Racist marriage laws punished white men yet did not stop cohabitation

Evidence

Educated free-coloreds “were looked down upon because of their origin, because they could not be looked down on for anything else.” Although “honest whites” continued to marry free women of color, during the 1750s and 1760s several of those who did were divested of positions as administrators or militia officers. Laws discouraging interracial marriages were not uniformly applied, but they discouraged many whites from marrying women of color, though not from continuing to live and have children with them. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 224