Marital Cruelty in Antebellum America by Robin C. Sager (review)

Robin Sager looked at more than one thousand divorce cases in antebellum Virginia, Wisconsin, and Texas to see if there were any differences in the pleadings between a more settled area (Virginia) as opposed to frontier areas (Wisconsin and Texas) or between northern states (Wisconsin) and southern states (Virginia and Texas). The book is based almost entirely on these court documents but is firmly ensconced in the historiography of the field. The chapters look at divorce cases based on verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual mistreatment, drunkenness and neglect, and community participation in these disastrous marriages. The author finds that unlike previous claims, the northern state of Wisconsin actually had more physical violence than the supposedly honor-bound Southern states. Gender roles were more fluid on the frontier, but this caused unhappy spouses to use violations of traditional gendered expectations as complaints in divorce courts. Marriages were supposed to be becoming more companionate but complainants filing divorce proceedings based their actions much more on derelictions of traditional spousal duties than on any claims of loss of affection.

Cruelty was one of the bases for a divorce. Cruelty could be physical, mental, or verbal. Verbal cruelty might include public defamation of character, which caused a loss of standing in the community, or private abuse, which caused mental anguish leading to physical ailments. Accusing a wife of being an adulteress was the most serious complaint of this type, but this had to be done repeatedly to show cruelty. The wife had to show that she suffered mentally and physically as well as by losing her character. A wife suing for divorce could claim that her husband made threats that put her in fear for her life or fear that he would injure her so that she could not do her wifely duties of bearing children and keeping house. Men who could not control their passions were seen by Victorian society as unfit to be heads of household, so wives often cited their husbands' ungovernable tempers as grounds for divorce.

Physical violence, from either spouse, could be grounds for divorce if witnessed by outsiders or if resulting in injuries that prevented performance of traditional duties. Men were more likely to use their hands while women were more likely to use an implement, especially ones found in the kitchen, to strike the other. A man was expected to use a certain amount of violence to control his wife, so judges had to consider whether the violence used was appropriate or cruel.

Drunkenness had to be habitual and excessive to be included in the complaint, and it had to lead to the wayward spouse acting to destroy the marriage. This might take the form of spending all the household money on alcohol, being too drunk to keep a job, or otherwise ruining the reputation of the couple. Verbal and physical violence usually accompanied accusation of drunkenness and neglect. The frontier states of Texas and Wisconsin had more complaints of drunkenness than did Virginia. In all of these cases, community members acted as protectors and witnesses, establishing public opinion on whether a spouse's actions were acceptable.

The scurrilous details of the complaints make for lively reading. Each chapter is well organized and based on primary documents. There is an analysis of expected gendered behavior in each chapter explained clearly so those not familiar with gender can understand the concepts. The bibliography is divided into sections for each state making it user-friendly. The book is suitable for all adult readers and could be used in classes on women's and gender history, the Old South, and Texas history.