White male-black female marriage would threaten white patriarchal rule unlike the reverse

Evidence

Explanations as to why marriages between white women and black men are more readily accepted than marriages between white men and black women can be found in patriarchal sexual politics. Since white women represent a powerless group when not allied with powerful white men, their marriage to black men is no great threat to existing white patriarchal rule. In our patriarchal society if a wealthy white woman marries a black man she legally adopts his status. Accordingly a black woman who marries a white man adopts his status; she takes his name and their children are his heirs. Consequently, if a large majority of that small group of white men who dominate decision-making bodies in American society were to marry black women, the foundation of white rule would be threatened. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 199

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the property/status logic of marriage analyzed in earlier feminist works on coverture and in the first chapter’s treatment of black female status. — connects to: Interracial marriage can serve the colored spouse as a bid for deracialization and equality — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 263; Whites feared legally sanctioned racial mixing of either sex — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 192; White men were encouraged to exploit black women but not marry them — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 193 (+3 more)

Related

• Whites feared legally sanctioned racial mixing of either sex (similarity 0.87)
• White men were encouraged to exploit black women but not marry them (similarity 0.85)
• Black men’s inter-racial choices reveal sexist double standards against black women. (similarity 0.85)
• White men created the race-sex hierarchy that black men accept and support. (similarity 0.84)
• Black nationalist patriarchy would not improve black male-female relations (similarity 0.81)
• Black men asserted patriarchy to compensate for losing status to white men (similarity 0.80)
• White women feared black women’s perceived immorality threatened their own status (similarity 0.80)
• White women’s racism targeted black women more intensely than black men (similarity 0.79)
• Most black women chose the black patriarchy over the feminist movement. (similarity 0.79)
• White women allied with white men on shared racism against Black women (similarity 0.79)
• Warnings against white men function as psychological control over black women’s freedom. (similarity 0.78)
• The women-blacks analogy depends on erasing black women’s existence. (similarity 0.78)
• White men sympathized with black power because shared sexism overrode racism (similarity 0.78)
• White wives sometimes encouraged their husbands to take black mistresses. (similarity 0.78)
• Most men in patriarchal society resent women who abandon passive roles (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• The women-blacks analogy depends on erasing black women’s existence. #expands (0.50) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 39