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The ideal of marriage has never been an equal opportunity for everyone. People had to work for their marriage to be equal and be recognized. So today I will show you the history of marriage in the United States and the groups of people who had their marriage rights granted to them.

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1866: The first black marriage to be recognized 

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1866: The first black marriage to be recognized 

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After the Civil rights Act which had the thirteenth amendment of ending slavery therefore setting slaves free. On April 19, 1866, former slaves Benjamin Berry Manson (Left) and Sarah Ann Benton White (Right) received an official marriage certificate, therefore being the first black couple to be married, the were together from 1843 before getting married. (Village Celebration, 2023).

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Much has been written about Black Love - songs, books and poems. There are movies and reality shows dedicated to understanding and celebrating the way Black men and women love each other. Perhaps, our fascination is rooted in the early denial of the legal marriage uniting an enslaved man and woman.

Enslavers wanted to prevent legal marriage because it gave a couple rights over each other which conflicted with the enslavers' claims. Marriage would have also added an element of stability enslavers opposed. In lieu of legal recognition, enslaved couples "jumped the broom" which was a public declaration of their intentions to settle down in a committed relationship.

After the Civil War and the passage of the 13th Amendment which ended slavery, one of the first rights the newly freed Black Americans did was marry. Historians report a wave of African American marriages soon after the end of the war.

The Freedman's Bureau recorded marriages. States and other organizations also offered formal documentation of longstanding relationships. Ironically, after the war, Blacks were disproportionately penalized if they were not married.

According to the Freedman's Bureau, former slaves Benjamin Berry Manson and Sarah Ann Benton White received an official marriage certificate on April 19, 1866, which suggests they were the first legally married African American couple. They had been together since 1843 - but lived intermittently on separate farms - and had 16 children.

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For More Than 200 Years African American Men And Women Were Not Allowed To Marry

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Much has been written about Black Love - songs, books and poems. There are movies and reality shows dedicated to understanding and celebrating the way Black men and women love each other. Perhaps, our fascination is rooted in the early denial of the legal marriage uniting an enslaved man and woman.

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When Interracial Marriage Finally Became Legal In The U.S.

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1967: Loving v. Virginia, an interracial marriage is legalized

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1967: Loving v. Virginia, an interracial marriage is legalized

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Even though black people had the right to marry each other for over a century, interracial marriage was not recognized. In the above picture is Mildred Loving a black and Native American woman and Richard Loving a white man. The couple were arrested in 1958 and put in prison for a year in the state of Virginia. They then took their case, which lasted for nearly a decade on June 12, 1967 when they won the case which legalized interracial marriage allowing everyone of different race the right to marry each other (NPR, 2021).

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When Richard and Mildred Loving awoke in the middle of the night a few weeks after their June, 1958 wedding, it wasn't normal newlywed ardor. There were policemen with flashlights in their bedroom. They'd come to arrest the couple.

"They asked Richard who was that woman he was sleeping with? I say, I'm his wife, and the sheriff said, not here you're not. And they said, come on, let's go, Mildred Loving recalled that night in the HBO documentary "The Loving Story."

The Lovings had committed what Virginia called unlawful cohabitation. Their marriage was deemed illegal because Mildred was Black and Native American; and Richard was white.

Their case went all the way to the Supreme Court. And on June 12, 1967, the couple won.

Now, each year on this date, "Loving Day" celebrates the historic ruling in Loving v. Virginia, whichdeclared unconstitutional a Virginia law prohibiting mixed-race marriage - and legalized interracial marriage in every state.

The couple is given a choice: flee or go to jail

After they were arrested, the Lovings were sentenced to a year in prison. Then, a judge offered them a choice: banishment from the state or prison.

They chose to leave Virginia at the time, but after several years, the Lovings asked the American Civil Liberties Union to take their case.

Bernard Cohen and Philip Hirschkop, two young ACLU lawyers at the time, did.

The ACLU takes up their case

The lawyers asked the court to look closely at whether the Virginia law violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. If the framers had intended to exclude anti-miscegenation status in the 14th Amendment, which assures equal protection under the law, they argued that it would have been easy for them to write a phrase excluding interracial marriage, but they didn't Cohen argued:

"The language was broad, the language was sweeping. The language meant to include equal protection for Negroes that was at the very heart of it and that equal protection included the right to marry as any other human being had the right to marry subject to only the same limitations."

The Lovings argue they just want the same rights

Cohen forcefully, but calmly argued that the Lovings and their children, just like any other family, had the right to feel protected under the law.

"And that is the right of Richard and Mildred Loving to wake up in the morning or to go to sleep at night knowing that the sheriff will not be knocking on their door or shining a light in their face in the privacy of their bedroom for illicit co-habitation."

When asked if he had a message for the justices, the normally-quiet Richard did: Tell them I love my wife, he said.

The court makes a landmark ruling

On June 12, 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court justices ruled in the Lovings' favor. The unanimous decision upheld that distinctions drawn based on race were not constitutional. The court's decision made it clear that Virginia's anti-miscegenation law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

The landmark civil rights decision declared prohibitions on interracial marriage unconstitutional in the nation.

Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the opinion for the court; he wrote that marriage is a basic civil right and to deny this right on a basis of color is "directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment" and seizes all citizens "liberty without due process of law."

In recent years, people around the country have commemorated the ruling with Loving Day celebrations.

Today, it has evolved into an observation of the larger struggle for racial justice.

This piece uses information from a 2015 Morning Edition segment by Karen Grigsby Bates.

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Today is Loving Day - When Interracial Marriage Finally Became Legal In The U.S.

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When Richard and Mildred Loving awoke in the middle of the night a few weeks after their June, 1958 wedding, it wasn't normal newlywed ardor. There were policemen with flashlights in their bedroom. They'd come to arrest the couple. "They asked Richard who was that woman he was sleeping with?

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2015: Obergefell v. Hodges Gay marriage becomes legal across the US

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2015: Obergefell v. Hodges Gay marriage becomes legal across the US

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In 2015, Same-sex couples sued state agencies in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, challenging these states’ bans on same-sex marriage. 11 states were apart of a national movement of same-sex marriage ban up until that point. So this case had reached the Supreme Court and on June 26, 2015 same-sex couples were granted the right to marry in all states (USA Today, 2022).

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Marriage equality is a global issue. According to the Human Rights Campaign, there are currently 31 countries in which same-sex marriage is legal. Of those countries, 22 legalized same-sex marriage through legislation, seven (including the United States) legalized same-sex marriage through court decisions, and two enacted legislation following court mandates.

According to Gallup research, around 10% of LGBTQ Americans were in a marriage with a spouse of the same sex in February 2022. While this represents less than 1% of the total US population, it is a marked increase since the days before same-sex marriage was federally protected.
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When was same-sex marriage legalized in the US?

On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal across the country with its ruling in the Obergefell v. Hodges case.
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According to Supreme Court database Oyez, this case was brought up to the Supreme Court after groups of same-sex couples sued state agencies in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, challenging these states' bans on same-sex marriage.

Some of these states' same-sex marriage bans were part of a national movement in response to President George W. Bush's call for a constitutional amendment banning the practice.
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Same-sex couples and adoption

In 2003, Massachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex couples to adopt children, according to the Boston Globe - but the journey to national adoption equality was far from over.

In 2016, a Federal District Court voided a law in Mississippi which prevented gay couples from adopting children, according to the Washington Post. The court cited the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling in its decision.

In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled against an Arkansas law which required adoption papers to define parents by gender, eliminating an obstacle to same-sex parenthood. Before this ruling, same-sex couples required a court order to have both parents' names on their child's birth certificate, according to AP News.

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When was same-sex marriage legalized? A quick history of an LGBTQ rights battle in the U.S.

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Marriage equality is a global issue. According to the Human Rights Campaign, there are currently 31 countries in which same-sex marriage is legal. Of those countries, 22 legalized same-sex marriage through legislation, seven (including the United States) legalized same-sex marriage through court decisions, and two enacted legislation following court mandates.

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As you can see the rights of marriage has come a long way, these events reshaped our rights by allowing us to marry whoever we want because back then, it was not always easy to marry each other comfortably. It reshaped out understand of liberty and equality by expanding on the idea of marriage so that we can all live happily ever after with our significant other with no lawful repercussions because in other countries marriage is heavily restricted and not equal. So it really makes stop and think how far the rights of marriage has come.