Mr Royall, You certainly presented some ineresting info. Thanks -----Original Message----- From: Charles Royall Sent: Monday, September 24, 2007 11:01 PM To: ragan-roots@rootsweb.com Subject: [RAGAN-ROOTS] Widows, Cousins and Marriages An Insight into marriage and divorce From the mid 1800's to 1950's divorce was a disgrace and most women classified thier selves as a "widow" in all records. You will see this a lot in census records especially. I have found this many times when the ex husband was still living and had remarried. If there was a divorce in any family all persons in that family were forbidden to ever mention it to anyone. After the Civil War the men all had to walk home from wherever they were when the war ended. Many never returned to thier families but stopped along the way and married a war widow that owned a farm. The wife at home just assumed that he had been killed in the war. The ONLY grounds for divorce was infidelity and that had to be proven in public court. That did not change until the early 1950's. In most cases a woman never sued for divorce. It was usually always the husband. He would get one of his a buddies to testify that that he (the buddy) had been engaged with the mans wife in adultery. Saw a lot of those lies with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears many times. It always took a full year to get a divorce before it was final. Plus they had to be a resident of the county in which it was filed for 1 year before applying for the divorce. During that time if they ever spent 1 night together they were considered to be reconciled and had to start the time thing all over again. The only place that was an exception to these rules was Reno NV. Instant divorces for any reason or no reason. Did not have to be a resident of the state except for 10 days prior to filing. It was what put Reno on the map, not gambling as many would think. It was the divorce capitol of the entire world. There was a tradition that the newly divorced women would throw thier wedding ring off of the river bridge where there were folks waiting under the bridge to recover them and sell them. Many men never divorced but just moved off and remarried. There was no way to track down persons then like we can do today. Also the marrying of 1st cousins was not unusual either. I have 5 persons in my Royall line that married other Royall's that were 1st cousins. I have a half dozen or so of women in my line some as recent as the 1960's that married the brother of thier husbands. This goes all the way back to Old Testament Days when such things were expected and demanded. In our modern mind it seems strange but it really was not in thier day. A woman could not live with out a husband. There was no employment for women or support for thier children, also no insurance either. If a person had no support they were committed to the county poor farm as an inmate and could not leave it. They were worked as slave labor in the fields of the farm. They stayed there until they died, then they were buried on the poor farm property in unmarked graves. Also another divorce oddity, if a man was ordered to pay alimony in any state all he had to do to get out of it was to move to Texas. He did not have to pay it in Texas as it was illegal there and Texas would not send him back for trial to another state. In fact the local Police would go and warn the guy to not leave Texas because a arrest warrant had been issued for non payment of alimony. Also the couple must mail in the marriage certificate after the marriage. The county would record it then mail it back to them. If the man never mailed it in, it was never recorded and the "wife" THOUGHT they were married, when in fact they were not, even though she had a marriage certificate that said so. There are still some main stream churches that recognize divorce only on grounds of adultery. Rev Fr. Charlie Royall A life long Historian of 70 years. ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to RAGAN-ROOTS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message