Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/65

 looking after the marriages of the blacks, to see that there was ome order and olemnity in the manner, and that the marriages hould be recorded, and hould be binding for life. See The Friend, Vol. 29, 4$to.$, Phil. 1843.

No Chritian man or woman, Quaker or Puritan, could fail to be hocked at the looenes of all such ties and relations under the lave ytem. One olitary witnes againt lavery in Maachuetts in 1700, referred to the well known "Temptations Maters were under to connive at the Fornication of their Slaves, let they hould be obliged to find them Wives or pay their Fines." Sewall, 1700. The laws againt the irregular commerce of the sexes were an awkward part of a ytem which etablihed and protected lavery, and marriage (uch as it was) aved the expene of contant fines to maters and mitrees for delinquent laves.

But what protection was there for the married tate or anction of marital or parental rights and duties? This law did not and could not protect or anction either, and mut have been of little practical value to the laves. Governed by the humor or interet of the mater or mitres, their marriage was not a matter of choice with them, more than any other action of their life. Who was to judge whether the denial of a mater or mitres was unreaonable or not? And what remedy had the lave in cae of denial? The owner of a valuable female lave was to