Bound in Wedlock

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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, but it does not end there. Bound in Wedlock is the first comprehensive history of African American marriage in the nineteenth century. Drawing form plantation records, legal documents, and personal family papers, it reveals the many creative ways enslaved couplesfound to upend white Christian ideas of marriage