The Power of the Past: Understanding Cross-Class Marriages

by Jessi Streib

In an era in which class divisions are becoming starker than ever, some individuals are choosing to marry across class. The Power of the Past traces the lives of a subset of these individuals - highly-educated adults who married a partner raised in a class different from their own, primarily between those from blue- and white-color backgrounds. Drawing upon detailed interviews with spouses who revealed the inner workings of their marriages, Jessi Streib shows that crossing class lines is not easy, and that even though these couples shared bank accounts, mortgages, children, and friends, each spouse was still shaped by the class of their past, and consequently, so was their marriage.Streib reveals what was rarely apparent to the husbands and wives she interviewed. The class of their past did not only matter in determining the amount of money they had as children or what job their parents went off to each morning; It also mattered in more subtle ways, by systematically shaping their ideas of how to go about their daily lives. Upwardly mobile spouses who grew up in blue-collar families learned to take a laissez-faire approach to the world around they preferred to go with the flow, make the most of the moment, and avoid self-imposed constraints. Their spouses, who grew up in professional white-collar families, however, wanted to manage the world around they organized, planned, monitored, and oversaw. Living with a spouse who was born into a different class means navigating these differences - differences that appeared across nearly every aspect of their lives, from how they manage their finances, to how they manage their time - both at home and on vacation - to ideas about how their children should be raised.The Power of the Past illustrates that when individuals are raised in different classes, merged lives do not lead to merged ideas about how to lead those lives. Individuals can come together across class lines, but their enduring class characteristics cannot be left behind.

Genres: Finance, Nonfiction, Sociology, Cultural, Personal Finance, Money, Relationships

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 3, 2015

Reviews

[Samuel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this through only personal interest. My wife (white-collar) and I (blue-collar) are in a cross-class marriage. Jessi Streib loses points for her lack of methodology. To sum up: she interviewed around 60 couples for on average 1.5 hours and used those oral interviews to conclude her research. That's not enough.

Further she limited her scope to white heteronormative couples. Again. Extremely narrow.

Even accommodating for her minimal research the book merely states that those of white-collar origin are more likely to have structured managerial lives and those of blue-collar open spontaneous ones. These are her findings for every aspect of marriage: parenting, work and play, and time management.

It's also a bit funny that though she begins the book discussing how white heteronormative culture disallow these couples from liminally perceiving how class in their marriage throughout the book she falls back on euphemistic terms white/blue collar instead of the ones typically associated with class upper/middle/working.

[Hannah Emery · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book in evaluation for the Sociology of Families course I'm teaching right now, and also out of a personal interest in the topic (since my spouse and I are in a loosely cross-class marriage). While some of the methodology was a bit suspect to my sociological eye, I found the book interesting and a good first foray into a topic that, as near as I can tell, isn't widely explored in social science. The author interviewed about 35 couples in "mixed" blue-collar/white-collar marriages, and found that in general, blue-collar spouses were more laissez-faire about everything from leisure time to finances and childrearing, while white-collar spouses were "planners." She argues that these findings stem from differences in individuals' childhood experiences that persist even though all her respondents were middle-class at the time of the interviews.

I might recommend that Dr. Streib continue her research with a broader demographic pool and a larger N, but in the meantime, I will definitely be using this book for my undergrads and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the subject.

[Ulysses · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book seems a little too anecdotal-- the author studied 40+ mixed-background couples, but I didn't get the feeling that this was enough of a dataset to draw broad conclusions; it usually felt like the insights were specific to the couples in question. (Whereas the author's thesis is that what the couples thought was idiosyncratic to their relationship is in fact systemic.)

Furthermore, the author's tone and style are often awkward. She regularly describes the physical appearance and demeanor of the subjects-- which seems totally irrelevant to the matter at hand-- and seems to be judging her subjects negatively for not being more aware of and obsessed about the role of class differences in their relationships.

Overall, the book had some interesting insights and moments of "aha, so it's not just me!" but these are relatively rare; I did not feel it substantially increased my understanding of the topic beyond what I already intuited. But it's a quick read for such a dry sociological study, so if this is a topic of interest to you, it's a (relatively) quick and painless investment.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Engagement Ring, Wedding Ring, Suffering.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting concept, but as others have noted, the methodology is limited.

[Jackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is an interesting book on the differences between how white-collar vs blue-collar treat money. I wish it went into more detail about their financial systems. Summary:
- White-collar value education for pursuing their career. Blue-collar value education for the money return.
- Blue-collar are laisse-faire. They don't plan and believe it will all work out. White-collar plan meticulously.
-White-collar people try to hide their emotions and approach things calmly. Blue-collar is more expressive.
- White-collar families tend to value prestige more and, therefore have a less tight relationship with their families.

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compelling scholarship told with the rich, thick description only qualitative research can bring to bear. We need more work like this examining the ways class shapes us throughout life -- often in ways we are not even aware.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for my intro to sociology class. It was really interesting to consider how class backgrounds affect marriage, an aspect of society that seems to be incredibly personal and out of reach of societal factors.

[Marcos Lopez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read - gets a little repetitive for me but I do feel it’s a great start and insight to a topic you hear a lot about but don’t get deep dives on like this. Great start and I hope to get more depth in this area from somewhere

[Malina · Rating 1 out of 5]

A fairly disappointing read. The scope of the research was limited and the findings completely unenlightening.