Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

Purpose: In spring 2005 a state representative advocated making cock-fighting a felony, but rejected a proposal strengthening penalties for criminal domestic violence. In response, women marched at the state capitol chanting “chicks aren't chickens”, challenging the broad acceptance of violence against women. This study considers these events, describing the marital and domestic violence experiences of poor women who live within a Southern orthodoxy of conservatism. First, we lay out the study's conceptual framework, based on Bourdieu's (1993; 1977) notions of habitus, orthodoxy and heterodoxy. Next, we use a mixed-methods approach to examine women's experiences of marriage on the economic margins. In interpreting findings, we use our conceptual framework to make connections between the behavioral phenomena observed in our data, and the structural, cultural and political factors that sustain these phenomena.

Method: Qualitative data comes from a study of poor, white single mothers (n=36) in the rural south and consists of transcripts of focused life histories. One woman (“Terry”) tells a story that sheds particularly useful light on issues of violence and marriage. Terry's story is analyzed thematically. Themes from this analysis are then used to contextualize results in a quantitative analysis. Quantitative data come from the TANF Characteristics Caseload Survey (TCCS) (n=1120). Bivariate analyses are used to compare attributes of ever-married versus never-married women, and an OLS regression examines the independent contributions of factors that explain variability in women's experiences of domestic violence.

Results: Findings are similar for the qualitative and quantitative analyses, with in general, marriage representing a risk factor for low-income women. Where Terri's life story demonstrates a range of childhood challenges and hardships through which marriage became a necessary “ticket out”, TCCS analysis indicates that never-married women have fared generally better than have ever-married women on a range of indicators. The qualitative analysis demonstrates that Terri's choices to depend on men are aimed at improving her social location, but work to keep her bound to that social location with its economic insecurity and risks to personal safety. Analysis of the TCCF data shows that never-married women have better health and mental health, more workforce participation, and report experiencing less than half the types of domestic violence compared to ever-married women. Marital status is also associated with race. White women are more than five times as likely as Black women to be ever-married. Controlling for marital status, although “white” is usually a privileged status in the south, it is a risk factor for domestic violence within the TANF population. The patterns from these two sets of findings are interpreted contextually, considering the political, cultural and social welfare contexts surrounding poor women and their choices for marriage on the margins.

Implications: In this paper we present evidence suggesting that marriage on the socio-economic margins may carry significant risks for women's physical and economic well-being. Implications are discussed, focusing on cautions to consider in the movement for “marriage promotion”, and practice considerations for providing optimal services to women navigating risky marriages within the orthodoxy of southern conservatism.