Judging from countless array of films, books and even love songs (Stevie Wonder’s “Ribbon In The Sky,” Anthony David’s “4EverMore” and even Beyonce’s “Single Ladies”), there has always been a fascination with love and marriage. The process of finding that special someone, declaring their love and navigating life as a couple is the dream of many, if not all, men and women.

However, a recent news story sent tongues fluttering and African-American social media sites into overdrive: According to a Newsweek article entitled “Sex, Race, Education & the Marriage Gap,” black women are more likely to remain unmarried in comparison to their equally educated white peers. Plus, those with college degrees who do marry usually select spouses from a ‘lower economic tier.’ In other words, black women are usually ‘marrying down.’ Only 49 percent of black women marry equally educated spouses versus 84 percent of white women doing the same.

Many bloggers, myself included, traded theories and speculation about the results and what they translate into for today and the future, but Audrey Chapman, a relationship expert, author and family therapist, interprets those findings differently.

“If you check the latest census numbers, more of us are ‘marrying out,'” Chapman said by phone, referring to the 117,000 black women with white spouses in 2006 vs. 95,000 in 2000. In addition to counseling couples and families, the Washington, D.C.-based Chapman has been featured in dozens of national publications, on multiple TV programs and written a number of books, including Entitled To Good Loving: Black Men and Women and the Battle For Love and Power.”

“There is also simply not a ‘surplus’ of available black men. Even if 100 of them stood up, as we are talking, and said they wanted to marry, there still wouldn’t be enough. Half are gay and the 25 percent want non-black wives. That’s the reality of it.”

Chapman also pointed out that the overall marriage rate decreased in the 1960s thanks to the popularity of divorce and the women’s liberation movement. “With us striving for better jobs and higher education, and black men were starting to lag behind. Not that they weren’t getting degrees, it just wasn’t happening at the same rate. Today, if black women want to marry a black man of equal status, those factors still create a problem. Most men don’t handle it well [when wives outearn them] and neither do women, quite frankly.”

Chapman also points to racism, educational discrepancies, incarceration rates and seismic shifts in popular culture, including the influence hip-hop movement and its devolution from rhymes of empowerment to insults that degraded relationships. She also believes that society’s wider acceptance of single motherhood doesn’t help. “At one point in the Black community, [out-of-wedlock pregnancy] was something to be ashamed of. Today, women have started making it too easy: If you can sleep with someone, have their baby and remain in a relationship with them, some men see no reason to get married. ”

However, aside from the conditions that have generated the status quo, Chapman believes that some of the solutions start at home. “Women can only raise up men to a certain point, so men in the black community need to step up to plate,” she says. “If there’s not a father available in the home, then there should be one within the family system like an uncle, grandfather, brother, or even someone in the church. There need to be more male examples, for boys especially, to learn from. In the old days, you had the menfolk who were around as ministers or as part of the community to help raise the children, so we need to get back to ‘old ways’ and incorporate those.”