Before and during the Civil War era, marriages were seen as a beneficial contract to, normally, the male spouse. Marriage licenses clearly stated that during the Civil War era people who wanted to marry had to be competent enough to become married, and they had to marry from the same race. Over the decades society has evolved and everything around it, however, it took until the year 2000 for the last state, Alabama, to make interracial marriage legal. We might have moved away from the customes of the Civil War era, but we seem to cling to the ideas. In 2001, a census was conducted in the Deep South, and it showed that 51% of people voted that they prefer to have interracial marriage illegal. Hopefully, society can part from this Civil War ideology, so any race, especially African Americans, can marry whoever they please with ease.