To the Editor:
As members of the research community, we feel compelled to speak out on behalf of our colleagues Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas. The idea that their new book, Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage, is "conceptual plagiarism" of Elijah Anderson's work is absurd and suggests a fundamental misreading of the two bodies of work.
While both authors address the question of why poor women have children outside marriage, their arguments could not be more different. Anderson claims that non-marital births are the result of a dating game in which young men take advantage of young women's fantasies of marriage in order to have sex.
In contrast, Edin and Kefalas tell a story in which the young women are unwilling to marry men who do not meet their standards for financial and emotional security.
Sara McLanahan
The author is a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University.
This letter was co-signed by 12 other professors from various universities.
