Citation

Edwards GT. J. Fam. Hist. 2011; 36(4): 404-423.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, National Council On Family Relations, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0363199011413363

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Courtship choices and matrimonial partners remained highly limited and well defined in the late antebellum South but two categories encompassed the bulk of objectionable variables: community ("spatial") and class ("social"). As a general rule, white antebellum southerners seldom married anyone residing outside their own space and rarely married anyone identified outside their own social place. This article examines these socio-spatial boundaries in the rural plantation regions of western Tennessee. Based on a detailed database of 122 new marriages in Madison County (1851-1855), the conclusions of this article reinforce the strength of these geocultural borders. Nine of ten white southerners married within their own class. However, a few notable exceptions complicate efforts to craft a monolithic interpretation, and exceptions are always illuminating. This article encourages reexamination of the subtle interplay between space and place in the slave South--as evidenced in the universal pursuit of matrimony.