Marrying Down: Ok When You Were The Secretary But Not Now You’re The CEO

The interview segment I participated in on Huff Post Live last week has everyone I know talking about this concept of marrying down, and my perspective/ personal experience with pursuing love ignoring socioeconomic status. I’m so appreciative of all the support and want to thank everyone who has reached out to me to encourage me to share my story as a positive stimulus to men and women alike. Please continue to provide your feedback askcarriepink@gmail.com

While the iron is still hot I want to address this whole “marrying down” concept. I will admit when I heard the title Huff Post gave the segment about 5 minutes before going live on air I cringed a little… That is not a phrase I would ever use to describe my marriage…But there I was about to talk about it..  Thankfully the framing and string of questions from Nancy Redd wasn’t offensive at all.

Its obvious from the interview that I reject the Marrying Down description though.. and here’s why…

Marrying Down sounds sooo derogatory… And black men in particular already have enough burdens on their shoulders do we really need to add another phrase which degrades them, their efforts, their potential and their perseverance to succeed! I tell women all the time we have so much power in our relationships and in the words we choose.  That power can be used for good, ie. motivation, encouragement and discernment or it can be used for bad ie. degrading, belittling, humiliating, emasculating, nagging.. The choice is yours, you can either build or destroy.

Secondly who established this term?? When and why did it take flight? Because when male CEO’s married their female secretaries it was called marrying up… and that was a great thing for women and their future children. It was not only acceptable but almost expected because she; the secretary, was the one who was the backbone of his operation holding him down… She knew all the details, they spent a significant amount of time together everyday. Why wouldn’t he marry her!?

Then when they got married he pulled her up through the ranks, financially, socially, and academically,  exposing her to a new type of lifestyle where she was not only supposed to assimilate but thrive… Madame secretary went from Walmart to the Waldorf, from Buster Brown to Barneys without missing a beat or looking out of place. Even though she often contributed little in financial means to the household, her love, support, eye candy status and holding down the home front for his children without having her own career getting in the way was all he ever wanted and needed.

Fast forward 25 years all of a sudden now that CEO is a women its degrading to marry your mechanic?

Ladies you need to wake up and smell the gasoline! I understand that a lot has changed in male/female relationships, but did we really become that fickle along the way? Statistics tells us there are more women  in college now than ever before and getting advanced degrees to boot. Naturally that shrinks the pool of male counterparts significantly.  What I don’t understand is why so many women have failed to accept this new reality and learn to operate successfully within this new paradigm.

Welcome to modern day feminism 101.

The world has changed drastically over the past 30-40 years, where women now more than ever are the primary breadwinners in their households. The scales have tipped so dramatically in other areas of male/female relationships and although apprehensive at first women have adopted the new standard.  Many women are now comfortable asking men out on dates, paying for said dates, being first to initiate intimacy, we have even gotten crass enough to have men classified in our phones as booty calls and jumpoffs. Some women are even going the full gusto in being the ones to propose marriage and the list goes on and on with the number of ways we continue to reject traditional gender roles 9 times out of 10.

But somehow we still have retained some very traditional ideals about how marriage looks and how it operates. How can that be if everything else has changed?

Additionally how can you expect to find success when you classify your union as “marrying down“? Already that gives a perception of less than and do your accomplishments really make you better than? Also is this degradation and emasculation of men just a black woman thing? When I talk to my white counterparts they too have seen an increase of educated white women marrying men with less accolades, but their classification is different. The house husband phenomenon is fine by them where they continue to climb the corporate ladder and their husband runs the household! They accept this concept knowing that the balancing act between motherhood and career is much better handled with an actual parent on the home-front, instead of a nanny. How is it that they are able to put a positive spin on it and we can’t?

What makes us as educated black women so quick to accept this description to the extent where we now want to label black men with less education than us an underclass to ourselves?? Have we ARRIVED that much? Do we feel that entitled? Are our mentalities that elite?  This used to be propaganda pushed on our communities from outsiders. When did we start subscribing to the same mode of thinking internally? Especially when for many of us we are ONLY the first or second generation to even pursue college and an advanced degree..

So girl please. Marrying down?? You were the “down” 60 credits ago.

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I’d love to hear your thoughts!

xoxo, Carrie

Related posts:

1. They Have Something In Common! Professional Black Women and Blue Collar Black Men
2. Why I Married Black..A response to the WSJ article, “An Interracial Fix for Black Marriage”
3. VIDEO: Marry Down To Save Race? Huff Post Live