They would like to get married too. But most women from inner-city communities have difficulty getting hitched because the men they date are just not into the commitment thing.

Sandra Smith, a janitor who hails from Riverton, is in her 40s but has never been married.

"I have always wanted to get married but I just couldn't find any man to get married to. I just don't have that luck. It's just always abuse and more abuse," Smith told Saturday Life.

Explaining why some women in inner-city communities do not get married, she cited attitude. "Some of them are too contentious and like to war so the men don't want to settle with them," she said.

socio-economic reasons

Monique Mason, who has spent most of her life in the inner city, said it is difficult for women from these depressed communities to get married because of several socio-economic reasons.

"Some women are just thinking about the money and their priorities are not the conventional one," Mason, who has managed, despite the odds, to earn two university degrees, explained.

She still lives in an inner-city community off Windward Road in Kingston.

"It also could be the type of men that inner-city women date. These men are just not in the marriage thing and are more content with shacking up because it is easy for them to leave when things go wrong," Mason explains.

"Some people are of the view that if it ain't broken, why fix it? So if the relationship is working without being married, they will continue to cohabit without getting married," said Mason.

'love the hype'

She also pointed out that people from inner cities "love the hype" and, therefore, would like to have a bashment wedding.

"The money is not always available so they will refuse to go ahead and have a little private ceremony because marriage, in their minds, is really about the event and not the actual lifestyle that will follow," Mason says.

Forty-year-old Milton Jameswho hails from Fletcher's Land, central Kingston, has never thought about getting married because he claims that he cannot find a good woman.

"I can tell you for a fact that most of us don't get married because we want to run away from our responsibility,"

He notes that inner-city men prefer to have several women without any strings attached.

"It is a macho mentality and because most of the women don't have a solid education, they accept all the foolishness that the man gives to them," he told Saturday Life.

"The problem is that there are too many illiterate people in the ghetto and the women want bad man with gun because they think that they can protect them but these bad men don't want any commitment and that's why so many single mother end up in the ghetto".

For 21-year-old Mark Montaque, marriage is a journey he intends to take in the future.

bad man don't get married

He notes that interaction with friends in the inner city has revealed that most of them do not want to get married because it makes them appear to be weaklings.

"They say bad man don't have to get married because they can get any girl they want and marriage is a thing for weak man," Montaque said.

But what makes him so different from his peers in the inner-city community?

"I kinda grow up in a strict home and my mother points out the importance of a stable family, so that is why I will ensure that I get married when the time is right," he said.

Real names withheld

petrina.francis@gleanerjm.com