Statement of Kathryn Edin, Associate Professor of Sociology,
Institute of Policy Research, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Human Resources
of the House Committee on Ways and Means

Hearing on Welfare and Marriage Issues

May 22, 2001

Second, William Julius Wilson and others have looked at the phenomenon from the other side of the relationship and assume that a man must be stably employed in order to marry. Indeed, the last 30 years have seen huge declines in the earnings of unskilled and semiskilled men, but the decline in marriage is simply much greater than this approach would predict.

Third, Charles Murray and others blame welfare, arguing that as welfare became more generous, women were increasingly likely to trade dependence on a man for dependence on the government, or to combine the two by opting to live together rather than marry. However, since the 1970s welfare benefits have declined dramatically in real terms, while non-marriage has continued to increase.

Finally, some point to cultural factors, such as the revolution in sex roles that have changed the views of women. Men, especially low-income men, have been slower to change their views, resulting in a mismatch in the sex role expectations of low-income men and women. But no study I know of has looked directly at how changes in sex role expectations have influenced marriage rates per se.

So, we are left with more questions than answers. How do low-income single mothers feel about marriage? What factors do they believe prevent them from marrying? To what extent does the marriage norm still operate in poor communities?

Between 1989 and the present, my colleagues and I conducted lengthy multiple ethnographic interviews and observations of well over 300 low-income single mothers living in the poorer areas of three cities: Chicago, Charleston, SC, and Philadelphia. About half of these mothers were receiving cash welfare when we talked with them and about half worked at low wage jobs. Overall, the interviews show that the majority of mothers aspire to marriage. However, they also feel that, given the relationships they've been in or are currently in, marriage may offer more risks that rewards. Our interviews reveal four major motives for non-marriage: affordability, respectability, trust, and control.

Mothers do believe they can diminish these risks if they find the right man, and they define rightness in both economic and non-economic terms. In sum, they say they are willing and even eager to wed if the marriage represents substantial upward mobility and if their husband doesn't beat them, abuse their children, insist on making all the decisions, or "fool around" with other women. If they cannot find such a man, most would rather remain single and raise their children alone.

Let's now consider each of these motivations in turn.

Affordability

For the mothers we spoke to, economic stability was a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for marriage.

Men simply don't earn enough to support a family. This leads to couples breaking up.

As my book with Laura Lein showed, welfare reliant and low-wage working mothers worry a lot about money simply because they have to. The price for not balancing their budgets is high: the stability of the household and the well-being of their children.

Though we found that men frequently contribute cash and in kind goods to single mothers' households, their employment is so unstable that single mothers often feel that they cannot count on these contributions. Therefore, mothers' consistent need for supplemental income, combined with men's erratic employment and earnings, mean that couples often break up over money or fail to marry because of it.

I've been with my baby's father for almost 10 years… He's talking marriage, but what I'm trying to do now its get away from him. He just lost his job…[of] 18 years. [Now] he's in work, out of work, then in work again. …I can do bad by myself. I don't need no one helping me [do bad].

However, mothers aren't completely cold and calculating in this regard. Not only do they value the AMOUNT of money a man could potentially contribute to the household and its STABILITY, they also value the EFFORT men expend to find and keep employment. However, in the end, their dire economic straits generally mean that they must enforce a "pay and stay" rule.

I didn't want to be mean or anything [but when he didn't work], I didn't let him eat my food. I would tell him, "If you can't put any food here, you can't eat here. There are your kids and you should want to help your kids, so if you come here, you can't eat their food." Finally, I told him he couldn't stay here either.

This doesn't mean that the women we interviewed don't often care deeply about the men in their lives.

There was a struggle going on inside of me. I mean, he lost his job at the auto body shop when they went [bankrupt] and closed down. Then he couldn't find another one. It it was months and months, and I was trying to live on my welfare check and it just wasn't enough. Finally, I couldn't do it anymore [because] it was just too much pressure on me [even though] he is the love of my life. I told him he had to leave even though I knew it wasn't really his fault that [he wasn't working]. But I had nothing in the house to feed the kids, no money to pay the bills, nothing. And he was just sitting there not working. I couldn't take it, so I made him leave.

Mothers also value the SOURCE of the money a man brings into the household. In general, drug money cannot buy marriage or even long term co-residence. In fact, it is often fathers' entry involvement with the drug trade that breaks couples up. Mothers are afraid that such a man might stash weapons, drugs, or drug proceeds on the premises, and that the violence of street life might follow him into the household. The mothers generally believe that anyone who is involved in the drug trade for long will go jail or get killed, leaving their children fatherless, at least for a time. They also believe that most men who deal will start "using product" himself, rendering any kind of sustainable family life impossible.

I'm frustrated with men, period. Hey bring drugs and guns into the house, you take care of their kids, feed them, and then they steal your rent money out of your purse. They screw you if you put yourself out for them. So now, I don't put myself out there any more.

Respectability

Many Americans believe the marriage norm no longer operates within poor communities because the resident think too little of marriage. Our conversations with low-income single mothers revealed the opposite: they avoid marriage because they think too much of it. In these communities, marriage has a kind of sacred significance, and is a powerful marker of respectability. However, it only confers respectability if accompanied by financial stability and some measure of upward mobility. Marriage to an unskilled, erratically employed man doesn't confer respectability, but makes one a fool in the eyes of the community.

Since most women in these communities believe strongly marriage should be for life, and since women in our society still seem to borrow their class standing from their husbands, marriage to a partner with low or unstable earnings means that the women is willing to take on his very low status as her own for life. By doing so, the woman is making a profound statement to her community (and to herself) that, "this is the best I can do." For most women living in poverty, giving up all hope of eventual upward mobility in exchange for marriage to a poor man, even if she is just as poor as him, is simply too hard a road to contemplate traveling. Thus, it is not surprising that most women in the same situation want to marry up or not at all.

I just want [a marriage] that will take me up to where I want to go.

I want a big wedding. I want to be set - out of school, nave a career, and then go from there…. Yeah, my friends that have children, my one girlfriend, she wants to get a house first and be ready with that and then decide.

I want to get married. I've always wanted to get married and have a family. [My baby's father,] he is doing pretty good, but I am not going to marry hum until…we get some land. [After that, we'll] start off with a trailer, live in that for about 10 years, and then build a dream house (a dream house in Charleston, SC, where this interview took place, often meant a trailer with a brick façade and a chain link fence). But I am not going to get married [now] and pay rent to someone else. When we save up enough money to [buy] an acre of land and [can finance] a trailer, then we'll marry.

Mothers often talked about the "sacred" nature of marriage, and believed that no "respectable" woman would marry a poor man - such marriages were even sometimes described as "sacrilege." In interview after interview, mothers stressed the seriousness of marriage and their belief that 'it should last forever." Even if she were to contemplate marriage to an unskilled erratically employed man for love, she knew full well that it would likely collapse under economic strain, making a mockery of the social institution she revered. In such circumstances, it is more respectable to remain single and hope for a respectable match in the future.

Thus, it is not that mothers hold marriage in low esteem, but rather the fact that they hold it in such high esteem, that convinces them to forgo marriage, at least until their prospective marriage partner can prove himself economically worthy, or they find another partner who can. To these mothers, marriage is a powerful symbol of respectability and should not be diluted by foolish unions.

Trust

Though a substantial minority our respondents said they'd given up on marriage, this is more because of their low view of the men they know than because they reject the institution of marriage itself. Women tend to believe men are untrustworthy in several respects.

First, they fear that the men will not (or even cannot) be sexually faithful. Though many women view infidelity as almost inevitable, they are not willing to accept it as a natural part of marriage. Women often say the best way to avoid being deceived by an unfaithful spouse is to either avoid marriage altogether (being cheated on by a boyfriend entails less loss of face) or delaying marriage while observing and evaluating a potential spouse's behavior over time.

Living with [a man] would be fine. If after I lived with him for a couple of years and I see that nothings gonna change in the relationship, then maybe I'll marry him. But he's gotta be somebody that's got [enough] money to take care of me.

All those reliable guys, they are gone, they are gone. They're either thinking about one of three things: another women, another man, or dope…. [M]y motto is "there is not a man on this planet that is faithful." It's a man thing. I don't care, you can love your wife 'til she turns three shades of avocado green. A man is gonna be a man and it's not a point of a woman getting upset about it. It's a point of a woman accepting it. 'Cause a man's gonna do what a man's gonna do…. [Other] black women, they way "once you find a many that's gonna be faithful, you go ahead and get married to him." [They] got it all wrong. Then they gonna [be surprised when they find out] he ain't faithful. And the wife gonna end up in a nut house. It's better not to get married, so you don't get your expectations up.

I would like to find a nice man to marry, but I know that men cannot be trusted. That's why I treat them the way I do--like the dogs they are. I think that all men will cheat on their wives regardless of how much he loves her. And you don't ever want to be in that position.

I've been a single parent since the day my husband walked out on me. He tried to come back but I am not one to let someone hurt me and my children twice. I am living on welfare [rather than living with him].

Maybe I'll find a good person to get married to, someone to be a stepfather to my son. They're not all the same, they're not all bad. There are three things in my life; my school, my work, and my son. Not men. At first they love you, they think you're beautiful, and then they leave. When I got pregnant, he just left. My father is like that. He has kids by several different women. I hate him for it. I say, "I hate you. Why do you do that? Why?"

A second fear is that men will be irresponsible with the family's money.

I gave my child's father] the money to go buy my son's Pampers. He went on some street with his cousin [and] they were down there partying, drinking, everything. He spent my son's Pamper money [on partying].

Since mothers understand that a married couple has joint responsibility for either party's debt, unmarried partners need not assume such responsibility. In considering marriage, mothers often begin to demand financial accountability, which not only ensures that the bills get paid but also makes it harder for him to maintain a relationship with a woman on the side. Not surprisingly, a prospective husband resents her lack of trust and does not always comply, thus behaving in ways that confirm her fears.

Third, mothers sometimes do not trust men with their children. We heard many stories about men who leave their children home alone, drink heavily or smoke crack in front of them, neglect to feed or otherwise care for them, or even physically or sexually abuse them.

I let him take then down the shore. He got into a fight with his girlfriend, beat her up, got locked up. I didn't know where my kids were [and] I didn't find out until 9:00 [the next morning].

Men can say, "Well honey, I'm going out for the night. And then they disappear for two months. Whereas, the mother has a deeper commitment, conscience, or compassion…. If [women] acted like men, our kids would be in the park, left. We'd say, "Oh, somebody else is going to take care if it." Everybody would be orphaned.

While the experience of parenthood straightens out the lives of many women, they feel it does so less often and less dramatically for men.

He's 25, but he still likes to run the streets and go out with his friends all the time. I just can't be bothered with that.

Sometimes men don't grow up as fast of women. He's still a kid in part - a kid, period, to be honest with you.

They're stupid. They're still little boys. You think you can get one and mold him into a man, [but] they turn out to be assholes. All men are. They're good for one thing and one thing only, and it ain't supporting me.

The sharp mistrust voiced above is often quite slow to develop. In fact, many of the men these women had children with were, at one time, the loves of their lives. For unmarried couples, it is often during the pregnancy that the mistrust begins.

That first stage of me being pregnant was so stressful…. He would call up [and say that] I was cheatin' on him and it wasn't his baby. I went through that whole [pregnancy with him calling me a] cheater.

He started really beating me up [so I learned not to trust him]. I was pregnant and he beat the shit out of me…I must have been like four, five months pregnant…. By then I had a belly…. He's on top of me - a grown six-foot-two man, 205 pounds, [and] I'm five feet and maybe 120 pounds because of the fact that I was pregnant--him on top of me, beating me up, punching me, hitting me. And I got a belly with his child.

The relationships between these couples deteriorate partly because, as the women's pregnancy advances, her sense of what the baby will need materially grows more concrete. Though an intermittently employed boyfriend might have had adequate income to play the role of boyfriend, a pregnant girlfriend quickly realizes that these meager earnings cannot support a family. A young man who may have been completely acceptable to her six months prior is suddenly viewed as "no good" by his girlfriend, even when his behavior may not have changed.

Mothers often describe a golden period in their relationship with the child's father at the moment their child is born. Often, the father comes to the hospital during or just after the birth, and the couple renews their desire to stay together and perhaps marry. However, the new mothers, who must immediately begin to deal with the practical demands of raising the child, again places increased financial demands on the father.

That's when everything started blowing up. I didn't wanna be with him no more cause he wasn't working and he was getting on my nerves…. He just never gave me no money. I would tell him, you know, "Well, the baby needs diapers." "Well, I don't have no money." "The baby needs milk." "Well, I don't have no money." I just started getting mad. I had to buy milk and diapers so I just told him to leave me alone.

Fathers in tight economic straits grow increasingly resentful and the relationship quickly deteriorates - sometimes within days of the birth. Many of the same men that had talked of romance and marriage at the hospital often deny they are the father of the child soon after. They accuse their baby's mother of "stepping out," "sleeping around," or "whoring" behind their back. Some demand a blood test before buying anything for the baby. Not surprisingly, mistrust results.

Control

When we asked mothers about the benefits of being single, many told us they enjoyed the control it offered. Some mothers who had been married had been completely dependent on a man and had forgone investments in human capital that might have resulted in higher wages. The period of economic shock and near-destitution that often followed the marital breakup was devastating, and every inch of economic independence they were enjoying at present had been hard won. These lessons convince many that it is not safe to be completely dependent on a man.

One guy was like, "Marry me, I want a baby." I don't want to have to depend on anybody. No way, I would rather work. [If I married him and had his baby], I'd [have to quit work and] be dependent again. It's too scary."

For never-married mothers, the story is different. Some learn these hard lessons through observing their own mothers or their female kin, whose boyfriends or husbands beat them, cheated on then, abused their children, or "[drank] or smok[ed] up their paychecks." For others, enrollment in the school of hard knocks occurred during the pregnancy or shortly after the birth, as I described earlier. For a mother, having a child often reveals competencies they did not know they possessed. Yet, they are hard pressed to get the man in their lives to respect these competencies. Rather, they try to take power away from women and be in control of the household decisions. UNMARRIED male partners are on their best behavior because they know they are on trial, and fear that their female partners will end the relationship if they behave badly. Women like this control over the men's behavior, and are afraid marriage will change all that.

[Men] think that piece of paper says they own you. You are their personal slave. Cook their meals, clean their house, do their laundry. Who did it before I came along, you know? That's why they get married. A man gets married to have somebody take care of them 'cause their mommy can't do it any more.

Most mothers don't want to be owned or slave for their husband. They want a partnership of equals. Many believe that they best way to maintain power in a relationship is to make sure they are contributing financially to the household economy and have something to fall back on if the relationship goes bad.

[For me, marriage] will be me and my husband [both] working. We both work, [while] the children are in school.

A good marriage from the woman's point of view is one where she contributes financially and can have a say in the decision-making. The greater her financial contributions, the more say she believes she is entitled to. Since mothers generally believe that childbearing and the early child-rearing years mandate at least a partial withdrawal from the labor market, they equate the early child-rearing years with relational vulnerability. A marriage that occurs prior to or during the prime family buildings years, when the mother is least able to contribute financially to the household, leaves a mother quite powerless in her relationship with her husband. Waiting to marry until all of the children are in school (or even out on their own) means that mothers can focus more of their energies on market work and increase their chances of entering into a marriage relationship with more control. These marriages, they feel, are likely to be more satisfying and sustainable over time.

I want to have a nice job, [so] that I know if he walked out I have something to fall back on. The mortgage [and] everything [else] is going to be in my name. That's how I want it to be…I do want to et married, but I'm going to get my self stabilized and get everything together with me and [my daughter] before I even take that route.

SUMMARY

In sum, the low-income single mothers we spoke with believe that marriage will probably make their lives more difficult. Though most aspire to marriage eventually, they do not, by and large, perceive any special stigma to remaining single. If they cannot enjoy economic stability and respectability from marriage, they see little reason to expose themselves or their children to a man's irresponsible or even abusive behavior, or to risk the loss of control over their lives they fear marriage might exact from them. Unless low-skilled men's economic situations improve and they begin to change their behaviors toward women, it is quite likely that large numbers of low-income women will continue to resist marriage.