The Georgia legislature, without any real precedent, granted Georgia's first divorce in 1793. The state constitution of 1798 required a divorce law to be enacted and the first in a series of such legislation was passed on Dec. 1, 1802. Divorces under these early acts were tried before local Ga. Co. superior courts and if approved by jury there, still had to be approved individually by the Ga. Legislature. Beginning with act of Dec. 5, 1806, in total divorces" the party whose improper or criminal conduct shall authorize such divorce, shall not be permitted to marry again during the life of the other party: or would be guilty of bigamy. Eventually the legislature became swamped with petitions for final divorces. With the constitutional amendment of 1833 the legislature attempted to get out to the divorce situation by allowing divorces to be granted after approval by 2 local superior court juries. The divorce related petitions continued to appear before the legislature, however. Many of the guilty parties in the divorces petitioned for the right to remarry legally and many married women requested the right to own property or to conduct business without divorcing their husbands. An act of Oct. 5 1868 removed all penalties and restrictions imposed by divorces and the State Constitution of 1868 supposedly made Ga. the first state to extend feme sole to all of the state's married women. To access these records check with the Georgia Department of Archives.