The Relationship Between Inadequate Emotional Intimacy and Divorce Among Blacks in the United States and South Africa PDF Download

Author: Latonya S. Stephens
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Blacks
Languages : en
Pages : 137

View

Book Description
There are many definitions and forms of intimacy. Emotional intimacy is not a common phrase used in everyday conversation, but for this study, it is a term that is explored and a growing concept to describe a human need that is expressed in close relationships and between married couples. Emotional intimacy is "the ability to share feelings and thoughts. It occurs when the communication and trust level is good enough to foster mutual sharing of each other's innermost selves" (Mayo Clinic Health Solutions, 2007, p. 5). Gaia (2002) defined emotional intimacy as "any reported experience of psychological intimacy within a close relationship" (p. 152). Emotional intimacy can manifest through intimate conversations, hugs, respect, attractiveness to spouse, honesty and openness, family commitment, and sexual fulfillment, contributing to satisfying marriages and a secure attachment bond (Harley, 1992; Parker & Scannell, 1998). The lack of emotional intimacy may manifest through demanding or withdrawing behaviors, such as retreating from conversations or "shutting down/stonewalling," defensiveness, stubbornness, blaming, or harsh criticism, contributing to a distressful marriage and insecure attachment (Gottman & Krokoff, 1989; Johnson, 2004; Johnson & Greenberg, 1985; Menking, 2010). Emotional intimacy may be a learned skill that affects marital stability (Boden, Fischer, & Niehuis, 2009). If emotional intimacy affects the stability of a marital relationship, the lack of emotional intimacy will affect marriages as well, increasing the number of divorces. This dissertation discusses the historical, theoretical and cultural affect of emotional intimacy between marital statuses, genders, as well as South Africa and the United States.

Author: Shea M. Dunham
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 163

View

Book Description
"The decline in African Americans choosing to marry and the increase in African Americans deciding to divorce (U.S. Census, 2003) are juxtaposed against a dearth of research on African American Marriage and marital intervention models specifically tested with African Americans. Cordova and his associates attempted to expand on the 'fuzziness' of definitions of intimacy in marital research with their behavioral theory of intimacy (Cordova & Scott, 2001). They expanded this view into a model, Emotional Skillfulness Theory, of how specific emotional skills, intimacy, and marital satisfaction are related (Cordova, Gee, & Warren, 2005). Cordova, Gee, and Warren's (2005) study exploring emotional skillfulness and subsequent studies supported the basics of this model. However, like much research in the marital field, these studies were done with a predominantly Caucasian sample. The current study examined emotional skillfulness theory and the possible impact emotional skillfulness may have on martial satisfaction and the intimacy process among African Americans. Emotional skills were defined by the ability to identify and communicate emotions. Specifically, the differences between husbands' and wives' scores on measures of emotional skills, the relationship between participants' self-perceived emotional skills and one's own intimate safety and marital satisfaction, and whether intimate safety mediates between emotional skills and marital satisfaction. Two hundred and sixty four participants (132 married couples) completed measures that assessed emotional skillfulness, marital satisfaction, and intimate safety. The results supported much of Emotional Skillfulness Theory with African American couples. No significant differences were found between husbands' and wives' scores on Difficulty Identifying Emotions and Difficulty Communicating Emotions. For both husbands and wives one's own Difficulty Identifying Emotions was negatively correlated with spouses' marital satisfaction and Intimate Safety. Husbands' Difficulty Communicating Emotions was also negatively correlated to wives' Marital Satisfaction and Intimate Safety; Wives' Difficulty Communicating Emotions was negatively correlated with husbands' marital satisfaction, but was not significantly associated with husbands' Intimate Safety. Finally, it was found that Intimate Safety mediated between emotional skills and marital satisfaction."--Abstract.

Author: M. Belinda Tucker
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610445376
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 422

View

Book Description
In a time when the American family has undergone dramatic evolution, change among African Americans has been particularly rapid and acute. African Americans now marry later than any other major ethnic group, and while in earlier decades nearly 95 percent of black women eventually married, today 30 percent are expected to remain single. The black divorcee rate has increased nearly five-fold over the last thirty years, and is double the rate of the general population. The result, according to The Decline in Marriage Among African Americans, is a greater share of family responsibilities being borne by women, an increased vulnerability to poverty and violence, and an erosion of community ties. The original, often controversial, research presented in this book links marital decline to a pivotal drop in the pool of marriageable black males. Increased joblessness has robbed many black men of their economic viability, rendering them not only less desirable as mates, but also less inclined to take on the responsibility of marriage. Higher death rates resulting from disease, poor health care, and violent crime, as well as evergrowing incarceration rates, have further depleted the male population. Editors M. Belinda Tucker and Claudia Mitchell-Kernan and the contributors take a hard look at the effects of chronic economic instability and cultural attitudes toward the male role as family provider. Their cogent historical analyses suggest that the influence of external circumstances over marriage preferences stems in large part from the profoundly damaging experience of slavery. This book firmly positions declining marriage within an ominous cycle of economic and social erosion. The authors propose policies for relieving the problems associated the changing marital behavior, focusing on support for single parent families, public education, and increased employment for African American men.

Author: Patricia Dixon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135916748
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 301

View

Book Description
African American Relationships, Marriages, and Families is a historically and culturally centered text designed for relationship, marriage and family educators and therapists who work with African American singles and couples. Complete with numerous exercises, the book helps singles and couples increase their self-awareness, partner awareness and respect, and appreciation for difference. It also helps foster effective communication and conflict resolution skills, showing readers how to develop and maintain healthy relationships, marriages, and families. No ground is left uncovered in Dixon’s thoughtful and considered analysis.

Author: Katrina Bell McDonald
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351018167
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

View

Book Description
Despite the messages we hear from social scientists, policymakers, and the media, black Americans do in fact get married—and many of these marriages last for decades. Marriage in Black offers a progressive perspective on black marriage that rejects talk of black relationship "pathology" in order to provide an understanding of enduring black marriage that is richly lived. The authors offer an in-depth investigation of details and contexts of black married life, and seek to empower black married couples whose intimate relationships run contrary to common—but often inaccurate—stereotypes. Considering historical influences from Antebellum slavery onward, this book investigates contemporary married life among more than 60 couples born after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Husbands and wives tell their stories, from how they met, to how they decided to marry, to what their life is like five years after the wedding and beyond. Their stories reveal the experiences of the American-born and of black immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean, with explorations of the "ideal" marriage, parenting, finances, work, conflict, the criminal justice system, religion, and race. These couples show us that black family life has richness that belies common stereotypes, with substantial variation in couples’ experiences based on social class, country of origin, gender, religiosity, and family characteristics.

Author: M. Belinda Tucker
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 9780871548863
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 421

View

Book Description
In a time when the American family has undergone dramatic evolution, change among African Americans has been particularly rapid and acute. African Americans now marry later than any other major ethnic group, and while in earlier decades nearly 95 percent of black women eventually married, today 30 percent are expected to remain single. The black divorcee rate has increased nearly five-fold over the last thirty years, and is double the rate of the general population. The result, according to The Decline in Marriage Among African Americans, is a greater share of family responsibilities being borne by women, an increased vulnerability to poverty and violence, and an erosion of community ties. The original, often controversial, research presented in this book links marital decline to a pivotal drop in the pool of marriageable black males. Increased joblessness has robbed many black men of their economic viability, rendering them not only less desirable as mates, but also less inclined to take on the responsibility of marriage. Higher death rates resulting from disease, poor health care, and violent crime, as well as evergrowing incarceration rates, have further depleted the male population. Editors M. Belinda Tucker and Claudia Mitchell-Kernan and the contributors take a hard look at the effects of chronic economic instability and cultural attitudes toward the male role as family provider. Their cogent historical analyses suggest that the influence of external circumstances over marriage preferences stems in large part from the profoundly damaging experience of slavery. This book firmly positions declining marriage within an ominous cycle of economic and social erosion. The authors propose policies for relieving the problems associated the changing marital behavior, focusing on support for single parent families, public education, and increased employment for African American men.

Author: Christina Nicole Clarke
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 292

View

Book Description
There is no clear definition of emotional intimacy in the literature (Yoo, Bartle-Haring, Day, and Gangamma, 2014). Furthermore, the specific area of African American relationships has received minimal attention and is typically deficit-based (Bryant, Wickrama, Bolland, Bryant, Cutrona, and Stanik, 2010). The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of married, African American couples, and the role of emotional intimacy in their relationships. The research questions are: How do African American couples in this study experience and describe emotional intimacy in their relationships? and How do African American couples in this study sustain emotional intimacy in their long-term relationships? This is a qualitative constructionist multiple case study (Yin, 2014) that is exploratory in nature with each couple being one case. Three couples were interviewed individually and conjointly. Braun and Clarke's (2006) thematic analysis was used to analyze within and across-cases. The cross-case themes identified across all three couples are separated into two sections based on the research questions. Section 1 provides themes on describing emotional intimacy. Two themes and one subtheme were yielded: (a) Vulnerability; (b) Connection, subtheme: More than roommates. Section 2 provides themes on sustaining emotional intimacy. Four themes were yielded: (a) embracing community strengths; (b) the couple as a haven; (c) increasing emotional expression through personal growth; (d) committing to the work. The four themes identified in the cross-case analysis provide the beginnings of a model on emotional intimacy and African American couples. This study was able to identify how couples experience and sustain emotional intimacy in the face of negative narratives named in the interviews. Those negative narratives undermine the vulnerability required to maintain emotional intimacy. However, the couples processed multiple ways in which they take measures to experience and sustain emotional intimacy.

Author: Ralph Richard Banks
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0452297532
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

View

Book Description
A distinguished Stanford law professor examines the steep decline in marriage rates among the African American middle class, and offers a paradoxical-nearly incendiary-solution. Black women are three times as likely as white women to never marry. That sobering statistic reflects a broader reality: African Americans are the most unmarried people in our nation, and contrary to public perception the racial gap in marriage is not confined to women or the poor. Black men, particularly the most successful and affluent, are less likely to marry than their white counterparts. College educated black women are twice as likely as their white peers never to marry. Is Marriage for White People? is the first book to illuminate the many facets of the African American marriage decline and its implications for American society. The book explains the social and economic forces that have undermined marriage for African Americans and that shape everyone's lives. It distills the best available research to trace the black marriage decline's far reaching consequences, including the disproportionate likelihood of abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, single parenthood, same sex relationships, polygamous relationships, and celibacy among black women. This book centers on the experiences not of men or of the poor but of those black women who have surged ahead, even as black men have fallen behind. Theirs is a story that has not been told. Empirical evidence documents its social significance, but its meaning emerges through stories drawn from the lives of women across the nation. Is Marriage for White People? frames the stark predicament that millions of black women now face: marry down or marry out. At the core of the inquiry is a paradox substantiated by evidence and experience alike: If more black women married white men, then more black men and women would marry each other. This book not only sits at the intersection of two large and well- established markets-race and marriage-it responds to yearnings that are widespread and deep in American society. The African American marriage decline is a secret in plain view about which people want to know more, intertwining as it does two of the most vexing issues in contemporary society. The fact that the most prominent family in our nation is now an African American couple only intensifies the interest, and the market. A book that entertains as it informs, Is Marriage for White People? will be the definitive guide to one of the most monumental social developments of the past half century.

Author: Leo P. Chall
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Online databases
Languages : en
Pages : 804

View

Book Description
CSA Sociological Abstracts abstracts and indexes the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,800+ serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 28

View

Book Description