Miscegenation

The term miscegenation refers to the sexual relations between, and interbreeding of, people considered to be of different racial types.

Definition

According to the American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language the term refers to "(C)ohabitation, sexual relations, marriage, or interbreeding involving persons of different races, especially in historical contexts as a transgression of the law." The concept is centuries old, and notions of racial and/or cultural purity underlie - and been serious points of contention - in many cultures, countries and belief systems.

Though the term is not much used in general in South Africa, the concept is of course fundamental to the colonial and apartheid history of the various colonial empires over the ages, and in this case the various colonies in Africa, South Africa in particular.

Miscegenation and literature in South Africa

Over the years numerous books, plays, films and the like have dealt with interracial relationships or "miscegenation". In South Africa and neighbouring countries the concept initially related to social custom and colonial practice under Dutch German Portuguese and British dominance. However, with the 1948 election victory of the Nationalist Party and the coming of formal Apartheid, a number of specific laws forbidding such relationships were promulgated. Among them are the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act first promulgated in 19** and had grown out of the ***** act of 19** . This act was one of the cornerstones of Apartheid and specifically forbade marriages between persons of different race groups. It was finally repealed in June 1985. The law was heavily enforced, particularly in terms of "European or white" and "non-European or non-white" marriages. This went hand in hand with the so called Immorality Act of 19**, which forbad all sexual encounters between race groups, legal or illicit, and was equally viciously applied. This was also repealed in ??June 1985??.

Miscegenation and the Censorship system in South Africa

The chief laws governing miscegenation in South Africa are the so-called Immorality Acts of 1927 and 1957.

In the case of the arts, the censorship system was also employed to suppress any works deemed "immoral", notably those offering portrayals of interracial sexual contact in their work and/or criticising the racial laws and their execution.

Miscegenation on stage in South Africa

The 19th century

The Creole, or Love's Fetters (, 1938; performed in South Arica in 1862 and 1866).

The 20th century

After their introduction, the two acts were a widely used subject in South African writing from the 1950s onwards, and the the subject of numerous plays on miscegenation have been written over the years, notably in a series of plays produced during the pivotal years in the run-up to the declaration of the South African Republic (1958 to 1961), and the highly charged protest plays that emerged during the cultural struggle of the nineteen-seventies and -eighties. Not all were performed and/or published however.

Notable plays in the earlier period are: Ruby and Frank (Dhlomo, 1938), The Kimberley Train (Sowden, 1958), Try for White (Warner, 1959) , Die Verminktes (The Maimed, Smit, 1960/61), The Blood Knot (Fugard, 1961), .

Try for White became the basis of perhaps the best known early film on the subject: Katrina.

In the 1970-1990 period attitudes towards miscegenous relationships became more complex and ambiguous, as one may see from plays such as Bloedlyn (Hauptfleisch, 1970/1974), Statements (Fugard, 1972), Kanna hy kô Hystoe (Small, 1972), Laaste Middagmaal (Stockenström, 1974),