Black women married to White men: What the women see as the challenges

ABSTRACT

With interracial marriages on the rise, a need exists to learn more about what challenges spouses in these marriages may face, especially during a period of U.S. history when race is increaingly becoming a part of the national conversation following the election of Donald Trump and the 2020 protests. While marriages between Asians, Blacks, Latinx populations, and Whites have all increased, Black-White marriages, in particular, have been in the crucible given the legacy of U.S. enslavement with Whites dominating Blacks as well as the 1967 Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court ruling related to a Black woman married to a White man. This article, based on qualitative interviews with 14 Black women married to White men, offers five themes that emerged from these interviews. These themes are: dealing with in-laws; negativity from outsiders; perspective taking and exhaustion; the impact of current events; and defining Blackness. Black Idenity Development is used as a theoretical framework.

KEYWORDS:

• Interracial marriage
• intermarriage
• Black women married to White men
• race relations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.