Women, Family, and Community in Colonial America by Linda Speth

Author:Linda Speth [Speth, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Law, Gender & the Law, Social Science, Women's Studies
ISBN: 9781135817794
Google: Su79320d8gQC
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-04-15T15:55:35+00:00

THE THRALL DIVORCE CASE: A FAMILY CRISIS IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CONNECTICUT

Alison Duncan Hirsch

On May 12, 1732, Hannah Thrall of Windsor, Connecticut, left her husband.1 She and William were first cousins, had both lived in Windsor all their lives, and had been married for three and a half years.2 Hannah said afterward that she only intended to leave for a short time, just until William's temper cooled, for they had quarreled several times and he had struck her. He denied that they had fought and claimed that she left only because she resented living with her mother-in-law. According to him, she never showed any intention of returning. When William sued for divorce in August 1735, he accused Hannah of adultery as well as desertion, although he did not specify with whom. Either accusation was sufficient grounds for divorce under the Connecticut law of 1667, which empowered the Court of Assistants to grant divorces on the grounds of “adultery, fraudulent contract, or willfull desertion for three years, with total neglect of duty, or seven years’ providentiall absence, being not heard of … [and] counted as legally dead.”3

Introduction

Connecticut Colony had the most liberal divorce policy in British America. Its courts heard approximately a thousand divorce cases during the course of the eighteenth century, far more than the courts of any other colony.4 Thrall v. Thrall was one of the most hotly contested and therefore most richly documented cases; it was not, however, a typical case. Although most divorces involved desertion rather than (or in addition to) adultery, the husband was usually the deserter. Most deserting spouses left town, usually with a new lover and often for another colony altogether. Divorce proceedings in these cases were almost always uncontested, for often the respondent was not even notified of the complaint. Hannah Thrall, though, remained in Windsor; she simply returned to her parents’ house, about two miles from her married home.5 From that vantage point, she contested William at every turn. Although she sometimes declared in anger that she never wanted to live with William again, she clearly did not want to be sued for divorce, since she would lose all her dower rights if declared the guilty party.6 William's estate was considerable, and her thirds would make her a fairly wealthy widow.

Hannah might have sued William for divorce herself on the grounds of cruelty, but only life-threatening abuse was sufficient cause for a special appeal to the General Assembly acting as a court of equity,7 Hannah was thus consigned to a waiting role. In the early stages of her absence, William occasionally invited her to return home, but she refused to believe his promises to treat her better. For whatever combination of motives—wounded pride, malice, or a desire to be freed from an unpleasant relationship—William soon began to contemplate divorce. Since divorce on the grounds of desertion required a three-year wait, William accused Hannah of adultery, but he produced no convincing evidence. The other possible grounds for divorce, fraudulent contract, was out of the question from the beginning.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.