'Til Death or Distance Do Us Part : Love and Marriage in African America

''Til Death or Distance Do Us Part is the first scholarly treatment of love, courtship, sexual morality and marriage in African America from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War. Most people believe that marriages were forbidden and families destroyed during the era of slavery in the United States; however, this book demonstrates that antebellum publications by African Americans for African Americans about themselves do not support these conclusions. Based upon extensive research in early African American writing, with special emphasis upon the Afro-Protestant Press, the book also considers the ill effects such erroneous and negative histories have caused, up to their influence on present day attitudes and behaviors, as well as suggesting the positive potential underscored by this truer portrait of black family life.

Conventional wisdom says that marriage was rare or illegal for slaves and that if African Americans married at all, their vows were tenuous ones: "until death or distance do us part." It is believed that this history explains the dysfunction of the African American family to this day. In this groundbreaking book, Frances Smith Foster shows that this common wisdom is flawed as it is based upon partial evidence and it ignores the writings African Americans created for themselves. Rather than relying on documents produced for abolitionists, the state, or other biased parties, Foster draws upon a trove of little-examined alternative sources and in so doing offers a correction to this widely held but misinformed viewpoint. The works examined include family histories, folkloric stories, organizational records, personal memoirs, sermons and especially the fascinating and varied writings published in the Afro-Protestant Press of the times. She shows that "jumping the broom" was but one of many wedding rituals and that love, marriage and family were highly valued and central to early African American society. Her book offers a provocative new understanding of a powerful belief about African American history and sheds light on the roles of memory and myth, story and history in defining contemporary society and shaping the future.