Throughout the Civil Rights Era, marriage for slaves or African Americans

Toni Morrison published her book The Beloved in 1987. It is a literary piece that illustrates how African Americans were still subject to slavery in the 20th century. One learns about the life of African Americans as slaves in the United States from the primary character Sethe and other characters like Paul and Sethe’s husband. Marriage was one of the organizations that was restricted for African Americans or slaves. Laws prohibiting marriage during the oppressive era prevented slaves from attempting to wed. This essay establishes how the author, Toni Morrison grapples with the Civil Rights Movement and the intense antebellum decades of slavery in the 1830s-1850s to demonstrate the marriage institution for the African Americans or slaves during the Civil Rights Era. First is important to understand what was happening during the Civil Rights Era and the antebellum decades.

The Civil Rights Era entailed a huge protest movement that African Americans were against the racial discrimination as well as segregation by the Whites in the Southern parts of the United States. The movement was prominent in the mid 1950s (Carson 1). The Antebellum decades occurred in the 1830s to 1850s where slavery of the African Americans by the whites was also intense and defined them as lesser beings. The Civil Rights Movement and the antebellum decades define the tribulations that the African Americans went through under the Whites slavery and their efforts to come out those oppressions. The Civil Rights Movement came as a solution to the many atrocities that African Americans were facing under the Americans (Burns 1). Marriage was one institution that was defined differently during the Civil Rights Era. Earlier, African Americans or slaves did not have the rights to marry under the law. During the antebellum period, the social rules as well as laws regarded African Americans or slaves during that time as morally unfit to get into marriage. They were considered as incapacitated to enter into civil contracts and marriage was one of these contracts (Franke 1). Also, slaves were said not to have the moral characteristic needed in respecting and honoring the sanctity of matrimonial vows. During the antebellum period, slaves or African Americans escaped oppression, married and stayed secretly with their families (PBS 1). They could counter the Whites and get little freedom that would be possible retrieved by the Whites if they notice it.

From the novel, the Beloved by Toni Morrison, a reader can identify the circumstances of marriage that African American or slaves went through during the Civil Rights Era and the antebellum decades. These are periods that define the search for freedom for the African Americans for their rights or marriages and among other rights that they needed to be respected by the Whites and granted by the law. Through the main character of the novel, Sethe, a reader can see the characteristics of marriage that African Americans experienced during the antebellum decades and Civil Rights Era. As stated earlier, African Americans did not have the freedom to marry or enter into the marriage institution. However, some of them were cautious and escaped these forms of oppression and got married (African American Odyssey 1). However, they had to keep such marriages a secret for them to remain intact. Otherwise, they would be deprived of that freedom by the whites.

Sethe experiences a life of disturbed marriage as an African American or a slave she worked in the American Plantations. She also represents the African Americans who were fighting for their rights of marriage to be acceptable under the law during the Civil Rights period. Sethe got pregnant and had to run away from slavery to go and deliver her baby away from the master’s plantation. Her marriage was disturbed and interfered with by her masters. This is evident from Sethe’s words when she confirmed to have been defiled by the nephews of her master. Sethe said that “they handled me like I was the cow, no, the goat, back behind the stable because it was too nasty to stay in with the horses.” (114). Sethe had to escape from this kind of slavery. However, she would go with her children. Her husband, Halle disappeared after she ran for her freedom. Sethe was left alone to bear her child and bring up the others alone. She was confronting the complexity of life that requires people to free themselves from some type of bondage. Freedom is all she needed with her family. However, Sethe never achieved. It was after several days that she was captured by her master after knowing she was free in a household in Cincinnati. As Morrison states, “Sethe had had twenty-eight days--the travel of one whole moon--of unslaved life” (56). It is evidence that African Americans would be denied their freedom by their whites at any moment when realized they are enjoying it. It shows that African Americans or slaves were deprived of the right to marriage. Slavery came with the destructive way of cutting off the bonds of marriage that would have united African Americans (Burns 1). It degraded the value of womanhood who could not stay in her marriage because of fear and removed the natural biological purpose of a man and a woman in union.

Marriage for African Americans or slaves during the Civil Rights Era is also seen through the behavior of Paul D. Morrison describes Paul D as a person who understood freedom as something that someone does “Not to need permission for desire-well now that was freedom” (92). However, the author says that Paul had to be careful on how he expresses his love to women. Paul D was cautious on how he allowed himself to love just like that. He had the knowledge that such kind of love for a slave would have it taken away at any moment. To Paul D, the love of a woman … - a big love like that would split you wide open.“ (92). It shows that marriage for slaves or African Americans was not acceptable during the Civil Rights Era and those who tried had to be discrete as much as possible.

Further, Paul demonstrates marriage for African Americans or slaves as one that could not last long because of the threats that slaves received from their masters. Through what he views from Sethe’s life, Paul D remembers Sethe’s husband when he looks at her daughter, Denver. Their marriage did not last after Halle, Sethe’s husband disappeared from her life when she got pregnant and escaped from her master’s plantation to go and give birth to her child. Morisson states that ”The prickly, mean-eyed Sweet Home girl he knew as Halle’s girl was obedient (like Halle), shy (like Halle), and work-crazy (like Halle).“ (93). These were the words of Paul D revealing that even though slaves would want to love and stay together in marriage life, the Whites looked for a way to destroy their unions.

In conclusion, the topic of marriage for African Americans or slaves during the Civil Rights Era is evident in the ”Beloved“ as written by Toni Morison. The experiences that slaves or African Americans would go when in marriage were something that any person would not want to experience. The experiences of Halle, Sethe and Paul D in marriage depicts he marriage for African Americans or slave during the Civil Rights period. Slaves did not have the right to marry or enter into marriage contracts. When the whites realize that an African American is in marriage, they would do anything to destroy the Union. Marriage for slaves was something that should remain private. As per Sethes’ experiences, a woman found married would be mistreated by the master. Marriage for African Americans during the Civil Rights Era would be achieved by those who escaped the oppression by their masters. Paul D and Sethe planned to escape for their freedom and later got married while in Cincinnati. From the discussion, it is evident that Morison carefully described the events of oppression and the fights towards achieving freedom of marriage for African Americans during the antebellum decades and the Civil Rights Movement. The escape of the slaves from their oppressive masters was an evidence of seeking freedom for the slaves to enter the matrimonial union.

Works Cited

African American Odyssey, ”Free Blacks in the Antebellum Period: Part 2,“ n.d, The Web < https://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart2.html>

Burns, Maries, ”Toni Morrison’s Beloved analyzed in the context of the African American experience of slavery, and slave narratives.“ The Unspoken Spoken. 2008, The Web < http://www.literature-study-online.com/essays/morrison-slavery.html>

Carson, Clayborne, ”American civil rights movement,“ Encyclopedia Britannica. The Web < https://www.britannica.com/event/American-civil-rights-movement>

Excerpt from Franke, Katherine, ”Becoming a Citizen: Reconstruction Era Regulation of African American Marriages,“ Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, 11, (1999), 251-309, 251-258, 307-309. The Web < https://academic.udayton.edu/race/04needs/family03.htm>

Morrison, Toni, ”Beloved,“ The Web < http://publish.uwo.ca/~hamendt/WD%20final%20Project/litertaure/Beloved.pdf>

PBS, ”Conditions of antebellum slavery 1830 - 1860,“ People & Events, n.d, The Web < http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2956.html >