First Marriage
Bethany first married Jerry Fickland after their masters consented to the union and told them to simply be together. Bethany, however, wanted to be legally married and the couple eventually found someone to marry them. Bethany wrote of how the couple, however, was unable to make traditional vows – like white people – because their circumstances as slaves could result in distancing the couple at the will of the owners.
A few months into their marriage, Jerry was arrested. He escaped and ran away but couldn't evade capture. His escape, attempts to avoid detection and subsequent capture seemed to have broken Jerry. He was sent away and Bethany and Jerry never saw each other again.
Read more about this topic: Bethany Veney
Famous quotes containing the word marriage:
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Worst, when this sensualism intrudes into the education of young women, and withers the hope and affection of human nature, by teaching that marriage signifies nothing but a housewife’s thrift, and that woman’s life has no other aim.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)