The Myth of the Abandoned Wife: Married Women’s Agency and the Legal Narrative of Gender in Eighteenth-Century Kentucky

The Myth of the Abandoned Wife: Married Women' s Agency and tbe Legal Narrative of Gender in EighteenthCentury Kentucky HONOR R. SACHS ecutedayoungmanofthatplaceforrape. Foundguilt>: hecamebefore 1791, Tbe Ke, itticky Gazette ran a fictional tale aborit a man on trial for rape. In the " Isle of Man, the story went, a > oung Woman prosthe court for sentencing. " According to the custc, in of the island, the judge delivered to the woman a rope, a sword, and a ring. and " by these presents the young woman had her choice,whether she would hang, behead,or marry hitii." The woman picked the ring, which they all agreed was " the severest punishment."' While most likely intended as a joke, this tale alsc,carries valuable commen- 1 4.tary about the ways that gender oper- A. Ar/# r, ated in the law and in everyday life. On 4 . 1 *'- .,4 -/4 the one hand, this story pokes hm at iccepted by Ic, cal cc,tiimunities . ind validated b> tlie courts. Wedding ceretiionies befc, re a secular or clerical official were iiot cc) nitiion until the middle of the eighteenth ceiitury,when ], iwmcikers began tc) require such rituals. Iii rural areas such as Kentuckr.however.comnion lanmarriage and infc, rmal divorce practices persisted well into the nineteenth century. 4 hesecondprobletiiwithst,id>ingdivorceinKentuckyisthatsoman>' of the legislative records of divorces have not survived. Fire destroyed extensive holdings of public records at the Kentucky state capitol in 1813 and again in 1824. lournals of the House alid Senatewhere lawmakers rec() rded notes and discussic,ns of divorce petitions exist only iii partial form fortheyears 1792,1794, 1798, and 1799. Additionally ( andin keeping with Kentucky's reputation for poor record keeping), lawmakers threw out the notes and records of the coinmittees that discussed divorce cases.' Despite such obstacles,disparate sources catch the otherwise elusive details of niarried couples' lives, affairs,conflicts, and separations and compensate fc, r the lack of legislative records. Husbands and wives placed nearly one hundred desertion notices and advertisements in the Kentucky Gazette from its founding in 1787 through 1800. County court recordsspecifically those collected from Lincoln, Madison, Bourbon,and Fayette countiesprovide evidence of marital conflicts,property disputes,or infc, rmal separations. Fitially, genealogical material and marriage records docunient the names of litigants, petitioners, and deserters and give greater depth to individual stories. Tc,gether ,these records helped fill in silences about inarital conflicts that couples often hoped to keep hidden from the public records. Formal legislative recordsspecifically the petitions apprc, ved by the KenWINTER 2003 Kenttickv Reduced ftc, iii E|ihii 13.irket's 1.arge Al, ip, W. Baker Sculp. 1795). Ci} ici, 1,! ati Mitserim Ce, iter, Cilicijinati Historical Societi' r k': x. ' k' 1-I -+ 1 4%] St:. LZ: TILL 5 TII E M Y ' T H ( ) t: = 1-H E ABAN 1) O N E l ) W 11' E tucky General Assemblysuggest that lawniakers were concerned with the cultural parameters of divorce. The Kentucky Assenibly received at least twentysix divorce petitions between 1792 and 1800. Of these,fourteen were from women, nine were troni tiien, . ind three nre unclear as to whether the husbatid or wife itiitiated the petitic) 11. The journals of the House aild Senate include explicit discussions of sonic of these petitions, while the Kentucky Gazette announced or described the content of others in . in official act for divorce. Within the Kentucky Asseinbly itself,the process of defining what coiistituted grounds for divorce was a shared prc, ject between the legislature as a whole . ind the legislative Coillinittee c, li Religion. When the Assenibly received a petition for divorce,they first read it alc, ud during a session, then reconimended it to the Committee on Religion for closer attention. After discussing divorce petitions, the Cc, inmittee made recommendations tc,the House floor, the House called for n vote. and if necessary, the (: ommittee drifted iii act of dive, ice. If the legislattire did iiot accept the recc,tilmendations from the C.(, inmittee oti lieligion, tliey cotild either reject the divorce petition or they could send it back tc,the (: ominittee fc, r reconsideration and revisic), i. In sonic cases, Lipoti further review the (. otiimittee actually redrafted the 1...