Colonial regimes enforced marital norms
-
19th-century colonial regimes enforced strict marital norms regulating “non-Christian” marriages. The goal was to enforce the superiority of Christian marriages, which were considered threatened by Indigenous social norms and migrants from Asia. A certain understanding of marriage determined the transmission of property, citizenship status, and immigrant entry. Christian marriages were characterized by monogamy; the other relationships were considered inhumane and degrading to women. Colonial regimes created a racial taxonomy of marriage to enforce the superiority of Christian marriage, categorizing the rest as deviant.
In the case of Julio/ Jawala Singh, in New Mexico in 1933, two women claimed to be his wife after his death. The court had to decide which marriage was legitimate. Nami Singh was his first wife in Punjab in 1898. It was an arranged marriage, and Jawala left to move to the US after a few years. He married his second wife, Soledad, later in New Mexico. There was no debate over the legality of his second marriage, but there was no evidence of divorce from his first marriage. Soledad argued that arranged marriages with young girls were morally wrong and illegitimate, but it was not enough. The court decided in Nami’s favour. But because it would make Soledad a concubine, and Asian immigrants could not possess land, the court reversed its decision. The court delegitimized the first marriage, recognizing it would have disrupted the standards of “Christian nation” marriages. It made me think of a similar case in Canada in 1867.
In Connoly v Woolrich, two families, an Indigenous one and a Eurowestern one, fought for the inheritance after a white man’s death. The first wife insisted on the legitimacy of their marriage, and the judge agreed. No priest was in the area; therefore, they could not perform a proper Christian wedding. But it was the best they could do to create what would be recognized as a “real” marriage. This decision shocked the second family, which expected to receive the inheritance. The decision was not reversed. Even though it became a precedent, in later cases, judges found other mechanisms to rule in favour of the Euro-western families, ensuring the superiority of Christian white marriages.