Note G — AMERICAN SLAVERY.
Reading edition
It is sometimes said that the crime of adultery is neither perpetrated nor encouraged by the breaking up of slave-families, because, generally, the connections formed are not truly marriage, not being solemnized according to forms of law, and hence the marriage obligation cannot be violated.
It may be replied, if this be so, it presents slavery in a worse light still, for it encourages and perpetuates a state of universal concubinage. But it is not so. When a slave takes a companion, and they consent and engage to live together as husband and wife until death, and they thus declare their intentions before others, whether any legal form is gone through or not, they are as truly "no more twain but one flesh" as were Adam and Eve. It has been thus decided by our courts in regard to white persons.