In monogamous countries where two races live side by side, one dominant, the other subject, the single legal standard, the single moral standard, yields in practice if not in theory to the double standard in law and morals in respect to the sexual question. In the ensuing confusion of moral ideas, of moral obligations, the male instinct gains in freedom from restraints of law, of social conventions, and reverts in consequence and to that extent to a state of nature, of natural marriage. The legal and moral codes which regulate the relations of the males of one race with the females of the same race are not applicable in regulating the relations of those self-same males with the females of the other race. Marriage in such a country has regard to the males and females of the same race, not to those of different races. The crime of adultery or of fornication undergoes the same gross modification. For in such a land the one-wife idea, the one-wife institution has reference to the individuals of the same race only, not to individuals of opposite races. The "Thou shalt not" of the law, public opinion interprets to refer to the sexual conduct of the males and females of the same race in respect to one another, _i. e._, a male member of the dominant race must limit his roving propensities wherever the females of his own race are concerned. He need not under this same law, interpreted by this same public opinion, curb to the same extent those roving propensities where the females of the other race are concerned. He may live in licit intercourse with a woman of his own race and at the same time live in illicit intercourse with a woman of the other race, _i. e._, without incurring the pains and penalties made by the state, by society, against such an offense in case the second woman be of his own race. Neither the law nor public opinion puts an equal value on the chastity of the women of the two races. Female chastity in the so-called superior race is rated above that in the so-called inferior race. Hence the greater protection accorded to the woman of the first class over that accorded to the woman of the second class. The first class has well-defined legal and moral rights which the men of that class are bound to respect, rights which may not be violated with impunity. Here we encounter one of the greatest dangers attendant upon race segregation, where the two races are not equal before the law, where public opinion makes and enforces one law for the upper race, and practically another law for the under race.
Aging Review
Papers of the American Negro Academy. (The American Negro — Part 5
Tags