MARRIAGE.
Nothing, perhaps, is so repugnant to the northern mind as the notion
that marriage does not exist among the “slaves” of the South, and the
Abolition lecturers have given this subject the most prominent place in
their terrible bill of indictment against their southern brethren. The
spectacle, or the seeming spectacle, of four millions of human beings
living without marriage, without family, without children, with nothing
but offspring, shut out, like the brutes that perish, from all the
household charities, and doomed to live in universal concubinage, as it
has been termed, was, to the northern and European mind, such a
stupendous outrage on “humanity,” that we need not wonder at their
fierce indignation, or at the wild and unsparing denunciation heaped
upon the authors of such boundless and unparalleled iniquity. Especially
were northern women shocked and indignant, and above all others, the
women of New England were excited at times to a “Divine fury” when
contemplating this mighty “wickedness.” Our fair countrywomen are
believed to be equally virtuous and lovely, but the _domestic_ education
of those of New England, in some respects, is more admirable than that
of others or any other country. They are taught to labor, to be their
own housekeepers, to regard life, and the duties of life, as a solemn
mission to be faithfully and conscientiously fulfilled, and though it
imparts a certain materialism bordering on hardness, perhaps, to the New
England woman, it is associated with such simple and transparent love of
truth, and such an earnest and abiding sense of duty, that the harsher
features of the character are lost in these gentler and more exalted
qualities. Hence they are taught to regard a violation of the family
relation as the one most heinous and unpardonable sin. To women thus
educated, with the utmost abhorrence of any violation of marital
obligations, the seeming universal disregard of this relation, and the
duties embraced in it, among the “slaves” of the South, was probably the
most transcendent wrong that the mind could conceive of, and the
“anti-slavery” delusion of the North has doubtless been increased to a
considerable extent by this strictness or severity of female education.
And if the facts were what they suppose, then indeed would their
indignation and abhorrence be just enough, but strange that they should
never have doubted or mistrusted these facts. Many of the most
intelligent have known their sisters of the South, known them to be as
virtuous, refined and womanly as themselves, and yet living every day of
their lives in the shadow of this mighty wrong, and in the midst of this
supposititious iniquity. Could that be possible? Could woman retain her
purity, her womanly delicacy, or expand into the full stature of a true
womanhood with such surroundings, in an atmosphere thus corrupt and
corrupting, in a social condition where four millions of people were
living without marriage, in open and utter disregard of the fundamental
principle of morality as well as of social order? No, indeed, it could
not be possible, and, as remarked, it is strange that the women of the
North have not had misgivings of this kind, or have not mistrusted the
assumed _facts_ of “negro slavery” in this respect. But before the
actual facts involved are presented to the reader, it is necessary to
clearly understand what marriage itself is. It may be defined as the
pledge of two persons of different sex to live together for life—pledged
to each other and to society, for the presence of witnesses to a
marriage contract or a marriage ceremony has simply this meaning, and
none other. With us marriage is a mere civil or legal contract. It is
the same in France, and, to a certain extent, in England, but in other
countries it is combined with religious considerations, and the Catholic
church makes it a sacrament. This is marriage, as ordinarily understood,
as the necessities of the social order compel us to accept and regard
it. Nevertheless, every one’s instincts will assure him that marriage
consists in reality of vastly more than this description of it. A man
and woman may pledge themselves to each other and to society—all the
legal and customary forms may be complete, and yet we know, or may know
that there is no true marriage, for these parties may be entirely
indifferent, or even objects of actual dislike to each other. The
obligations or duty to society may be fulfilled, the interests of
families provided for, the legal rights of the parties themselves
properly protected, even the welfare of offspring appropriately guarded,
nevertheless, if the parties are not united by affection, by those
mysterious affinities with which God Himself has endowed them, and for
this precise purpose, then there is no true marriage, and, abstractly
considered, they are as entirely separate as if they stood on different
sides of the Atlantic instead of at the altar where the ceremony is
being performed. It is clear, therefore, that marriage, truly
considered, involves vastly more than the mere external ceremony or
legal formularies, which the universal interest demands, however, as an
essential accompaniment. “Increase and multiply” is an ordinance of
nature as well as the command of holy writ. All the innumerable tribes
of inferior beings obey this command with a regularity, order and
completeness that admit of no exception or interruption. They are all
governed by instinct, by a wise necessity which impels them to fulfill
this Divine decree and in modes adapted to their specific nature. Birds
choose their mates, are faithful to them, share together, in some
instances, the care and nurture of the common offspring, and all other
animals of the higher order exhibit a tendency to form these temporary
unions. But in addition to the natural instinct impelling us, in common
with all other creatures, to fulfill the universal command to “multiply
and replenish the earth,” the Almighty Creator has given us reason and
endowed us with capacities of affection which are designed to guide us
in these respects. A youth and maiden are thrown into each other’s
society, an acquaintance, an intimacy, a mutual affection and reciprocal
love follow. They feel themselves united, not merely harmonized, but
morally consolidated, as it were, into a single being, and they mutually
pledge each other to be thus as long as they both shall live. They are
united, not by their pledges to each other, their mutual declarations of
affection, but by those beautiful and mysterious affinities that God has
planted in the soul itself, and the pledges and promises are the mere
outward expression of their actual existence.
It is thus sometimes said that marriages are made in Heaven, for there
is an eternal fitness, a complete unity or oneness in these impalpable
agencies which, whatever may be the seeming incongruities of character
in some instances, thus link together for ever these human souls as well
as persons. Alas! that it should so often be mistaken—that pride and
vanity, or a groveling and sinful lust, should be imposed on the simple
and loving heart of woman as the counterpart of her own glowing and
beautiful affection; and the man guilty of this frightful sin, this
“gallantry,” as the corrupt and rotten society of Europe designates the
desecration of a woman’s soul, commits a crime infinitely more atrocious
than murder or the mere destruction of the body of his victim.
Unfortunately, too, accident, imperfect education, circumstances, a
thousand things may and do lead both parties to mistake each other or
themselves, and to rush into marriage only to discover a few months
later, that they were deluded and deceived, and instead of that perfect
unity of feeling, of affection, of soul, which they had believed in,
there were contradictions and repugnances that no gentleness of temper
or strength of reason or length of time could ever change, and therefore
in sullen despair they settle down into hopeless apathy, or still worse,
shock and scandalize society by a reckless violation of its laws as well
as of the personal vows so sacredly pledged at the altar. But when the
instincts of natural affection have been guided by reason and a true
perception of the wants and nature of each other, and that perfect unity
of feeling and of purpose exists which flows from this reciprocal
adaptation of the parties, then there is marriage in its true sense, for
then two relatively imperfect beings are united into one complete whole.
And if we could suppose this husband and wife living for themselves
alone, and isolated from all association with others, then nothing more
would be needed. They were united by affection, by adaptation, by true
perceptions of each other’s wants, by those mysterious affinities which
we call love, in short, by an organic and eternal fitness, and their
mutual pledges would be abundantly sufficient for themselves. But we are
not permitted to suppose such a thing as isolation or separation from
others, or from society. Our existence is necessarily complex, and our
duties relative as well as personal, and therefore, marriage must be
witnessed, and pledges given to society as well as made to each other,
for the due fulfilment of the duties involved. A modern doctrine, if it
may be called thus, has been set up that people who have mistaken their
“affinities,” and only discovered their true ones after marriage, have a
right to correct their mistakes and form a new marital union which they
may suppose essential to their happiness. But they would disregard
utterly their relations to others, their duties to society, their
reciprocal obligations to their fellows, and trample on the fundamental
principle of social order, indeed, society would itself be rendered
utterly impossible could such individual caprice and selfishness prevail
to any considerable extent. All their so-called arguments against the
“institution” of marriage are, therefore, simply absurd, for while their
conception of an essential portion of it may be correct enough as far as
it goes, the assumption that the parties are alone responsible to each
other, and are not called on to give pledges to society in the form of a
civil contract or legal and indissoluble marriage, is founded on a total
misconception or total disregard of their relations to others and of the
duties necessarily involved. But enough on this point. Marriage is a
natural relation that springs spontaneously from the necessities of
human existence, and though a civil contract, it has a deeper and holier
significance than the mere external ceremony or pledge which is thus
given to the world as well as to each other.
Marriage, is of course, a natural relation among negroes as well as
ourselves, and were it true that these four millions of people were
living without it, then the denunciations heaped upon the people of the
South would doubtless be merited. But a moment’s reflection should be
sufficient to convince any one, at all events any American, that with a
different nature, with different faculties, different wants, and
different duties of these people, there must follow a different form or
modification of this relation. The negro is substantially a child or
undeveloped and undevelopable man, with affections, moral wants and
faculties approximating, of course, to our own, but yet so different
that his happiness as well as that of the white man demands a
corresponding development. The affection of the sexes strongly resembles
that of our school-children. It is sudden, capricious, superficial, and
temporary, and sometimes violent, but rarely permanent, or would be
rarely permanent were it not for the example of the whites, whose
habitudes in these respects the imitative instincts of the negro impel
him to copy after. In their native Africa, and without the influence and
example of the superior race, polygamy is universal, the affection of
the husband being a mere caprice in most cases, they sell their wives
and children without compunction, but the mother, with that universal
maternal instinct common to all human creatures, and to animals of the
higher classes, clings tenaciously to her offspring, while perfectly
willing to change husbands or owners, as they really are in fact. Many
of the “rich men” of Africa are only so in the number of their wives and
children, and they trade and traffic in this property as coolly and
regularly as if they were legitimate subjects of commerce. Nevertheless,
the natural law and the natural tendency of this people is to a single
union, and probably a large majority of the native Africans have only
one wife. There is no natural tendency to polygamy in any race, for the
numbers of the sexes being equal, the natural impulse is to a single
union. But their feeble and capricious affections lead to polygamy, and
their incapacity to purchase or support wives is the only limit to the
negro practice in these respects. Under the teachings and restraints of
the superior race at the South, the negroes, male and female, are vastly
elevated in this regard, as well as others above their African
habitudes. They form sexual unions or marry essentially like the whites.
The parties become intimate, an affection springs up, they ask and
receive the consent of their masters, and they are married by a white
clergyman or by a minister of their own people. Thus far, marriage among
“slaves” is, on the surface at least, an exact copy of the marriage of
whites. They ask the consent of their masters, as white persons ask the
consent of their parents or guardians, and they are married with the
same ceremonies either by a minister of their own, or, as very often
occurs, by a white clergyman. But here they diverge. The negro does not
and can not constitute a part or portion of that mighty fabric we term
society. He has no social interests, no property to guard or to devise,
for though he receives and enjoys a larger portion of the proceeds of
his labor than any mere laborer in Europe, every thing legally belongs
to the master. There are no family interests for which to provide, no
reputation or character to protect, no social duties to perform, or
rights to defend in his case; in short, he has no connection whatever
with that vast and complicated machinery which we call society.
Marriage, therefore, from our stand-point—that legal formula and social
pledge so vital to the very existence of social order—is obviously
absurd and impossible in the case of negroes. The natural affinity, the
union of affection, the perfect adaptation so essential to a true
marriage in our race, is substantially imitated and substantially
similar in the case of negroes at the South, but to seek to force the
negro beyond this—to force upon him the social responsibilities that
attach to white people; or, in other words, to make marriage a legal
contract in the case of negroes, would be as absurd as to force him to
vote at an election, or to perform any other high social duties, and
which are evidently impossible. In regard to his own wants, the
well-being of his offspring, every thing connected with the best welfare
and highest happiness that his race is capable of, he now enjoys, and
any attempt to force him to marry as white people marry—that is, to make
marriage a civil or legal contract—is not merely impossible, but it
would be a crime and a monstrous outrage upon the nature God has given
him. The Almighty has endowed the negro with wonderful imitative powers:
of course, it is impossible for him to imitate all our higher
qualities—he can only approximate to them—but when the master has
presented him with a proper example, in this respect as well as in other
respects, as parents and guardians are expected to do in the case of
children, they have fulfilled their duties to these “slaves,” and
generally the negro is restrained and governed by these examples. But
the feeble and capricious affections of the negro give their masters
much annoyance, and perhaps the greatest trouble they experience with
these people is their faithlessness to their marital obligations. The
ignorant “anti-slavery” lecturer at the North has distressing tales to
tell of cruel masters who separate wives and husbands, and break up
families; but while such things have doubtless happened, it is quite
certain that masters have interfered a hundred times to keep them
together to one instance to the contrary, or to sell them apart. Such
things happen occasionally, when estates are to be settled and property
divided; but the instincts of the whites and the happiness of the whites
are more disturbed by them than the negroes themselves. The limited
intellectual power—the feeble moral nature, and superficial and
capricious affections of the negro lead him to regard these separations
of wives and husbands—of parents and children, with indifference, or
rather we should say he has none of our perceptions or our instincts in
respect to these family relations, and therefore when they do happen he
is relatively or comparatively unconscious of suffering. In his native
Africa he sells his wife and children without hesitation, and all the
suffering he now feels is borrowed or imitated from the whites—a feeling
scarcely perceptible in his native state, but in his better and higher
life at the South, it is doubtless exalted into something like a
sentiment of family. Nevertheless, he readily adapts himself to whatever
changes the chances of life may bring him, and where the white husband,
and certainly the white wife, might despair and die, the negro and the
negress, with new partners and another marriage, are quite as happy as
if they had never been separated from their former ones.
But these things are exceptional, and husbands and wives are doubtless
far less frequently forced apart by these accidents of society than are
the wives and husbands of the “lower orders” in England by the pressure
of want and that necessity of self-preservation which so often rends
them asunder. The real trouble, however, as has been said, is in the
negro himself—his feeble and capricious affections—substantially similar
to those of white childhood, and which it requires the constant
supervision and influence of the master to restrain so as to keep them
faithful to each other. The limited mental endowment and the feeble
moral perceptions of the negro render him incapable, in these respects,
of little beyond the fulfilment of the universal command to “increase
and multiply.” White husbands and wives, when one dies in early life,
often remain unmarried, faithful to a memory forever; and still more
frequently, perhaps, the affections that bound them together in their
youth remain bright and untarnished in age and to the borders of the
grave. Such a thing never happened with a negro. Not one of the
countless millions that have lived upon the earth was ever kept from
marrying a second time by a sentiment or a memory. With their limited
moral endowment such a thing is an absolute moral impossibility. They
live with each other to extreme old age, because they imitate the
superior race, and because it has become a habit, perhaps, but the grand
purposes of nature accomplished, there is little or nothing more, or of
those blessed memories of joy and suffering—of early hope and chastened
sorrows, which so bind and blend together the white husband and wife,
and often render them quite as necessary to each other’s happiness as in
the flush and vigor of youth. Affection for his master is, in fact, the
strongest, and it may be said to be the only enduring affection of the
negro nature, for it remains an ever-present feeling long after the
feeble and capricious “family sentiment,” or love of wife and offspring,
is entirely obliterated from his memory. Marriage of “Southern slaves”
thus briefly presented, will be seen to be as real, decent, orderly, and
natural, as the nature of the negro admits of, or relatively speaking,
as the Almighty Creator himself has designed or decreed. _He_ has
endowed the negro with different and vastly subordinate moral wants and
affections, but at the same time given him an imitative capacity that
enables him to copy the higher nature and more exalted habitudes of the
superior race. They therefore marry as white people marry, with the same
forms and the same ceremonies, and such a thing as polygamy, or what the
“Abolitionist” calls concubinage, is utterly unknown among these people.
They are no portion or part of society, have no place in the social
compact, they are unable to fulfil its duties, and therefore have none
of its rights, hence legal marriage is obviously absurd and impossible.
To the ignorant Abolition writer it may seem quite plain that marriage
should be a civil contract with negroes as well as white people, for his
theory that the negro is a _black_ Caucasian, neutralizes all
difficulties in this as in other things. But even they must see that to
force them on the same social level in this vital respect must
necessarily involve social equality in all other respects—a result,
unless their theory be sound, obviously unnatural, monstrous, and
wicked. The negro, isolated in his native Africa, is at this moment
exactly what he was four thousand years ago, selling his wives and
offspring with as utter disregard of marital relations, and
unconsciousness of a family sentiment, as in the time of the Pharaohs;
and when we contrast these things—the universal polygamy, the trade in
wives, the caprice and savagism of the lawless husband or master with
the decent and Christian marriage of “Southern slaves,” imitated from
the superior race, and generally restrained by its example, may we not
say with entire reverence and truth, that marriage, as it now actually
exists among these people at the South, being all that their natures are
capable of, and all that their wants and their highest happiness demand,
is also, and of necessity, all that God Himself has decreed or designed
in respect to this race?
There is no other comparison to make, or contrast to present, but that
of African savagism; for that modern product of a world-wide delusion,
“freedom,” or free negroism, as shown elsewhere, is a social
abnormalism, a diseased condition, that necessarily ends in extinction;
and unless it can be proven that disease is preferable to health, and
death itself a greater good than life, no argument or proof drawn from
it is legitimate or allowable.