Georgia Cohabitation Records

Georgia Cohabitation Records
(No. 252) An Act to prescribe and regulate the relation of Husband and Wife between persons of color. 5. Sec. 1. The General Assembly of the State of Georgia do enact:

That persons of color, now living together as husband and wife, are hereby declared to sustain that legal relation to each other, unless a man shall have two or more reputed wives, or a woman two or more reputed husbands. In such event, the man, immediately after the passage of this Act by the General assembly, shall select one of his reputed wives, with her consent; or the woman one of her reputed husbands, with his consent; and the ceremony of marriage between these two shall be performed. If such man, thus living with more than one woman, or such woman living with more than one man, shall fail or refuse, to comply with the provisions of this section, he or she shall be prosecuted for the offence of fornication, or adultery, or fornication and adultery, and punished accordingly.