Splitting
the sheets in Southern Oregon
Women
and men and the balance of power.
by Jan Wright
Talk presented at Windows In Time presentations in Medford and Ashland, Oregon
A few years ago, while on my way to
a wedding, I stopped off in Salt Lake City Family History Library to
search through the Jackson County, Oregon Divorce records. Suddenly
I was reading very personal and intimate court records about perfect
strangers hurling brutal accusations at each other. Witnesses were
brought in to testify that the couples in question truly needed the
law to separate them. The children spoken of seemed to hide in the
corners while they witnessed the implosion of their worlds. It was a
fascinating look into the underbelly of society. The content of those
records exist in part because blame (or cause) was a necessary part
of dissolution. Today, we have no fault divorce – parties involved
do not have to be anything other than incompatible - but in the
past, it had to be proven before a judge that someone had an an
unbearable burden to bear if they stayed married. Adultery,
abandonment, lack of financial support, repeated violence and abusive
name calling were all considered and listed as reasons for divorce.
Surface level studies of local history
can be very deceiving. Most tidbits of the past we stumble upon are
about founders and prominent men and women who constructed buildings
and communities, schools and libraries, towers and cabins. But the
divorce records were about destruction and disassembling families and
shaking up communities. It was about powerful secrets told once to
the judge and in many cases, never spoken of again. The records
show no hesitancy in discussing private
matters, such as sexual relations, naming adulterous partners,
criminal activity, gambling, and other social behaviors.
The same prominent history -book
citizens that built our communities in S. Oregon were touched by
these divorces in one way or another. Some families seem to be
plagued with divorce, from their first foothold in Oregon to the 3rd
and 4th
generations.
This talk
today is an attempt to explore some of the general and particular divorces in
Southern Oregon and their impact on the community. I do not want to
be accused of sensationalizing people's worst moments or digging up
dirt. My contention is that while it may not be an experience of the
majority, it touched every aspect of community life through government regulation, education, medicine, religion, literature, media,
employment, economics etc. It had an intergenerational influence,
from the grandparents who had to take in the divorced child and to
the grandchildren learning vicariously how to relate to ones spouse.
A brief background on divorce laws in
America is needed. Though America has always been slightly more
lax than Britain, in colonial times divorce was very rare. Religion
forbid divorce and the law followed religion – in essence if you
accused your spouse of the only valid reason for divorce,
adultery, you were accusing them of a crime punishable by death. In
the late 1600s, divorces could be granted for adultery, and cruelty
on the part of the husband, if you could convince the colonial
governor to hear your case. It was so expensive, difficult, and
shameful to obtain a divorce that faint of heart never even tried.
As a last resort, abandonment or agreed
upon separation without legal trappings became a more popular way to
deal with extreme marital incompatibility.
Society put pressure on men to take care of and provide for their
women . No government wished to (or could) support discarded women
and children, so they demanded that men take the marriage vows
seriously and support their families. Most marriages were not about
romantic love -it was more of an alliance, a survival technique, and
a religious duty. Women had no rights to property or to their own
children. There were few alternatives to the married state,
especially for women. Single females had no self-determination,
their fate was in the hands of their fathers, husbands, uncles or
brothers. When divorce did occur, remarriage was usually on it's
heels.
After
the Revolutionary War, attitudes towards marriage and divorce changed
very little . Divorce laws were transferred to individual state
jurisdictions (including South Carolina who did not permit any
divorces until 1949) States defined acceptable grounds for divorce,
length of process, how to divvy up the assets and debts and custody
issues. Eventually the county courts handled the local dissolution
cases as they do now. To offset prohibitive divorce laws, some
states adapted inheritance laws which demanded that if the husband
died, the bequest he left to his wife had to be comparable to that
which he left to his mistress.
Rates of
divorce ballooned after the Civil war – (a outcome that is apparently
predictable after every war) Soldiers returned to women who had
learned how to manage for themselves, children who didn't remember
their fathers, fathers who were injured inside and out by war. The
nation was so focused on reconstruction – it hardly noticed the
changes in the family. Westward expansion and industrialization also
played a part in changing attitudes toward marriage. Married
men were considered to be more trustworthy in business than single
men. Men could not prosper without a wife to support them at home.
Women looked the other way when men continued to indulge in public
amusements (i.e. frequenting saloons and visiting prostitutes) Women
knew their duty – to run the household affairs, and support their
husbands in business or bread-winning pursuits.
Women
gained social status but actually lost power when they married –
they lost the right to their own names, they could not sign
contracts, they could not own property after they married – all
that accumulated as a married couple belonged to the man. The concept
of alimony came about because the man controlled all the financial
assets of the family. Often the women who were a not part of the
business world, and had no knowledge of the family assets. After
divorce, each individual becomes responsible for their own upkeep- a
distinct disadvantage to women who had no experience at providing for
herself. She was also faced a huge stigma as a failure and often
identified herself as a widow rather than a divorcee on census and
other records or in their obituaries.
In
Oregon the process evolved in much the same pattern as the rest of
the states. Except for the important Donation Land Claim act which
opened property rights to married women. Abigail Scott Duniway,
Oregon's renowned suffragist, said, “
I
have never yet met a husband who has failed to make himself an
agreeable and respected companion to the wife of his bosom, the
mother of his children, if she possessed, in her own right, the home
that sheltered them. Nor have I ever known any woman of Oregon, when
so situated, to be compelled to sue for divorce on account of “cruel
and inhuman treatment, ....” She went on to urge the governor of
Oregon to revive the good parts of the DLC act, in securing property
ownership rights for woman as a way to decrease the divorce rates.
On
the other hand the Oregon Sentinel commented on the large number of
divorces granted because, [27 Mar 1858 Oregon Sentinel ] “Men have
been in the habit in that Territory, for a number of years past, of
marrying, --- not a wife, but a quarter section of land: and it is
quite natural that, the land being secured they should soon tire of
the incumbrance of it.”
Western
states have always had higher divorce rates than the east. The West
offered a place to go – a literal venue for desertion. Men
sometimes came to S. Oregon having a secret wife and family back in
Iowa or Ohio. Migratory divorce laws developed in some states for
“quickie” divorces. States such as Nevada with lax residency
laws had divorce colonies in which a 6 month residency was all that
was required for dissolving a marriage. Women's organizations
protested and pushed law makers into expanding the residency
requirements which effectively put a stop to the colonies. I was
surprised to find many unfamiliar names on the Jackson County divorce
records- people who were not permanent residents – who lived here
for a year or two & moved on once they obtained a divorce.
Statistically
speaking, a recent Mail Tribune article
said that Medford has a higher divorce rate than the rest of the
state and that Oregon has a higher rate than the rest of the country.
Bethenia Owens married at age 14, had a baby at 16, divorced at 19 from Lagrand Hill who the
divorce papers say abused her and her son, George and did not provide
for the family. Though her parents were willing to let her and
George stay with them and take care of them, she earned her own way
by running a millinery and dress making shop. It was not easy, being
a single mom in a frontier environment was practically unheard of.
After she put her son through medical school, and at the age of 40
she became a doctor with a real medical degree- one of the first
women in Oregon to do so. She inspired generations of women to
follow their passions regardless of their circumstances. Though in
her later years she was associated with the now politically incorrect
Eugenics movement to improve the race by sterilizing those
considered unfit for parenting, she is still considered one of the
great women in Oregon's past.
Susie Allen a seemingly industrious woman whom I had seen mentioned several times but I had no clue about her past until I read
the details of her divorce. Her husband accused her of killing the
children she bore. She testified of the grief over not being able to
carry a child to term. He accused her of sleeping with other men
and called her a sow. Witnesses heard him tell her that he would
rather sleep with prostitutes than to lie down by her side. Susie
proves that we are greater than our worst moments, that we can come
back from degredation and hold our heads up in spite of the things
our hearts have endured. She stayed in Ashland – he left and was
not heard of again and would not be a part of the town's development.
She started selling real estate and by 1914 a article published in the Ashland Tidings, considered her one of the leading
citizens! They even named a whole block of downtown buildings
“Susie's Block”
[More to come - other divorces to be written about in more depth. in weeks to come]
copyright by Jan Wright - no use is authorized without my express permission
