#1 - Having a fiance(e)

When non-trashy white people fall in love, they get married. When white trash couples fall in love - or become pregnant - they take a fiance (rhymes with Beyonce - coincidence??). Today, when one is introduced to the significant other of any white trash individual, that person will inevitably be referred to as the fiance. For evidence, we refer you to any recent episode of "Judge Judy."

The fiance phenomenon within white trash culture is relatively new; not too many years ago, white trash couples - no matter how long they had been together, or whether or not they had children together -merely referred to one another as "boyfriend" or "girlfriend." At some point, however, the white trash woman decided that the word "fiance" sounded both more serious and more exotically foreign. She came to believe it bestowed a certain desirable cachet - gravitas, if you will - upon her relationships.

For the white trash man, however, becoming a woman's fiance is more practical than descriptive. It means he can obtain many of the same benefits of marriage (cell phone minutes, cable upgrade, acccess to another man's child support payments, etc ) without the expense or hassle of actually getting married. It means he can move from fiance to fiance - often within the space of only a few months - without legal or social impediment.

A white trash fiance is much like a traditional fiance - the primary difference being that the white trash man has absolutely no intention of marrying his white trash fiance. You see, in white trash parlance, "fiance" does not mean, "woman I intend to marry." Instead, the term means "woman that I am sleeping with and who buys my beer and pays my rent."

Another data point is that within white trash culture, becoming affianced does not involve the man giving the woman a ring; instead, the white trash couple seals the deal by jointly adopting a pit bull puppy*

*See Item #2