Homogamy Unmarried With Children

The quintessential idea of a family is represented everywhere in media as a white, heterosexual couple in their late twenties with two or three kids. In the dictionary, family is defined as “a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household.” This monolithic view of family has been present in American society for decades, ergo the ‘white picket fence’ stereotype. However, in an age of challenging social norms, the picket fences are being torn down left and right.
Modern families challenge familial norms by breaking racialized and heteronormative boundaries. Homogamy is the theory that you marry someone “like” you, as in someone of a similar race, religion, class, age, etc. The rates of homogamy have been historically
Even with the average age of first marriage increasing, there is no evidence to support the idea that poor people are abandoning marriage. In Unmarried with Children, the authors follow the story of a teenage girl who gave birth to her first son at the age of 15. Jen’s story shines a spotlight on what family and marriage mean among lower class communities, and how, if anything, they glorify the idea of marriage rather than rejecting it. The article discusses how pregnancy is often a manipulative tactic for men to persuade their younger girlfriends to stay with them even while, in many cases, they are in prison. Young women regularly end up marrying the same man who impregnated them out of wedlock. In fact, according to the Unmarried with Children, “more than seven in ten women who had a child outside of marriage will eventually wed someone”
When teenage girls aren’t given the change to pursue higher education after giving birth, it effectively cuts off their opportunity to make marital and family decisions that prioritize their own goals. With higher education being an ever growing field, more and more women are choosing to put their personal education and career aspirations before marriage and children. Though this may be viewed as a selfish choice, studies have shown that college graduated women who marry over 30, make more money than those who marry in their early 20s, and significantly more than those who married young with less than a college degree (Income of 33-35 yr. old women, by Age at Marriage and