Christina Simmons
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195064117
- eISBN:
- 9780199869565
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195064117.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century, Social History
Novelists as well as reformers in the interwar period depicted three competing versions of companionate marriage. The most widespread was “flapper marriage,” which modernized but did not really ...
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Novelists as well as reformers in the interwar period depicted three competing versions of companionate marriage. The most widespread was “flapper marriage,” which modernized but did not really confront male dominance. Its proponents acclaimed flapper wives who had rejected demure styles of femininity, but they demonized powerful matriarchs and independent career women. African Americans imagined “partnership marriage,” in which marital roles were less distinct, wives were often employed, and marriage was more anchored in wider kin and community networks. Black and white feminists sought “feminist marriage,” in which not only sex but also paid work and household labor involved greater equality between women and men. Although all versions accepted more individual freedom in style and public behavior than Victorian mores allowed, only African Americans seriously supported individual freedom to choose marriage partners across racial lines.Less
Novelists as well as reformers in the interwar period depicted three competing versions of companionate marriage. The most widespread was “flapper marriage,” which modernized but did not really confront male dominance. Its proponents acclaimed flapper wives who had rejected demure styles of femininity, but they demonized powerful matriarchs and independent career women. African Americans imagined “partnership marriage,” in which marital roles were less distinct, wives were often employed, and marriage was more anchored in wider kin and community networks. Black and white feminists sought “feminist marriage,” in which not only sex but also paid work and household labor involved greater equality between women and men. Although all versions accepted more individual freedom in style and public behavior than Victorian mores allowed, only African Americans seriously supported individual freedom to choose marriage partners across racial lines.
Carlos A. Ball
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- June 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199977871
- eISBN:
- 9780199383306
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199977871.003.0002
- Subject:
- Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Forensic Psychology
This chapter places the current marriage debates in a historical context by explaining how supporters of earlier class-based marital restrictions enacted in decades past (such as interracial marriage ...
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This chapter places the current marriage debates in a historical context by explaining how supporters of earlier class-based marital restrictions enacted in decades past (such as interracial marriage bans, disability marriage prohibitions, and the differential treatment of nonmarital children), like opponents of same-sex marriage today, defended their policy positions by relying on particular understandings of how individuals should exercise their procreative capacities and how they should form families and rear children in order to promote the social good. The chapter argues that these highly problematic precedents in American marital policy history should make policymakers, courts, and the general public highly skeptical of efforts to impose or maintain class-based marital disqualifications or limitations in order to (ostensibly) promote the social good in matters related to procreation and child-rearing.Less
This chapter places the current marriage debates in a historical context by explaining how supporters of earlier class-based marital restrictions enacted in decades past (such as interracial marriage bans, disability marriage prohibitions, and the differential treatment of nonmarital children), like opponents of same-sex marriage today, defended their policy positions by relying on particular understandings of how individuals should exercise their procreative capacities and how they should form families and rear children in order to promote the social good. The chapter argues that these highly problematic precedents in American marital policy history should make policymakers, courts, and the general public highly skeptical of efforts to impose or maintain class-based marital disqualifications or limitations in order to (ostensibly) promote the social good in matters related to procreation and child-rearing.
Andrew Koppelman
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300113402
- eISBN:
- 9780300135138
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300113402.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This chapter describes legal precedents from the controversy over interracial marriage. It covers polygamy cases; the functions of the miscegenation taboo; and three classes of choice of law problems ...
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This chapter describes legal precedents from the controversy over interracial marriage. It covers polygamy cases; the functions of the miscegenation taboo; and three classes of choice of law problems involving interracial marriages: evasion cases, extraterritorial cases, and migratory cases.Less
This chapter describes legal precedents from the controversy over interracial marriage. It covers polygamy cases; the functions of the miscegenation taboo; and three classes of choice of law problems involving interracial marriages: evasion cases, extraterritorial cases, and migratory cases.
Susan Zeiger
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814797174
- eISBN:
- 9780814797488
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814797174.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter discusses how the interracial “war bride” marriages factored into issues of race and race relations in the United States as the nation stood on the cusp of the civil rights movement. The ...
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This chapter discusses how the interracial “war bride” marriages factored into issues of race and race relations in the United States as the nation stood on the cusp of the civil rights movement. The personal had become political for war brides and American soldiers as they confronted the machinery of discrimination in the military and at home during the late 1940s and 1950s. Out of this experience, some individuals or families came to embrace the cause of civil rights. The equality revolution would not coalesce for another decade and a half, but a nascent civil rights movement gathered momentum in the wake of the war. Voices of resistance to racism were heard in the press, among scholars, artists, and writers, and among activists and reformers. For some groups and individuals, the interracial war couples of World War II were an important touchstone, a symbol of racial transformation.Less
This chapter discusses how the interracial “war bride” marriages factored into issues of race and race relations in the United States as the nation stood on the cusp of the civil rights movement. The personal had become political for war brides and American soldiers as they confronted the machinery of discrimination in the military and at home during the late 1940s and 1950s. Out of this experience, some individuals or families came to embrace the cause of civil rights. The equality revolution would not coalesce for another decade and a half, but a nascent civil rights movement gathered momentum in the wake of the war. Voices of resistance to racism were heard in the press, among scholars, artists, and writers, and among activists and reformers. For some groups and individuals, the interracial war couples of World War II were an important touchstone, a symbol of racial transformation.
Elizabeth M. Smith-Pryor
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807832684
- eISBN:
- 9781469605906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807894170_smith-pryor.11
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter focuses on the importance of race in marriages during the 1920s. Concerns over race and concerns about marriage often converged when it came time to choose a marriage partner. By 1927, ...
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This chapter focuses on the importance of race in marriages during the 1920s. Concerns over race and concerns about marriage often converged when it came time to choose a marriage partner. By 1927, twenty-nine states outlawed marriages between different races. Race also mattered for marriage in northern states like New York, where no laws forbade interracial marriages.Less
This chapter focuses on the importance of race in marriages during the 1920s. Concerns over race and concerns about marriage often converged when it came time to choose a marriage partner. By 1927, twenty-nine states outlawed marriages between different races. Race also mattered for marriage in northern states like New York, where no laws forbade interracial marriages.
Paul Finkelman
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195112436
- eISBN:
- 9780199854271
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195112436.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
In the beginning of the period of European settlement, sexual activity in the South was multiracial. In the first years of the Virginia colony almost all the settlers were male. This was generally ...
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In the beginning of the period of European settlement, sexual activity in the South was multiracial. In the first years of the Virginia colony almost all the settlers were male. This was generally true in other southern colonies as well. This first colony led the way in stigmatizing and criminalizing love, and sometimes sex, between the races. The success of laws punishing race mixing seems clear. Hostility to interracial marriage and children of mixed ancestry grew during the 18th century. So too did the female population. The social norms and legal prohibitions that Virginia created in the 17th century remained viable for more than two centuries in the Old Dominion and throughout the South. Virginia's early laws criminalizing interracial marriages proved to be the most durable legacy of the colonial response to race.Less
In the beginning of the period of European settlement, sexual activity in the South was multiracial. In the first years of the Virginia colony almost all the settlers were male. This was generally true in other southern colonies as well. This first colony led the way in stigmatizing and criminalizing love, and sometimes sex, between the races. The success of laws punishing race mixing seems clear. Hostility to interracial marriage and children of mixed ancestry grew during the 18th century. So too did the female population. The social norms and legal prohibitions that Virginia created in the 17th century remained viable for more than two centuries in the Old Dominion and throughout the South. Virginia's early laws criminalizing interracial marriages proved to be the most durable legacy of the colonial response to race.
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226451008
- eISBN:
- 9780226451039
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226451039.003.0006
- Subject:
- Law, Constitutional and Administrative Law
This chapter considers the choice-of-law problem that state courts will face. It addresses the question of interstate marriage recognition by developing an analogy with the most profound disagreement ...
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This chapter considers the choice-of-law problem that state courts will face. It addresses the question of interstate marriage recognition by developing an analogy with the most profound disagreement in American history over marriage recognition, the conflict of laws over interracial marriage. Until 1967, when the Supreme Court invalidated them, many state laws prohibited such marriages. Like same-sex marriage, interracial marriages involved an exceedingly strong public policy: the Southern courts regarded marriages between blacks and whites as “connections and alliances so unnatural that God and nature seem to forbid them.” The statutes prohibiting such marriages were worded at least as strongly as those of the recent state laws against same-sex marriage: they usually declared such marriages void and punished their celebration with criminal penalties. Yet even in this charged context, the courts rejected the blanket rule of nonrecognition. In every case that did not involve cohabitation within the forum, and in some that did, the Southern courts recognized interracial marriages.Less
This chapter considers the choice-of-law problem that state courts will face. It addresses the question of interstate marriage recognition by developing an analogy with the most profound disagreement in American history over marriage recognition, the conflict of laws over interracial marriage. Until 1967, when the Supreme Court invalidated them, many state laws prohibited such marriages. Like same-sex marriage, interracial marriages involved an exceedingly strong public policy: the Southern courts regarded marriages between blacks and whites as “connections and alliances so unnatural that God and nature seem to forbid them.” The statutes prohibiting such marriages were worded at least as strongly as those of the recent state laws against same-sex marriage: they usually declared such marriages void and punished their celebration with criminal penalties. Yet even in this charged context, the courts rejected the blanket rule of nonrecognition. In every case that did not involve cohabitation within the forum, and in some that did, the Southern courts recognized interracial marriages.
Maria Höhn
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604737844
- eISBN:
- 9781604737851
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604737844.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Recent research on the American military occupation in West Germany has addressed issues of gender and race by exploring the African American GIs’ sexual relationships with German women. This chapter ...
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Recent research on the American military occupation in West Germany has addressed issues of gender and race by exploring the African American GIs’ sexual relationships with German women. This chapter examines the German and American debates on interracial relationships and how black soldiers stationed in Germany began to challenge interference in their relationships or the de facto segregation of bars and restaurants to GIs. It argues that African American GIs were defining civil rights not only in terms of political and economic equality, but also in terms of social equality. The chapter considers the irony of an American government that forced the abolition of the Nuremberg Laws and a ban on marriages between Aryans and non-Aryans, but tolerated the many state laws banning interracial marriages. It also comments on the attitudes of black soldiers who felt less racism and discrimination in U.S. military bases in Germany than in America, and, finally, discusses the debate about the propriety of racial mixing in Germany and its implications for democracy.Less
Recent research on the American military occupation in West Germany has addressed issues of gender and race by exploring the African American GIs’ sexual relationships with German women. This chapter examines the German and American debates on interracial relationships and how black soldiers stationed in Germany began to challenge interference in their relationships or the de facto segregation of bars and restaurants to GIs. It argues that African American GIs were defining civil rights not only in terms of political and economic equality, but also in terms of social equality. The chapter considers the irony of an American government that forced the abolition of the Nuremberg Laws and a ban on marriages between Aryans and non-Aryans, but tolerated the many state laws banning interracial marriages. It also comments on the attitudes of black soldiers who felt less racism and discrimination in U.S. military bases in Germany than in America, and, finally, discusses the debate about the propriety of racial mixing in Germany and its implications for democracy.
Kyle G. Volk
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199371914
- eISBN:
- 9780199371945
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199371914.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter reveals how racial amalgamation (racial mixture) became the third moral problem that provoked crucial debates about majority rule and minority rights in the 1840s. It shows how, ...
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This chapter reveals how racial amalgamation (racial mixture) became the third moral problem that provoked crucial debates about majority rule and minority rights in the 1840s. It shows how, beginning in Massachusetts, abolitionists challenged the long-standing legal ban on interracial marriage and policies of segregating black and white children in public schools. Defenders insisted that these measures properly prevented amalgamation and were supported in true democratic fashion by the overwhelming majority. At town meetings, in courtrooms, in newspapers, and elsewhere, however, black activists and white abolitionists painted race regulations as markers of inequality. To them, equality was a hallmark of democracy that no majority, no matter how large, could contravene in public policy. This chapter follows the struggle from grass-roots challenges to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and eventually to the 1855 state law that ended de jure school segregation, the first in the nation.Less
This chapter reveals how racial amalgamation (racial mixture) became the third moral problem that provoked crucial debates about majority rule and minority rights in the 1840s. It shows how, beginning in Massachusetts, abolitionists challenged the long-standing legal ban on interracial marriage and policies of segregating black and white children in public schools. Defenders insisted that these measures properly prevented amalgamation and were supported in true democratic fashion by the overwhelming majority. At town meetings, in courtrooms, in newspapers, and elsewhere, however, black activists and white abolitionists painted race regulations as markers of inequality. To them, equality was a hallmark of democracy that no majority, no matter how large, could contravene in public policy. This chapter follows the struggle from grass-roots challenges to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and eventually to the 1855 state law that ended de jure school segregation, the first in the nation.
Angela Onwuachi-Willig
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300166828
- eISBN:
- 9780300166880
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300166828.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Social History
This book looks at what it means to be a multiracial couple in the United States today. It begins with a look back at a 1925 case in which a two-month marriage ends with a man suing his wife for ...
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This book looks at what it means to be a multiracial couple in the United States today. It begins with a look back at a 1925 case in which a two-month marriage ends with a man suing his wife for misrepresentation of her race, and shows how our society has yet to come to terms with interracial marriage. The book examines this issue by drawing from a variety of sources, including personal experiences. It argues that housing law, family law, and employment law fail, in important ways, to protect multiracial couples. In a society in which marriage is used to give, withhold, and take away status—in the workplace and elsewhere—the book says interracial couples are at a disadvantage, which is only exacerbated by current law.Less
This book looks at what it means to be a multiracial couple in the United States today. It begins with a look back at a 1925 case in which a two-month marriage ends with a man suing his wife for misrepresentation of her race, and shows how our society has yet to come to terms with interracial marriage. The book examines this issue by drawing from a variety of sources, including personal experiences. It argues that housing law, family law, and employment law fail, in important ways, to protect multiracial couples. In a society in which marriage is used to give, withhold, and take away status—in the workplace and elsewhere—the book says interracial couples are at a disadvantage, which is only exacerbated by current law.
