If I went on a plantation and saw a girl I wanted to marry, I would
ask my master to buy her for me. It wouldn't matter if she were
somebody else's wife; she would become mine. The master would pay for
her and bring her home and say, "John, there's your wife. That is all
the marriage there would be. Yellow women used to be a novelty then.
You wouldn't see one-tenth as many then as now. In some cases,
however, a man would retain his wife even after she had been sold
away from him and would have permission to visit her from time to
time.