Slave Marriage Research Paper

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Marriage has been viewed differently as time has progressed. "In 1857 an Indiana judge confidently called marriage a great public institution, giving character to our whole civil polity.”(Cott 56) Marriage was a great public institution during this time period but it all depended on your social standings in society. This is clearly apparent because of the views towards slave marriages. Abolitionist rejected the concept of slavery because of the way it turned humans in cattle and they preached that it deformed marriage. Their marriages weren’t recognized legally and it was a “affront to American pretensions to value the purity of family life.”(Cott 57) This raises the question on how can these people have such a hypocritical interpretation of marriage and violation of their Christian monogamy. Slave marriages weren’t…show more content…
The main approach to justification of their stance on slavery was to cite and point out sections of the bible, which pointed out “slavery” specifically and how it should stay in our society. “ God included slavery as an organizing element in that family order which lies at the very foundation of Church and State.” (Cott 59) Proslavery ideologues want to bring in the idea of slaves being part of the family of the slave masters in a child role. Also proslavery ideology brought in the biblical verse “ the Christian slave must be submissive, faithful and obedient for reasons of the same authority with those which oblige husbands, wives, fathers, mothers… to fulfill the duties.” (Cott 59) This is a argument to show that slave masters have absolute rule over their slaves just as god would over the Christian slave owners. Therefore, in essence the slave master is the slave’s god and can do anything to them since they have to be obedient towards them, allowing them to violate the marriage of slaves while still upholding their standard of

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