Tell the Court I Love My Wife; Race, Marriage, and Law--An American History

by Peter Wallenstein

• ISBN13: 9780312294748
• ISBN10: 0312294743
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2002-11-09
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

The first in-depth history of miscegenation law in the United States, this book illustrates in vivid detail how states, communities, and the courts have defined and regulated mixed-race marriage from the colonial period to the present. Combining a storyteller's detail with a historian's analysis, Peter Wallenstein brings the sagas of Richard and Mildred Loving and countless other interracial couples before them to light in this harrowing history of how individual states had the power to regulate one of the most private aspects of life: marriage.

Author Biography

Peter Wallenstein is Associate Professor of History at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He is the author of From Slave South to New South and Virginia Tech, Land Grant University, 1872-1997.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
Introduction: "That's No Good Here"	p. 1
Abominable Mixture and Spurious Issue
Sex, Marriage, Race, and Freedom in the Early Chesapeake	p. 13
Indian Foremothers and Freedom Suits in Revolutionary Virginia	p. 27
From the Chesapeake Colonies to the State of California	p. 39
Race, Marriage, and the Crisis of the Union	p. 51
Equal Protection of the Laws
Post-Civil War Alabama	p. 69
Reconstruction and the Law of Interracial Marriage	p. 81
Accommodating the Law of Freedom to the Law of Race	p. 95
Interracial Marriage and the Federal Courts, 1857-1917	p. 107
Interlude: Polygamy, Incest, Fornication, Cohabitation - and Interracial Marriage	p. 123
Problem of the Color Line
Drawing and Redrawing the Color Line	p. 133
Boundaries - Race and Place in the Law of Marriage	p. 147
Racial Identity and Family Property	p. 161
Miscegenation Laws, the NAACP, and the Federal Courts, 1941-1963	p. 173
If the Right to Marry Is a Fundamental Right
A Breakthrough Case in California	p. 189
Contesting the Antimiscegenation Regime - the 1960s	p. 201
Virginia versus the Lovings - and the Lovings versus Virginia	p. 215
America after Loving v. Virginia	p. 231
Epilogue: The Color of Love after Loving	p. 247
Permanent Repeal of State Miscegenation Laws, 1780-1967	p. 253
Intermarriage in Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa	p. 255
Identity and Authority: An Interfaith Couple in Israel	p. 257
Transsexuals, Gender Identity, and the Law of Marriage	p. 259
Notes	p. 261
Index	p. 297
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