Marriage Strategies and Family Formation
Marriage Strategies and Family Formation
This chapter examines the nature of slave family formation as determined by slaveholding size and sex ratios. How did enslaved people adapt to the physical and demographic boundaries of their containment when seeking a mate? What were the consequences for their domestic arrangements and family structures? By comparing families in different parts of the non-cotton South, this chapter shows that antebellum slaves usually strove to create two-parent households whenever possible; however, not all were able to realize that ideal, and those who could not adapted their marriage strategies and family lives accordingly.
Keywords: family formation, marriage, slaveholding, sex ration, demographic boundary, two-parent household, family life
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