allows us to work together, understanding that God is in charge of everything that we have to do in [our] household. (p. 182)

Many of the Black men interviewed by Perry (2013) identified the Black church as an ideal institution to encourage marriage among African Americans. As a result of the growing acceptance of non-traditional family structures within the African American community, 17 of the 24 men interviewed stated that the church should become even more aggressive in promoting marriage. When asked about the specific ways the church could promote marriage, the men gave several responses. Some of them mentioned the importance of couples’ ministries promoting images and models of healthy and happy marriages. Ten men stated that churches should work with community partners to do outreach and provide education on the benefits of marriage. One respondent said that relationship education should be an integral part of the church curriculum. He stated, “You know, teaching young men and women how to coexist in a relationship, be in love and how to treat each other” (p. 194).

Given the central role of the church in many Black communities, further research is needed to tease out how and when an overwhelmingly patriarchal institution like the church becomes a marital resource. In some cases, Black men and women may expect the church to not only advocate for marriage but also take a leadership role in the promotion of healthy, satisfying marriages. Therefore, the church may be another frontier that Blacks are developing.

Role of the Media

Images of deviant Black men and women, and their flawed and failed relationships, have been a staple of American popular culture (Collins, 1990; S. A. Hill, 2004; Hooks, 1992; Pitts, 1999). The depiction of the physically powerful and threatening hypermasculinity of Black men deviates far from the White standard of constrained, civilized, and socially powerful White masculinity (Goff, Eberhardt, Williams, & Jackson, 2008; Ridgeway & Kricheli-Katz, 2013). The forceful, angry Black woman also fails to perform the idealized, White version of femininity. And in a painful irony, it is the Black woman, a victim of racism and also oppressed by sexism, who is often held responsible for the “weak” Black man. In movies and situation comedies, on reality TV shows and talk shows, Black girlfriends and wives are often portrayed as keeping Black men from asserting their masculinity, and therefore in need of being controlled by their men.

Tyler Perry has created an extremely successful franchise that blames women for difficulties in relationships. In Madea’s Big Happy Family (Perry, 2011), all of the villains in the movie are young women. The oldest daughter Tammy constantly belittles her husband because she considers him to be weak and not man enough to be the head of the family; it is easy to lay the blame at her nagging. Middle child Kimberly is career obsessed to such an extent that she ignores her toddler and is mean and condescending to her husband. Byron is a recent parolee who is being pressured by his gold digger girlfriend to supplement his modest income by selling drugs on the street again. Byron also faces constant public humiliation by the mother of his son Sabrina. She considers Byron “a soft man” because he is not able to provide more financial support for their child. Matriarch Madea provides her nieces and nephew with life lessons, noting that a wife should respect her husband’s authority and that women should not prioritize their career over their family. She tells the men that they need to show strength, assert their “manhood,” and keep their wives or girlfriends in check.

It is fascinating that even when Black women gain control over their depiction—in music videos, for example (Balaji, 2010; Emerson, 2002), it is important that they do so without threatening Black men’s place at the top of the gender hierarchy. Reid-Brinkley (2008) discusses the reappropriation of the White “cult of true womanhood” through the image of the Black “queen”:

Although the “queen” is to be worshipped, her position is often rhetorically and materially behind that of the “king.” In other words, the “black queen” is judged by her commitment to the elevation of black manhood in the context of a racist society. She is worshipped for her ability to maintain her appropriate position within black culture. (p. 247)

Media images cut across social class boundaries. It is not just de-valued and demonized poor Black families who are depicted as having failed to learn the appropriate cultural scripts. Instead, as S. A. Hill (2004) points out, movies such as The Brothers, Waiting to Exhale, and Two Can Play that Game depict highly flawed relationships between upper and middle class Black women and men. It is extremely rare to see intimacy between Black wives and husbands depicted in movies or TV shows. As Oprah Winfrey notes after she portrayed such intimacy in the film The Butler:

It has been rare as an African American when I’ve ever seen intimacy on screen between two African Americans. I remember years ago I saw it on the Cosby Show at the end of a credit and I started to tear up because . . . why am I tearing up I don’t even know what the story was, because I had not seen that on television in my lifetime. Intimacy, connection and tenderness between two black people. You see everything, you see lust and violence and get it and all that, but you don’t see connection that says to the world this is who we are (Alaysavid, 2014) (August 2, 2013).

In another interview, she says of her on screen marriage, “It really was about letting people see the tenderness and the love between a black couple and their love for their family, which is something you never see” (Lee, 2013, p. AR1).

Given that U.S. media have long presented distorted views of African Americans for White entertainment, it is unlikely that the toxic Black relationships we see on screen accurately reflect reality. Rather, they probably sell well, leading to ever more such depictions, as in reality TV shows such as “Basketball Wives” and the “Love and Hip Hop” series.

The abundance of negative imagery contributes to the “stigma of having disordered gender relations” and deflects attention from the gendered racism embedded in the institution. Though the conflicts can be traced to the racist institution of marriage, Black wives and husbands hurl the blame at each other (cf. S. A. Hill, 2004). As long as problems in marriage are viewed as private troubles, the institution of marriage will remain unquestioned and unaltered (Loscocco & Walzer, 2013).

At the same time, the media flood airwaves and computer screens with images of fairy tale weddings and suburban homes with White picket fences, where, even though there have been some tweaks, the gender binary thrives. Girls and women are targeted with messages about the desirability of a highly romanticized view of love and marriage through books, films, music, TV shows, and advice givers. As writer Marita Golden (1993) asks,

[I]f there were no fairy tales, could there be love? Society has so melded the two, it’s impossible to tell the difference . . . And what KIND of love? Where would you take your cues? From the songs on the radio that urged women to be slaves and men to be fools? (p. 77)

In a self-help book aimed at Black couples, psychotherapists Hopson and Hopson contend that “[t]hanks in part to Hollywood films and celebrity magazines, many of us still believe, perhaps at a less than fully conscious level, in fairy-tale encounters and magical connections” (Hopson & Hopson, 1995, p. 29).

Women are also the targets of advice about how to find and keep husbands. Although there is variation, the most popular advice typically emphasizes the traditional gender ideology that women and men are complete opposites, so different, in fact, that they might be from different planets. These messages carry considerable cultural clout. As Ridgeway (2009) suggests, cultural schema or “beliefs about how ‘most people view men and women’ include the notion that men are from Mars and women are from Venus” (pp. 4-5).

It is therefore noteworthy that comedian Steve Harvey, among many others, has created an industry out of the notion of a gender binary. Harvey’s (2009) promise is to spill men’s secrets, to interpret these alien creatures for the women who are in search of the fairy tale ending. His books have widespread popularity. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man was one of the 10 most read books on college campuses shortly after it came out, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. His advice is laced with admonitions for women to let their men feel like kings (Loscocco & Walzer, 2013). Although the advice is aimed at a general audience, it echoes the church and other institutions that ask Black women to adopt a traditional idealized femininity, so that their men can more fully enact hegemonic masculinity. This genre of books reinforces that women are responsible for nurturing and taking care of the relationship, in keeping with dominant cultural schema and the gender binary (Collins, 2005).

Note that Harvey seems to assume, also, that all women desire marriage. Yet, the Black women who are in committed non-marital relationships and those professional women and poor women who choose to be single are probably far more savvy about what marriage has to offer them than Harvey is able to imagine. Using a “different planet” or binary model of gender, he suggests that women simply need to learn about how men tick in order to gain what they secretly want. While working to dismantle the racism and sexism that keep more Black women from finding satisfying intimate partnerships or marriages would be a worthwhile goal, his book is eerily silent on that score.

Fortunately, there are Black men with other visions out there. In his book The Conversation: How Black Men and Women Can Build Loving, Trusting Relationships, Hill Harper (2009) quotes Steve Harvey, yet shows a keen awareness of the socially constructed nature of difficulties in marriage that is absent in Harvey’s books. Harper argues that women and men mostly want the same things from relationships and that differences in approach and expectations “may have more to do with the way men and women are socialized than what our true desires are.” He “gets” “black gender ideology” (Collins, 2005). Harper’s book has not made it to the New York Times advice bestseller list, while Harvey’s was on the list for over a year. Harvey also made the rounds of radio and TV shows, showed up in national news segments, quickly published a follow-up book, created his own talk show, and is the executive producer of two films, Think Like a Man and Think Like a Man Too, which are based upon his books.

Conclusion

We have viewed the role of Black wife through a prism that reflects the intersection of gender and race, showing that it is different from that of White wife, and that racism adds responsibilities and stresses to the role that is not shared by Black husbands. The role of Black wife contains unique challenges that come from trying to create intimate ties with men in the context of a racist society, and typically offers fewer benefits than White women get from marriage.

Throughout Hill Harper’s interviews with others and his own reflections, a major theme is that Black women and men have to try to overcome the polarizing stereotypes (which are racialized and gendered) that set them up for mistrust and miscommunication. As a way to begin to repair the state of Black female and male relationships, Harper suggests that women and men should engage in tough conversations with their partners or potential partners. His book provides a model for what needs to happen in interpersonal relationships-no-holds-barred communication.

Unfortunately, much discussion of the “problems of black marriage” suggests that a major part of the solution lies in Black men moving out of subordinated masculinity. While greater economic opportunity and respect for Black men are certainly vitally important goals, we have argued that the power of the gender binary leads to solutions that empower Black men at the expense of Black women. Discussion needs to focus on how “men’s problems” affect women in order to fully understand difficulties in Black relationships and communities (cf. Cole & Guy-Sheftall, 2003). Imagine if, instead of ignoring sexism (Collins, 2005), more Black men were also buffering their wives against the harmful images and daily doses of racism they face.

The paradox of Black marriages—in practice, more egalitarian than White marriages, yet with some very difficult repercussions for women’s marital happiness—highlights the importance of the gender binary (Lorber, 1995, 2000) to the social construction of wives and husbands. Because slavery and racism shaped how gender was constructed among Black Americans, including the fact that Black men were denied the opportunity to fulfill the idealized role of husband, definitions of Black womanhood were far broader than those of Whites’ and included traits that were typically associated with men, such as independence and assertiveness (Collins, 1990; Landry, 2000). Yet, the expansion of Black womanhood could only come at the cost of Black manhood (Dill, 1988; S. A. Hill, 2001) in a society that constructs women and men as opposites.

This also shows the power of the dominant definitions of husbands and wives. For, though the role of Black middle-class wife encompassed working in the public sphere long before this was true for Whites (S. A. Hill, 2004; Landry, 2000) and the Black middle- and working-class husbands do somewhat more household labor than White men (Landry, 2000; LaPierre & Hill, 2013), there are pressures on Black marriages that come from breaking the mold. What could be pioneering if it lead to “undoing gender” (Lorber, 2000) ends up putting additional stress on marriage. For “gender bias still creeps into black couples’ relationships. And the white community’s centuries-old fear and subsequent devaluation of black manhood has contributed to the problem” (Jones & Shorter-Gooden, 2003, p. 210). The tremendous importance that American society places on heterosexual marriage as the centerpiece of family stability has always been “somewhat at odds with Black peoples’ resources and traditions, as seen in the resistance of many to the marriage campaign that followed emancipation” (S. A. Hill, 2004, p. 110). But rather than sanctioning other family forms, American society continues to hold everyone accountable to the norm of gender differentiated marriage.

Perhaps because it is so central to preserving gender difference, heterosexual marriage is given an exalted status that must be protected in campaigns against marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples. If marriage itself, rather than gendered marriage, were really important, then there would be every reason to encourage gays and lesbians to marry. It is ironic that poor mothers are the target of “marriage promotion policies” (S. A. Hill, 2004), which assume that husbands are needed to pull them out of poverty at the same time that gays and lesbians must fight for the chance to marry. It is equally ironic that many lower income couples revere marriage to an extent unparalleled by those in the middle and upper classes, which makes them more hesitant to marry (Gibson-Davis, Edin, & McLanahan, 2005). To paraphrase S. A. Hill (2004), when we examine the results of empirical research on the topic (Hao & Cherlin, 2004; Lichter, Graefe, & Brown, 2003), it seems clear that poor mothers would benefit far more from economic and gender equality than from marriage.

Our intersectional narrative suggests that rather than blaming Black couples or individuals, as pundits, politicians, and spouses are quick to do, it is important to recognize that there is a racialized and gendered institutional and cultural apparatus that makes it particularly difficult for Black couples to have lasting and satisfying marriages. Using the prism of gender race and class to understand Black marriage, we have also challenged social deficit interpretations of Black families. Rather, there are aspects of Black marriages that are egalitarian, empowering, and pioneering.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We thank Barbara Risman and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Authors’ Note

The authors contributed equally to this article and are listed alphabetically.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Kecia R. Johnson, PhD, North Carolina State University, is an assistant professor of criminology at Florida State University. Her current research projects examine the gendered and racialized aspects of incarceration and the ways in which gender and race impact heterosexual relationships for Black women and men.

Karyn Loscocco, PhD, Indiana University is professor of sociology at University at Albany. Her current research projects focus on cultural constructions of gender and race in heterosexual relationships, the ways that racism is embedded in paid work opportunities and experiences, and the challenges of teaching about white racism.

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