@Foofie,
Yeah well,as a white woman from a middle class family - the truth is that I didn't particularly want to get married - I found the whole concept of pledging to do something/anything 'forever' very difficult...but I did want to be a mother and I knew that if I were going to have children, the expectation in my cultural background was that I better damn well be married before I did it....so I did.
That's really about the only reason I did go through with the whole ceremony..I knew my parents would be happier if I did - and that's because of the type of background I'd grown up in.
So I see what Miller is saying - there's less of that expectation in the black community- that's a fact. It also seems (to me at least) there's also less of that expectation among the white middle classes in England. It seems perfectly acceptable to live together and have children here - I can't count the number of people who have children with their 'partners' that I've met here - and that means no marriage or commitment and these people are teachers/doctors/what have you....
It's not racist to state a fact.