A Teachable Moment with Legal Sources: Marriage Matters and Unruly African American Women

One of my memorable teachable moments happened in a session of an upper-division, interdisciplinary course on African American womanhood. The historical periods covered are pre-emancipation and Reconstruction through post-World War I, the era of the Harlem Renaissance. The course offers interdisciplinary readings that illustrate poignant cultural historical issues of slavery, marriage, and the quest for new freedoms.¹ The overall course theme is defined, in part, by the "unruly voices" of Black women who "defied the rules of society … and maintained vitality and self-respect through exhibiting unruly behavior."² Unruly women, as heralded by twentieth-century feminists, were heroic in thinking and stepping outside of gender roles defined by a patriarchal society—they took dangerous risks and were imprisoned, murdered, whipped, or harassed in their resistance to prescribed gender expectations.

In this particular session an Afro-Brit exchange student from England, whom I shall rename Bethe, facilitated the discussion and analysis of the short story, "The Wife of His Youth" (1898) by Charles W. Chesnutt (1858–1932).³ Many readers are familiar with Chesnutt's story about a formerly enslaved woman, 'Liza Jane, who, for twenty-five years during Reconstruction and beyond, searched for her beloved husband whom she was forced to separate from during slavery. The husband, Sam Taylor (aka Mr. Ryder), was free-born and he worked as an apprentice on the slave plantation when he met and fell in love with 'Liza Jane.

As the story unfolds, Chesnutt makes it clear to the reader that slave marriages did not "count" after the Civil War if certain measures were not taken to legalize the antebellum cohabitation. Through intrigue, satire, and the overall craft of rhetorical elegance, Chesnutt portrays the marriage plight of enslaved men and women, the abusive apprenticeship system of free youth of color in the South, the chaos of freedom and Reconstruction, and the folly and frolics of colorism, or prejudice based on skin color, within nineteenth-century African American communities.

By the end of her well-prepared facilitation, Bethe had managed to fuel the radical feminisms of most of the women students with their consensus that Chesnutt does not portray 'Liza Jane as a credible unruly African American woman. (The male students disagreed.) The discussion became an animated classroom version of The View. They argued on the grounds of ethical judgment that Chesnutt depicts 'Liza Jane as having submitted to a false idea of marriage to a man of color several years her junior. Their enthusiasm about and commitment to analyzing the issues of slavery, freedom, and marriage in the cultural historical context of intersectionality were laudable. They needed, however, more tools of the craft.

Understandably, marriage is a highly contested topic in light of contemporary political and feminist debates regarding the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States. At the pedagogical moment of turning the tide, so to speak, I brought the discussion to a close and acknowledged Bethe's presentation. I then directed the students to our readings from legal sources that could help illuminate the power of marriage rites, property rights, and citizenship that maintained slavery, paternalism, and white supremacy.

Whereas the literary texts in this course serve to fill in the spaces—the inner worlds of African American women that history cannot tell, the legal sources serve to dramatize aspects of their lived experiences through scrutiny in the American judicial system. Among the legal opinions and archival documents that contribute to the interdisciplinary focus of the course are Cohabitation Bonds, the Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Virginia, 1865–66, and North Carolina v. Mann, (1829).⁴

The famous decision of Justice Thomas Ruffin (1787–1870) in State v. Mann demonstrates how North Carolina law defended slavery with precision and vehemence. The case involved John Mann, an old, impoverished, and widowed sea captain, who whipped and shot an enslaved young woman, Lydia, hired out to him. The lower court found Mann guilty of assault and battery. Mann's attorney appealed. The Ruffin decision to exonerate John Mann enforced the property status, as opposed...