ABSTRACT
Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison has been called "Black America's best novelist" in part because she has an uncanny way of tapping into the heart of African and African-American pain and suffering during slavery, and into the ruthlessness of slave masters, lynchers, and other terrorists thereafter. Toni Morrison's fictional character, Sixo, was ultimately caught by his slave master when he and his friends attempted to escape the plantation. Black women love what Sixo represents. They love his passion and his dedication. This chapter provides an overview of what black marriage looked like across history, how it was transformed over time, and what black marriage looks like in the twenty-first century. Reconstruction could be considered the first act of social policy for blacks and black marriage, but one that ultimately undermined black marital life rather than supported its advancement.
