“No such thing as marriage among slaves was, or could be, recognized by the law. As slaves were wholly subject to the disposal of their masters, no unions having the character of permanence or sacredness could exist among them: such a union, if it existed, would abridge the master’s power of absolute control. Among slaves there could only be contubernium, cohabitation of the sexes for a longer or shorter time, but no legal matrimonium.” James Hadley, Introduction to Roman Law 111 (1881).
“There was … among slaves a permitted cohabitation called contubernium, but it brought with it no civil rights…. [C]ohabitation, … in a state of slavery, was not marriage, or evidence of marriage. It conferred no rights upon the offspring, and created no legal disabilities on the part of the father from forming a valid marriage, whenever he became in a condition which would authorize him to contract one.” Adrienne D. Davis, The Private Law of Race and Sex: An Antebellum Perspective, 51 Stan. L. Rev. 221, 245 (1999).
