The Everlasting Strain on Marriages and Love

Interracial relationships have been around long into our country’s first formation. Of course the anti-miscegenation laws were in place forbidding marriage and sex between Caucasian people with those of other ethnicities. Penalties for these laws were sometimes severe, although interracial relations were unrare. Even Thomas Jefferson had a relationship with his children’s nanny,Sally Hemings, who was a slave. They even had children together. This man is often praised for framing the Constitution, his face is on our money, and on Mount Rushmore. This man also only freed two slaves his entire life. They were not good enough for freedom but they sure were good enough for him to secretly sleep with. I was shocked to learn that interracial marriage was illegal until 1967!

The couple who changed all of this was the Lovings. Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving had known each other since she was a child. (She was African American and he was Caucasian). The two started dating and she became pregnant when she was eighteen. They had to travel out of Virginia to marry and did so. The two were arrested in the middle of the night when they returned home.They were convicted and sentenced to one year in prison but it was suspended for twenty five years on the condition that they leave Virginia which is when they moved to the District of Columbia, which was where they were married. The two however, could not travel together. The two ended up petitioning the charge because they felt it went against the fourteenth amendment.Their lawsuits ended up making it to the Supreme Court and as an effect, history. It may seem as if no big deal now days, however, these two faced many consequences of their love. They even could have been killed. Mildred Loving was a supporter not only of interracial and even same sex marriages but of love. The two were exiled from their home and loved ones for their marriage.Their official charges that fateful night in 1958 was “cohabitation as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth. Wow! What I find to be against the peace is arresting someone in the middle of the night for being married. What went against the dignity of Virginia was itself and it’s own laws.

However, it seems that there must always be a strain upon love. If it was not against interracial marriage then against same sex marriage. Until recently same sex marriages were illegal in the states. However, now six states have same sex marriage as legal. Six out of fifty-wow we have come a long way huh. What will be next-no marriage at all?

(Mr. & Mrs. Loving)

Image via Wikipedia