MARRIAGES OF WHITE AND COLOURED PEOPLES

Grey River Argus, 19 February 1949, Page 8

MARRIAGES OF WHITE AND COLOURED PEOPLES

LONDON, February 17. The State-sponsored National Marriage Guidance Council condemned a sentence of five years’ imprisonment imposed by an American court on an ex-serviceman with a percentage of Negro blood in his veins, who had married a wh.te woman. The council made a forecast that the future would bring widespread and ultimately universal inter-marriage between peoples of all colours. It declared that “miscegenation, far from being a crime, will help to usher in true brotherhood of man. The human race is of one blood—that is not an idealistic concept, but a biological reality”. This council gives advice to couples all over Britain to save tottering partnerships from the divorce courts. It said.: “Tacit assumptions that the West is more cultured than the East, and that the white man is inherently superior to the coloured, may be dying hard, but nevertheless their days are numbered”. The council warned that there should be a changed attitude towards mixed marriages. At present mixed marriages involved three specific hazards. (1) Psychological differences of racial attitude have to be contended with a' relationship so close as that of husband and wife. (2) The fact that there is no social milieu where both partners are equally at home imposes tensions upon the home. . (3) The likelihood that children will suffer some degree of social ostracism. The council advises that “until these strains have been eased it were well that mixed marriages should take place only between those with great resources of character and a strong and clear sense of vocation”.