Editing Jumping the broom (section)

=={{anchor|African American and Black Canadian custom}}African-American and Black-Canadian custom==
[[File:Jumping the Broom2011.jpg|thumb|alt=A Black couple hops over a broom at their wedding|A 2011 wedding in California]]
In some African-American and [[Black Canadians|Black-Canadian]] communities, couples end their wedding ceremony by jumping over a [[broom]]stick together or separately. The practice is documented as a marriage ceremony for [[Slavery in the United States|enslaved people in the Southern United States]] during the 1840s and 1850s, who were often [[Marriage of enslaved people (United States)|not permitted to marry legally]]. Its revival in 20th-century African-American and Black-Canadian culture is due to the novel and miniseries ''[[Roots: The Saga of an American Family|Roots]]'' (1976, 1977).<ref name="Parry2011"/> [[Alan Dundes]] (1996) notes how "a custom which slaves were ''forced'' to observe by their white masters has been revived a century later by African Americans as a treasured tradition".<ref name="Dundes 324">Dundes (1996:324–328).</ref>

It has been speculated that the custom may have originated in West Africa. Although there is no direct evidence of this, Dundes cites a [[Ghana]]ian custom of waving brooms over the heads of newlyweds and their parents.<ref name="Dundes, Alan page 326">Dundes, Alan. "'Jumping the Broom': On the Origin and Meaning of an African American Wedding Custom", ''The Journal of American Folklore'', 1996, p. 326</ref> Among southern Africans{{snd}}who were largely not a part of the Atlantic slave trade{{snd}}it represented a wife's commitment (or willingness) to clean the courtyard of her new home.<ref name="Dundes, Alan page 326"/> Historian Tyler D. Parry, in ''Jumping the Broom: The Surprising Multicultural Origins of a Black Wedding Ritual'', considers the Ghanaian connection weak; the ritual used by enslaved people has many more similarities to the custom in the British Isles. Parry writes that despite the racial animus which characterized the US South during the nineteenth century, poor white Southerners (many of whom were descendants of people who had irregular forms of matrimony in Britain) and enslaved African Americans had more cultural exchange than is commonly acknowledged.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Parry|first1=Tyler D.|title=The Holy Land of Matrimony: The Complex Legacy of the Bromstick Wedding in American History|journal=American Studies|year=2016|volume=55|issue=1|pages=81–106|doi=10.1353/ams.2016.0063|s2cid=148110503|url=https://www.academia.edu/26237514}}</ref>

Slaveholders had a dilemma about committed relationships between enslaved people. Although family stability might be desirable to keep enslaved people tractable and pacified, legal marriage was not; marriage gave a couple rights over each other which conflicted with slaveholder claims.<ref>{{cite news|newspaper=[[The Times]]|date=3 February 1824|page=3|title=The sort of difficulties which might arise were raised by an anti-slavery correspondent in 1824 in ''The Times'' discussing enslaved Jamaicans. He asked what changes a recent increase in church marriages among them had actually achieved: "Do they legally prevent a master from separating husband and wife, at his pleasure, by sale or transfer? Do they legally bind the husband to the wife, and the wife to the husband? Do they give to the husband the right and the means of redress against the violator of his conjugal peace?"}}</ref> Most marriages between enslaved black people were not legally recognized during the American slavery era;<ref>{{cite journal|first=Orville W.|last= Taylor|title= Jumping the Broomstick:Slave Marriage and Morality in Arkansas|journal=The Arkansas Historical Quarterly|year=1958|volume= 17|issue= 3|pages= 217–231|doi= 10.2307/40018908|jstor= 40018908}} Taylor quotes from an 1882 ruling by Justice James Eakin of the Arkansas Supreme Court: 'There were no valid marriages amongst that class [the slaves], in the slave states of America before their general emancipation...'</ref> marriage was a legal civil contract, and civil contracts required the consent of free persons.<ref>{{cite journal|title= A Slave's Marriage Valid: Its Legality Defined|journal=The New York Times|date=20 July 1876}} A New York court upheld the retrospective validity of a marriage between Anthony Jones and Patsy Minor, even though at the time and place it had been contracted such marriages between enslaved people were not legally recognized. Both Jones and Minor had been enslaved in Virginia when, with consent of their respective masters, they declared an intention to live together as man and wife. Jones later died intestate in New York, leaving an estate valued at $15,000; a court ruled in favour of the claims of his widow and surviving son.</ref> In the absence of legal recognition, the enslaved community developed its own methods of distinguishing committed unions from casual ones.<ref>{{cite journal|title= A Slave's Marriage Valid: Its Legality Defined|journal=The New York Times|date=20 July 1876}} 'It appears by the evidence that Anthony Jones and Patsy Minor were named according to the custom among slaves, and that the distinction was recognized among slaves, and by their masters, between such lawful and illicit intercourse, and those who cohabited without such marriage were regarded as disreputable.'</ref> The ceremonial jumping of the broom was an open declaration of settling down in a marriage relationship. Jumping the broom was done before witnesses as a public, ceremonial announcement that a couple chose to become as nearly married as was then allowed.<ref>In 'The Story of My Life' (1897) a white author, [[Mary Ashton Rice Livermore]], described a broomstick wedding she attended at a Virginia plantation c. 1842.  The preacher (a fellow enslaved person) encouraged the marrying couple to see the broomstick-jumping as a serious expression of their mutual commitment, although he was well aware of the legal limitations of the ceremony. [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/4728109.0001.001/263?page=root;rgn=full+text;size=100;view=image;q1=broomstick]</ref> There are records of African Americans jumping the broom in [[Slave Narrative Collection|slave narratives]]. An ex-slave from Georgia, George Eason, said how enslaved people jumped the broom to get married.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Georgia Narratives: SLAVE NARRATIVES A Folk History of Slavery in the United -States From Interviews with Former Slaves |journal=SLAVE NARRATIVES a Folk History of Slavery in the United -States from Interviews with Former Slaves |date=1936–1938 |volume=4 |page=303 |url=https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/mss/mesn/mesn-041/mesn-041.pdf}}</ref>

Jumping the broom fell out of practice when Black people were free to marry legally.<ref>{{cite book|last=Parry|first=Tyler|title="An Irregular Union: Exploring the Welsh Connection to a Popular African-American Wedding Ritual" in'' Welsh Mythology and Folklore in Popular Culture: Essays on Adaptations in Literature, Film, Television, and Digital Media ''edited by Audrey L. Becker and Kristin Noone|year=2011|publisher=McFarland and Company, Inc.|location=Jefferson, NC|page=123}}</ref> The practice survived in some communities, and the phrase "jumping the broom" was synonymous with "getting married" even if the couple did not literally do so.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Parry|first1=Tyler D.|title=The Holy Land of Matrimony: The Complex Legacy of the Broomstick Wedding in American History|journal=American Studies|year=2016|volume=55|issue=1|pages=81–106|doi=10.1353/ams.2016.0063|s2cid=148110503|url=https://www.academia.edu/26237514}}</ref> After its smaller-scale continuity in rural areas of the United States (in Black and white communities), the custom was revived among African Americans after the publication of [[Alex Haley]]'s ''[[Roots: The Saga of an American Family|Roots]].''<ref name="Parry2011">{{cite book|last=Parry|first=Tyler|title="An Irregular Union: Exploring the Welsh Connection to a Popular African American Wedding Ritual"'' in Welsh Mythology and Folklore in Popular Culture: Essays on Adaptations in Literature, Film, Television and Digital Media ''edited by Audrey L. Becker and Kristin Noone|year=2011|publisher=McFarland and Company, Inc.|location=Jefferson, NC|pages=109–110, 123–124}}</ref> Danita Rountree Green describes the African-American custom during the early 1990s in her book, ''Broom Jumping: A Celebration of Love'' (1992).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Green |first=Danita Rountree |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/27153165 |title=Broom jumping: a celebration of love |date=1992 |publisher=Entertaining Ideas |location=Richmond, VA |language=English |oclc=27153165}}</ref>