Monstrous Marriage

Abstract

This chapter explicates Sapphire's novel 1996 Push, alongside the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, Farrakhan's 1993 book Torchlight for America, and Sweet Honey in the Rock's 1983 song Testimony in order to unmask the political burden placed on African American marriage and Black love. It illustrates the ways in which touting marriage and heteropatriarchal family as a political responsibility enables intimate partner violence or domestic abuse.