Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage

Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage is a 2005 sociological study of low-income motherhood in eight neighborhoods in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Camden, New Jersey. The co-authors, sociologists Kathyrn Edin and Maria Kefalas, argue that social and economic conditions in urban, low-income communities limit the number of marriageable men, contributing to declining rates of marriage since the 1950s. Low-income women simultaneously prize motherhood as an achievement and seek relational enrichment through childbearing, leading to high rates of nonmarital pregnancies.

Promises I Can Keep won the 2006 William J. Goode Book Award, which is awarded each year to distinguished books that discuss the sociology of the family.

This guide references the 2005 edition, published by the University of California Press.

Content Warning: As the book itself is an in-depth sociological exploration, this guide includes references to intimate partner violence, emotional and physical abuse, drug use, and suicide.

Summary

Promises I Can Keep addresses two significant and related questions: Why have marriage rates in low-income communities declined since the 1950s, and why have nonmarital birthrates risen? Edin and Kefalas suggest that socioeconomic determinants play an important role in family formation among low-income women. Some observers believe that marriage has become less important in low-income communities, but this study shows that marriage remains an important goal.