Marriage

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MARRIAGE

In the period from 1754 to 1830, marriage was defined in a relatively constrained and uniform way. Among Euro-Americans, who almost universally married, it meant a monogamous, consensual legal union between a man and a woman. Men were obligated by law to provide for and govern their wives, while women were to obey and aid their husbands. Love and affection were encouraged and often expected in the relationship; law, religion, and

community standards dictated that sexual relations be kept within its bounds. Marriage was thus both a public institution shaped by the larger society through law and societal expectations and a private relationship influenced by the interaction and negotiation of the couples themselves.

marriage law

Marriage law was set by the individual colonies (and later the states). These laws regulated who could marry and when, what obligations spouses lived under, who could officiate in ceremonies, and when and how marriages could be terminated. During the period from 1750 to 1830, the beginnings of a social and legal shift gradually increased individual choice and diversity in marriage. In the pre-Revolution Chesapeake region, for example, many people entered into common-law marriages largely because of the scarcity of Anglican priests; new laws eventually allowed magistrates also to conduct ceremonies, giving Tidewater residents more opportunity to marry legally if they so chose. Divorce also became slightly more available in many states by 1830. An exception to this loosening of legal control was the maintenance of statutes restricting sex outside of marriage (despite growing nonconformance to this standard) and interracial marriage.

the revolution and rights in marriage

The Revolutionary War's impact on the demographics of marriage was limited—there were more widows and a slightly higher number of divorces and desertions. However, the war did contribute to a dialogue about the nature of marriage and marriage law. Commentators influenced by Enlightenment ideas of contractualism began writing less about hierarchy and more about union and consent. This trend later contributed to the passage of mid- to late-nineteenth-century laws liberalizing divorce and guaranteeing married women's property. Colonial marriage entailed the serious inequity of coverture: upon marriage, a woman's legal identity was subsumed or "covered" by her husband's, and she ceased to exist as a legal being. She could not own property, make contracts, testify against her husband, file suit, and so on. These restrictions show that during this time marriage law allowed men to exercise considerable power over wives. Still, the rhetoric of the Revolution contributed to a language and dialogue that eventually was used to challenge coverture.

companionate marriage

A corollary development to the changes in law and legal thinking about marriage was the rise of the middle-class companionate marriage. In the flux of complex social and economic changes shaping the new nation, families lost many of their economic and social functions on the path to becoming middle class. Marriage became less about the transfer of property and more about emotional fulfillment. By 1830 middle-class parents were allowing their children to make their own choices in marriage. Parents might steer children away from undesirable suitors of the wrong social group, but couples made their own choices based on mutual attraction and esteem. Companionate marriages also often included family limitation. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, births per white woman began a gradual decline that continued through the century, from 7 in 1800 to 3.5 in 1900. This revolution had immense implications for marriages, ranging from improved health for women to changes in child rearing and the role of the provider.

Ceremonies surrounding marriage reflected the companionate ideal. The practice of publishing banns (public announcements of marriage) died out, and church weddings with more elaborate rituals, including the exchange of rings, became more common. In the South elaborate marriage celebrations became signs of rank to separate the elite from the lower classes.

african american and native american marriages

For most African Americans during this period the constraints of the institution of slavery dominated marriage. Slaves lacked the freedom to express consent, and thus owners theorized that slaves could not legally enter into the contract of marriage. More important, the cold economics of slavery required the absence of any legal marriage contract that would hinder the owner's ability to sell a slave. Therefore, the laws of most colonies, and later states, did not recognize slave marriage. Most slaves, however, wedded unofficially, using ceremonies conducted by preachers or by their own word, often ritually "jumping the broom." That these marriages had weight with both blacks and whites is evidenced by the fact that many slaves remained with the same spouse till death. Still, slavery prevented African Americans from fulfilling the male and female roles traditionally held in either African or white American society. Slave men, for example, could rarely provide for their wives or protect them from abuse by owners. Many slave women had no choice but to neglect children and home to cook and clean in the big house or labor in the fields. Neither could ultimately protect a child or spouse from sale and separation. Ironically, because of these disruptions to traditional roles, slave marriages were probably more egalitarian than white marriages during these years.

Among Native Americans there was a greater diversity of marriage practices than among whites or blacks. Although most men and women lived in monogamous relationships, most groups allowed men to marry more than one wife. Among Plains groups and West Coast tribes, for example, polygamy was fairly common. Some tribes placed no restrictions on premarital sex, and a few allowed married men sexual relations outside of marriage while their wives were pregnant or nursing. Widows often married a brother of their deceased husbands, and some widowers were expected to marry an unmarried sister of their deceased wives. Native Americans also tended to marry earlier than whites—women as early as twelve to fifteen years old and men generally in their late teens and early twenties. Perhaps the most striking difference was the number of matrilineal societies. Hunting-oriented groups, like the Sioux and Cheyenne, tended to be patrilineal, passing property and authority through male lines, but among tribes where women did much of the essential work of farming, matrilineality was common. Among the Iroquois and the Pueblos, for example, marriage for a man meant moving into his wife's extended family. Divorce was generally available among most groups, often requiring nothing more than the decision of one spouse to terminate the marriage. By 1830, however, many native marriage practices were lost to the pressures of Euro-American encroachment.

bibliography

Cott, Nancy F. Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000.

Godbeer, Richard. Sexual Revolution in Early America: Gender Relations in the American Experience. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.

Hartog, Hendrik. Man and Wife in America: A History. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000.

Jabour, Anya. Marriage in the Early Republic: Elizabeth and William Wirt and the Companionate Ideal. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.

Mintz, Steven, and Susan Kellogg. Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life. New York: Free Press, 1988.

Shawn Johansen

Encyclopedia of the New American Nation