Divorce: An American Tradition by Glenda Riley

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Divorce: An American Tradition
Glenda Riley
Oxford University Press, 1991

"The first American couple to divorce obtained their decree in 1639 from a Puritan court in Massachusetts. Anecdotal evidence indicates that untold numbers of other colonists simply deserted their unwanted or offending mates." pages 3-4
"In 1700, an English feminist, Mary Astell, bemoaned women's lack of escape from unhappy marriages: they could only "bear their misery" and submit to the authority of their husbands. It was 1801 when the first English woman petitioned the House of Lords for a divorce. Her plea met with success, but failed to initiate a noticeable movement by other women." page 16
Regarding Virginia law: by 1841, "[t]he only difference that remained between divorce of bed and board and absolute divorce was that parties to bed and board cases could not remarry." p. 41
Regarding a 1788 speech by Congregational minister Benjamin Trumbull, "Opponents of divorce believed that the spread of divorce revealed decay in American society and breakdown in the American family." p. 59
Regarding cases of men and women offering rewards for information on an absent spouse: "Such cases remind us once again that divorce is only one indicator of marital dissatisfaction. Desertion indicates many disgruntled spouses ended their marriages by disappearing rather than by divorcing." p. 89
"Generally, alimony awards were insufficient to women's needs, especially women who received custody of children." p. 91
"By the late nineteenth century, many Americans ere disquieted by divorce in general and western divorce in particular. In their eyes, it seemed the West was rapidly leading the nation into moral and social decline. Their fears were reinforced by frequent reports of outrageous western divorce trials and of free-wheeling divorce mills that granted quick divorces to migratory divorce-seekers from stricter jurisdictions." p. 94
"During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, many Americans clung to traditional views of marriage and divorce. They failed to realize that powerful forces, including industrialization, urbanization, changing gender roles, and rising expectations of marriage, propelled people toward divorce. Instead, they believed that strict divorce statutes could keep people in their marriages, reduce the divorce rate, and eliminate western divorce mills.
Other Americans, however, acknowledged divorce as a reality. Increasingly, advocates of divorce argued that divorce was a citizen's right, and that it was beneficial to American society because it eliminated dysfunctional marriages. Although "no thinking person" would argue that divorces "be granted people who have simply tired of the marriage yoke," certainly divorces for "extreme cruelty, drunkenness and certain forms of crime" were necessary. Should divorce disappear, "women would be the chief sufferers, for they would be compelled to bow their necks to the yoke.: Rather than escaping unbearable marriages, aggrieved wives would have to endure - to be "a bond slave as abject as she was in the days of the savagery of the race." " p. 129
"By the first years of the twentieth century, it was apparent that the United States had, like King Julief, accepted divorce as a necessity. Furthermore, the nation had provided a giant petri dish for the growth of divorce. Such factors as industrialization, urbanization, changing roles of women and men, declining commitment to religion, a gradual deterioration of the patriarchal family, rising expectations of marriage, and a long-term belief in personal satisfaction and freedom created a rich medium for the growth of divorce." p. 183
"Shortly after the Boddie decision, liberal historian Christopher Lasch stated that divorce actually protected the American family. In 1973, Lasch asserted divorce saved the institution of the family by forcing it to adapt to contemporary conditions and beliefs. Lasch explained that because the traditional patriarchal family was increasingly dysfunctional in twentieth-century America, it was in danger of atrophying altogether. People who divorced traditional mates and sought spouses who agreed equality should characterize marriage created families more suited to the realities of late twentieth-century society. In his view, divorce thus gradually reshaped the family into a more modern, functional form." pages 184-185
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