"Marriage" like many other blessings i consider to be especially designed for the free, and something that all the victims of slavery should avoid as tending essentially to "perpetuate that system."
William Wells Brown uses Clotel (1853) to protest that "the marriage relation, the most established and most sacrosanct organization given to man by his Creator, is obscure and unrecognized in the slave laws of the United States. Similarly, in Hannah Crafts' The Bondwoman's Narrative (c.1850s) the storyteller spurns marriage as debased by bondage, Marriage like numerous different gifts I thought to be particularly intended for the free, and something that every one of the casualties of subjugation ought to keep away from as tending basically to propagate that system.