Tera W. Hunter, "Bound In Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century" (Harvard UP, 2017)

New Books in African American Studies · Nov 5, 2020 · 1h 8m

Americans have long viewed marriage between a white man and a white woman as a sacred union. But marriages between African Americans have seldom been treated with the same reverence. This discriminatory legacy traces back to centuries of slavery, when the overwhelming majority of black married couples were bound in servitude as well as wedlock. Though their unions were not legally recognized, slaves commonly married, fully aware that their marital bonds would be sustained or nullified according to the whims of white masters. Bound In Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth…