tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5717482586742122982.post8764436776759079738..comments2024-03-09T03:27:00.284-05:00Comments on 200 Years in Paradise: My Ancestors weren’t Married?! (Part 2-The Study)Dave Lynchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05184594177199559729noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5717482586742122982.post-28547440844310008462012-03-09T18:19:01.674-05:002012-03-09T18:19:01.674-05:00Yes, times indeed are changing. Your last point i...Yes, times indeed are changing. Your last point is probably the biggest. I saw no evidence of a stigma associated with out-of-wedlock births in my research. In fact, I only saw a couple of contested claims in the records. One was retracted later. The other stands as contested, but the father was actually not a native Crucian. He was from the mainland US, so I imagine he was more sensitive to it than the locals. Of course, since it was contested, we can't say whether he was right or wrong.Dave Lynchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05184594177199559729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5717482586742122982.post-3347735301585690062012-03-09T10:08:23.859-05:002012-03-09T10:08:23.859-05:00Dave,
Rutgers Univ. conducted a marriage study on...Dave, <br />Rutgers Univ. conducted a marriage study on changing U.S. teen attitudes towards marriage (1975-1995) and here were some of their surprising findings:<br /><br />Quote<br />The 1987 wave of the National Survey of Children found some striking racial differences in youth attitudes about marriage. 84% of non-black youths agreed or strongly agreed that "unless a couple is prepared to stay together for life, they should not get married." By contrast, only 63% of black females<br />and 69% of black males agreed or strongly agreed with the statement (Moore & Stief, 1991).<br /><br />Another investigation of adolescents’ expectations regarding marriage and childbearing analyzed data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience of Youth (Trent,1994). Though<br />now somewhat dated, the sub-sample consisted of 6,684 never-married male and female adolescents<br />between the ages 14-19. Most of the youths did not expect to marry within five years, to have a child before age 20, or to have a nonmarital birth within five years. But results varied substantially by race. 29% of Black adolescents compared to 13% of Hispanic adolescents and 11% of White adolescents expected to have a child outside of marriage within 5 years.<br /><br />Although teens from different racial/ethnic groups share similar attitudes toward marriage, they have different expectations of their likelihood of marriage. In particular, among high school students, Hispanic and African American teens are less likely than teenage whites to expect to get married. In the 2005 and 2006 waves of the MTF study, 86 percent of white high school seniors said they expect to get married one day, compared with 76 percent for Hispanics and 75 percent for African Americans (Figure III.8). Among those students who expect to get married, Hispanics and African Americans were also less likely than whites to say they expect to stay married to the same person for life (92 percent for whites, versus 84 percent for Hispanics and 85 percent for African Americans). These estimates of marital expectations by race/ethnicity are consistent with those reported in other national data sets (Crissey 2005).<br />Unquote.<br /><br />Statistics don't lie. They reflect attitudes and expectations. And these studies show that there exist significant differences in the attutudes and expectations of modern-day homogeneous populations of white & black Americans. Therefore, in a racially divided former slave society where the population is not homogeneous (i.e. NOT coming from the same location or from a similar culture, as between those of Danish origin vs. those of African origin.) you can IMAGINE the different attitudes and expectations that must have prevailed in those days. And consider another thing: there used to be a HUGE stigma in the U.S. attached to women giving birth out of wedlock among white Americans that has ALL BUT DISAPPEARED. I'll never forget the shock I felt when I went to my first American H.S. at the age of 14 (late 1970's) and there were African-American female students VISIBLY SHOWING, something that was or would have been unthinkable for a white girl. I don't think I will ever get over the shock and horror I felt seeing those girls who were used and left to fend for themselves. Nowadays, due to cultural influences, the media, Hollywood and a gradual eroding of our culture and the institution of marriage in general, the stigma has been all but erased.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com