Savanna Pacifico

Word Count: 498

Soc 111 MWF 10_10:50 am

Family

In the article "Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender & Race, 1973 to 2006", a team of researchers, Corra, Carter S., Carter J., and Knox, wanted to find out what kind of an impact gender and race would have on couple's marital statuses from the years 1973 to 2006 (Corra, Carter J., Carter S., & Knox, 2009). They gathered their data through the General Social Survey. While the research team focuses much of their attention on the race and gender of their participant they also found that church attendance, income as well as education was also a contributing factor in marital happiness through time (Corra, Carter J., Carter S., & Knox, 2009). Their result showed that white husbands reported the most happiness in their marriage compared to white wives and black wives and husbands. The black wives described the lowest reports of marital happiness. From the beginning of this study in 1973 to the conclusion of this study in 2006 the black wives' responses of happiness significantly increased, narrowing the gap between all the genders and races of participants. Whereas white wives' responses of marital happiness showed a progressive decrease from 1970 to the 2000's (Corra, Carter J., Carter S., & Knox, 2009). My perspective of white wives reporting a decrease in marital happiness may be greatly influenced by historical events that have occurred between 1970's to 2000's. Looking back on America, white women were generally confined to the household. It was believed that their duty was to their husband, and if their husbands were happy then they were too. Much has changed since then, women strive for independence and are more likely to speak their minds. I would assume that a woman this day and age is more open to addressing the imperfections in their marriage than they would have 20 years ago, but only additional research can accurately prove this.

Furthering the research on race and marriage, in their article "A Path Toward Interracial Marriage: Women First Partners and Husbands Across Racial Lines", researchers Rosalind King, and Jennifer Bratter, wanted to discover the relationship between the race of women's first sexual partner as well as the race of their future husbands (King & Bratter, 2007). In doing so, King, and Bratter gathered their data through the National Survey of Family Growth. Responses from 9,216 women ages 15-44 were used in this study (King & Bratter, 2007). They examined the female participant's race, religious affiliation, parent's education, and region of birth to help determine the potential influence on their marital partners' race. They found that Non-Hispanic Asian, Hispanic white, Hispanic American Indian women we more likely to have intimate interracial relationships, whereas Non-Hispanic white and Non-Hispanic black women were not. NHB women were more likely to marry the same race as their first sexual partner, but least likely to intermarry. Overall, they found that those who interracially married had experienced other sexual partners, whereas those who married their first sexual partner were least likely to intermarry. The idea behind this research is that women who have sex with someone of a different race share an accepting perception on race and international relationship, and would be more acceptable to the idea of themselves being in an interracial marriage (King & Bratter, 2007).