Don't let Black Marriage Day Make You Feel Pressured to Wed

Online, March 27, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Created by Nisa Muhammad, executive director of the Washington-based Wedded Bliss Foundation, Black Marriage Day was founded in 2003 for the purpose of revitalizing or saving marriages in the African American community. After all, we've all been bombarded with the 2001 US Census which found that 27.4 percent of white men and 20.7 percent of white women have never been married. In the African American community, those numbers nearly double to 43.3 percent of men and 41.9 percent of women. Additionally, the number of marriages in the U.S. fell by 17 percent from1970 to 2001. During the same time frame, it dropped by 34 percent for African Americans. But, the once limited event has now spread to over 300 communities, and added undue pressure to black women to marry anyone just so they won't be alone.

A recent study published in the "Journal of Family Issues" found that women still feel unduly stigmatized by their relationship status. According to LiveScience.com, even though women are increasing staying single or waiting to marry later, they feel society views them as spinsters. This negative image is not only damaging to single women, but those who choose to marry and settle for a man who doesn't fit their needs or wants so they can conform to societal norms.

Surely, rushing people into taking one of the arguably most important decisions of their lives won't benefit the African American community any more than it being overwrought by single parents. Perhaps we do need to change the attitude about the necessity for and desire to get married, but one day should be used by couples to change the course of their lives. Maybe the best thing to do would be to make this a yearlong initiative focused on building self-love, self-confidence and educating couples on how to have productive, functioning relationships.

I Didn't Work This Hard Just to Get Married: Successful, Single Black Women Speaks Out addresses the challenges these women face trying to achieve their dreams by defying convention. Moreover, it inspires women to get to know and love themselves so when or if they do find someone they want to marry, they are financially and emotionally ready for the challenge that marriage poses.