The Repertoire of Infidelity among Low-Income Men: Doubt, Duty, and Destiny

In an effort to explain the rise of unwed parenthood in the inner city over the past several decades, a large body of research has attributed the phenomenon in part to low-income men’s unwillingness to commit to long-term, monogamous relationships. A major limitation of these studies, however, is that virtually none attempt to understand relationship dissolution by comparing low-income inner-city men in monogamous and nonmonogamous long-term heterosexual relationships. Drawing from a convenience sample of thirty-eight low-income monogamous and nonmonogamous men, this article develops a typology of three cultural logics of action used by respondents to motivate behavior in relationships: doubt, duty, and destiny. These cultural logics help to explain how poverty influences sexual action; nevertheless, this typology supports an emerging literature demonstrating the ways in which the sexual “culture of poverty” is contingent, contradictory, indeterminate, and multivocal.