Comments on: A Tangled Web of Domestic Relations

By: By Common Consent » Domestic sadness made public, Act 2

By Common Consent » Domestic sadness made public, Act 2 — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 03:51:32 +0000

[...] some of you will recall, we recently discussed the use of serial newspaper advertisements to avoid financial liability for an estranged wife in 1840s Nauvoo. I have discovered a few more of them, all fairly rote, as if [...]

By: manaen

manaen — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 23:11:28 +0000

17. “plaster as wide as the sore” also appears in “Miracle of Forgiveness”

This thread reminds me of one of my favorite movie lines, in which a teenager tells her friend, “A thief took my Mom’s purse, but Dad didn’t report her credit cards as stolen because the thief is spending less than she was.”

By: Sam MB

Sam MB — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 22:40:59 +0000

re: 10, glad to find some honor in New York, even if it was a few centuries ago. a great story behind that i’m sure.

By: Sam MB

Sam MB — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 22:39:29 +0000

Thanks, Justin.
I’m personally surprised in my research how often people were divorced simply by disappearing. People announcing new marriages in the paper to give the prior spouse notice, people like John C. Bennett just moving on, serially.
I also think about prior injustices to women. I also imagine this Cyrus showing up on Jerry Spring to protest what a great husband he’s been in a grease-stained wife-beater undershirt and ultra-slicked but sparse hair.
Ronan, I think there are and Justin cites them. Glen Leonard’s book is a good introduction to Nauvoo. there’s also an old BYU Studies book on material culture that I can’t find on my shelf right now but has some stuff like that.

I’ve had a great time making my way through the Neighbor and the Wasp.

By: Julie M. Smith

Julie M. Smith — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 22:39:25 +0000

“that the plaster may be made as large as the wound”

That’s a great line.

By: Susan M

Susan M — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 21:01:31 +0000

By “loony” I actually meant “adulterous, cheating criminals.”

By: Mark B.

Mark B. — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 19:03:01 +0000

Where’s the looniness, Susan? Was it Ms. de Truy’s getting herself with child outside of the marriage bed? Maybe that’s a sign of a lusty disposition, but

looniness

Or was it in the child’s father acknowledgement of paternity? We may think him nuts to do that in an age where neither blood-typing nor DNA testing (and not even Maury Povich) were around to prove his part in the child’s birth. On the other hand, we could simply conclude that he was a stand-up guy, willing to pay the piper after he fiddled.

By: Kevin Barney

Kevin Barney — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 19:00:57 +0000

I agree with Mark B. that such disclaimer of responsiblity for debt notices appear in newspaper classified sections even to this day. Whether they have any legal effect I do not know (I’m not a family lawyer).

Divorce back in those days was often by self help without any formal intervention or decrees by the state.

By: Matt W.

Matt W. — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 18:48:27 +0000

Justin, you are amazing.

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 18:42:27 +0000

George Givens’ book on Nauvoo notes that Martha Boley responded with a public refutation of the charge in August 1844. Her notice read: “Cyrus Boley left his wife and fled to New Orleans and returned this Spring, refused to live with his wife, was tried by a Bishops Court and cut off from the Church. This information is given that the plaster may be made as large as the wound” (In Old Nauvoo: Everyday Life in the City of Joseph, p. 233).

Holzapfel and Holzapfel, Women of Nauvoo notes:

“Sabra Granger Gribble published the following in the local newspaper: ‘Whereas John Gribble has taken off my bed and board, [and] having had to pay his debts to this date: Notice is hereby given that I will pay no more debts of his contracting.’ [Nauvoo Neighbor, 21 May 1845]

Sabra, who signed the notice ‘Sabra Granger,’ attempted to expose her husband’s false claim of abandonment and set the record straight. Her husband had filed a similar notice earlier.”