Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age [Paperback]

Kay S. Hymowitz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 26, 2007

A generation ago Americans undertook a revolutionary experiment to redefine marriage. Where historically men and women had sought a loving bond, largely centered on the rearing of children, the new arrangement called for an intimate—and provisional—union of two adults. Now, as Kay Hymowitz argues in Marriage and Caste in America, the results of this experiment separating marriage from childrearing are in, and they turn out to be bad news not only for children but also, in ways little understood, for the country as a whole. The family revolution has played a central role in a growing inequality and high rates of poverty, even during economic good times. The family upheaval has hit African-Americans especially hard, Ms. Hymowitz shows, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan had famously predicted it would. While for decades feminists and academics toyed with the myth of the strong single black mother supported by kinship networks, black men drifted into fatherhood without being husbands, without even becoming part of a family, while black children were left behind. When Americans began their family revolution, they forgot to consider what American marriage was designed to do: it ordered lives by giving the young a meaningful life script. It supported middle-class foresight, planning, and self-sufficiency. And it organized men and women around "The Mission"—nurturing their children's cognitive, emotional, and physical development. More than anything, Ms. Hymowitz writes, it is The Mission that separates middle-class kids—who for all their overscheduling are doing very well indeed—from their less-parented and lower-achieving peers. In fact our great family experiment threatens to turn what the founders imagined as an opportunity-rich republic of equal citizens into a hereditary caste society.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Kay Hymowitz thoughtfully takes on the minimalists who say a marriage is just a shack-up plus a piece of paper. Her elegant essays show that marriage is an essential culture-preserver, poverty-fighter, and life-improver. (Dr. Marvin Olasky, editor–in–chief World )

America could save itself a lot of trouble by paying attention to what [Hymowitz] writes. (Dalrymple, Theodore )

A sobering investigation of the widening gap in the American social structure that's being caused by new attitudes toward marriage. (Haskins, Ron )

The most fascinating (but grimmest) sections...deal with child-rearing skills in unmarried America. (Charlotte Hays Wall Street Journal )

Marriage and Caste in America should provoke serious thought about how marriage has become a class issue—and what we can do about it. (Christine B. Whelan New York Post )

Essential. (Brooks, David New York Times )

Hymowitz...has concluded that the family revolution [is both] bad news for children [and] has had the effect of stratifying the country as a whole. (Steve Goddard's History Wire )

Hymowitz provides an arresting diagnosis of American social ills. (Cheryl Miller The American Conservative )

Hymowitz has the gift of being able to convey complicated ideas, theories, and history in lucid and witty language. (Lisa Schiffren Commentary )

A strong case for the value of marriage. (Today's Machine World )

A short and readable volume.... Hymowitz has surely contributed...to creating the present hopeful moment for mainstream America. (Claudia Anderson Weekly Standard )

Kay Hymowitz makes a persuasive case in Marriage and Caste in America that the best social program is actually marriage. (David Forsmark Front Page Magazine )

[The author] has the gift of being able to convey complicated ideas, theories, and history in language that is lucid and-most precious of all in discussions of marriage and family-witty. It is a pleasure to read her essays....an intelligent, compelling case....Clear and forceful conclusions about what is missing from the impoverished lives that she describes so well. (Book Review Digest )

Hymowitz cogently lays out a case that when it comes to reducing poverty, economics and family structure can't be separated. (Newsobserver.Com )

Beautifully written tour de force of contemporary American family life. (Wilcox, W Bradford First Things )

Powerful...unflinching...analysis of this crisis of the black abandonment of marriage. (Sullivan, Gregory J. Evening Bulletin )

[A] fascinating and informational [book] that you ought to read. (Dr. Laura Schlessinger )

About the Author

Kay S. Hymowitz is the author of Liberation's Children and Ready or Not, and has written extensively on education and childhood in America in articles for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the New Republic, among other publications. She is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute in New York City and a contributing editor of City Journal. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and three children.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R Dee (October 26, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566637538
• ISBN-13: 978-1566637534
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #89,565 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inner City Black Children Could Use More Bill Cosby's and fewer Marian Wright Edelman's, December 28, 2006

By 

Mark MacGuidwin (Bloomfield Township, MI, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age (Hardcover)

In writing this easy-to-read, but hard-to-swallow little book, Kay Hymowitz has done more to show the route out of poverty and despair for inner city black children than all the nanny-state prescriptions of "child advocacy" organizations like the Childrens' Defense Fund (now there's a misnomer). She describes well the fundamental difference between middle class families--with both father and mother living in the same house--and single mothers with absentee fathers in the inner city. In middle-class families, the child's development--"emotional, social, and...cognitive--takes center stage. It is the family's raison d'etre, its state religion." It is a lack of understanding of what she labels the "mission" of the family for the child, that perpetuates the underclass. It hit me between the eyes when a nurse, working with poor, young, first-time mothers, is quoted as saying that when she encouraged such mothers to talk to their babies, they often reply, "Why would I talk to him? He can't answer me." Throwing more money at government programs like Head Start haven't been able and never will be able to overcome such a view of the role of the "family" in developing a self-reliant, productive and, yes, happy child and young adult. And unfortunately, for more and more central cities of the US, there are no longer any models of middle class behavior for young people to learn from. No one can show how a full-time father living in the home acts--because there are none.

The good news from this book is that Gen X young people, having seen and felt the horrific effects of easy divorces by Baby Boomer parents, are becoming more and more committed to staying together in traditional marriages. The bad news, as Hymowitz demonstrates, is that American society is becoming more and more bifurcated. As the time and education required to succeed in a more information-intensive world increases, the gap between success (and yes, personal fulfillment) and failure (and despair) will continue to grow. And such success or failure will be determined more and more by that venerable, but elite-scorned institution--the marriage of one man and one woman. How did we ever come to think otherwise?

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The unequal distribution of marriage, February 12, 2007

By 

Hagios (Rhode Island) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age (Hardcover)

This is a well written and accessible look at some of the research surrounding marriage and poverty. In the first chapter Kay Hymowitz shows that the breakdown of marriage has not been a universal phenomenon. Instead divorce and single motherhood are concentrated among the poor. The result is that the breakdown of marriage entraps another generation into poverty. This shows up clearly in the statistics, Only 20% of children in families earning under $15,000 live with both parents, compared to 92% for children whose parents make over $75,000. This also shows up in surprising ways. In a world in which divorce rates are nearly fifty percent, only 10% of students in elite colleges come from divorced families.

Affluent families are governed by what Hymowitz dubs "The Mission." Affluent parents invest tremendous amounts of time and energy into their children in order to prepare them for a successful life. Even socially liberal women recognize the importance of enlisting fathers in the process of raising children. Heartbreakingly, this is not emulated in the broken homes of the underclass. There is an adage that goes, "When America catches a cold, black America catches pneumonia," and this is sadly true when it comes to the breakdown of the family. Hymowitz describes childrearing in the black community, where in many inner cities the rates of out of wedlock childbirths are nearly 80%. Unmarried parents may start out with good intentions, but over time they drift in different directions. When the black mothers try to get the fathers to invest more time and energy into their children, they are derided for "actin' white."

Other books that people who read this will like are The Marriage Problem: How Our Culture Has Weakened Families by sociologist James Q. Wilson. It is a more thorough treatment of much of the same material, including the current research, history, and sociology of marriage. Also check out No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning, which is a rigorous examination of the problem of black poverty and education. It debunks various progressive arguments such as a lack of school funding or self-fulfilling prophecies, and argues the need for a cultural readjustment.

37 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hymowitz is a Treasure, December 17, 2006

By 

Wynton C. Hall (Bainbridge, GA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age (Hardcover)

If you don't already read Kay Hymowitz's essays in City Journal, you will after reading this book. She's that rare writer who manages to be bold without being bombastic. Her take on the crumbling institution of marriage is at once sobering and smart. Her thesis: marriage matters. In language that is simple without being simplistic, she reveals how marriage is the ultimate "anti-poverty program," and how so much that ails our nation's youth derives from absentee fathers. She delivers a heavy message with a hopeful conclusion: in the end, many of the challenges our nation's families face aren't all that hard to solve, they just take the moral courage and individual initiative to do so.