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:
“Marriage is the clue to human life, but there is no marriage apart from the wheeling sun and the nodding earth, from the straying of the planets and the magnificence of the fixed stars.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“A marriage based on full confidence, based on complete and unqualified frankness on both sides; they are not keeping anything back; there’s no deception underneath it all. If I might so put it, it’s an agreement for the mutual forgiveness of sin.”
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)