We are now approaching the 31st year of the Loving decision and views on interracial marriage have improved. James Trosino, American Wedding: Same-Sex Marriage and the Miscegenation Analogy, 73 B. Virginia first enacted a statutory proscription of miscegenations marriage in 1691.10 Penalties were severe-the White partner in an interracial marriage was banished from the colony, and any child of the marriage was bound out by the church wardens until he/she reached the age of 30.11 There were many justifications to uphold the laws which stated that marriage between races were forbidden and criminal.
Massachusetts becomes the second state to repeal its anti-miscegenation law, further cementing the distinction between northern and southern states on slavery and civil rights. The punishment of each offending person, whether white or black, is the same." More than a century later, opponents of same-sex marriage will resurrect the same argument in claiming that heterosexual-only marriage laws don't discriminate on the basis of sex since they technically punish men and women on equal terms.
The original 1705 ban, the third such law following those of Maryland and Virginia, prohibited both marriage and sexual relations between people of color (specifically, African Americans and American Indians) and whites. "That intermarriage between negroes or persons of color and Caucasians or any other character of persons within the United States or any territory under their jurisdiction, is forever prohibited; and the term 'negro or person of color,' as here employed, shall be held to mean any and all persons of African descent or having any trace of African or negro blood." Later theories of physical anthropology will suggest that every human being has some African ancestry, which could have rendered this amendment unenforceable had it passed. While most anti-miscegenation laws primarily targeted interracial marriages between whites and African Americans or whites and American Indians, the climate of anti-Asian xenophobia that defined the early decades of the 20th century meant that Asian Americans were also targeted.
American Wedding: Same-Sex Marriage and the Miscegenation Analogy, 73 B. Virginia, and the post script of both States after Loving. As time progressed, the laws changed, and interracial marriages were not banned, but rather, the law mandated banishment forever of the White party to any interracial marriage that occurred, if free, within three months after such marriage.17 If the child was a "bastard child" born from a couple not going through the wedding ceremony, the child was taken by the warden of the church in the parish and bound to be a servant until he or she attained the age of 30.18 After 1691, the legislature reduced the percent of African American ancestry a person had to have in them to be defined as the mixed-race.
With the new laws, more people were fined, the penalties were higher, and now the bastard child would be bound as a servant until the age of 31. The author starts out this article by stating there is no better place to examine prohibitions on interracial sex and marriage as Virginia.
More specifically it will focus on how these marriages have affected the children throughout history and the effects interracial marriages have on children.
The Supreme Court case, which directly speaks to this topic, is Loving v. In 1958 Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter married in Washington, D. and returned to Virginia together as husband and wife. The problem arose in that since 1961 Virginia banned interracial marriages.In so doing, the Supreme Court invalidated similar laws in fifteen States. The author states that the freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by freemen.Thus, as of June 12, 1967, interracial marriages were no loner illegal in any State. Historically, however the freedom of marriage was not always granted between races.The Lovings were prosecuted under a statute enacted in 1924 entitled "An Act to Preserve Racial Integrity."1 The statute said that in Virginia no White person could marry anyone other than a white person.2 The law made it a crime not only to enter into an interracial marriage in the State of Virginia, but it also criminalized interracial marriages outside the state with the intent of evading Virginia's prohibition.3 Furthermore the law stated that children born out of such a union were deemed in the eyes of the State to be illegitimate and without the protections and privileges accorded to the children of lawfully wedded parents. This article compares the history of interracial marriages with that of same-sex marriages.The Lovings pleaded guilty to violating the Act and were sentenced to one year in jail, though the trial judge gave them the option of avoiding incarceration on the condition they leave the State and not return for twenty-five years.4 During the course of the proceeding the trial judge asserted that: "Almighty God created the races of White, Black, Yellow, Malay, and Red, and He placed them on separate continents." "And but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages." "The fact that He separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."5 After Virginia's Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction the Supreme Court of the United States reversed the decision on the grounds that the Constitution of the United States prohibits states from barring interracial marriages. This annotation is only going to focus on the miscegenation laws and the view society had of children born out of interracial marriages.Celebrities like Tiger Woods may have changed society's views on interracial children, but are there more serious effects on these children than what is shown by Tiger Woods? Children of Interracial Marriages, Interracial Marriage: Expectations and Realities (1973). Race, Marriage, and the Law of Freedom: Alabama and Virginia, 1860's-1960's. Penalties were also set up for any probate judge who knowingly issued a marriage license to an interracial couple, and for any justice of the peace or minister of the gospel who performed a marriage ceremony for such a couple.15 This article goes on to show how the courts have adapted new law in both Alabama and Virginia as the political, legal, and constitutional environment determined how laws would be applied to interracial marriage. These time periods are where the history of the children born out of interracial marriages all began.