About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

42 San Diego L. Rev. 1023 (2005)
Who's Afraid of Polygamous Marriage - Lessons for Same-Sex Marriage Advocacy from the History of Polygamy

handle is hein.journals/sanlr42 and id is 1035 raw text is: Who's Afraid of Polygamous Marriage? Lessons for Same-Sex Marriage Advocacy from the History of Polygamy CHESHIRE CALHOUN* I. INTRODUCTION In United States history, there have been four important bars to civil marriage. First, during the period of U.S. slavery, marriages between slaves, though informally celebrated, were not legally recognized.' The bar to civil marriage between slaves was part of slaves' general legal incapacity to enter into contracts, and was not an expression of social disapproval of slave marriages? Indeed, slaveholders sometimes promoted informal marriage unions between slaves.3 The three other marriage bars, however, specifically targeted relationships that were the subjects of intense social disapproval and were treated by lawmakers as dangerous to societal order. Bars to marriage across racial lines-particularly between whites and blacks, but in the West, also between whites and Asians or Native Americans-were first erected in the eighteenth century and proliferated * Charles A. Dana Professor of Philosophy, Colby College, Waterville, Maine. 1. Nancy F. Cott, Giving Character to Our Whole Civil Polity: Marriage and the Public Order in the Late Nineteenth Century, in U.S. HISTORY AS WOMEN'S HISTORY: NEW FEMINIST ESSAYS 111 (Linda K. Kerber et al. eds., 1995). 2. NANCY F. COTT, PUBLIC Vows: A HISTORY OF MARRIAGE AND THE NATION 35 (2000). 3. Cott, supra note 1, at 107, 111. 1023

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most