Hello, We are not allowed to start up or continue a non-genealogy discussion on the Lists. So, I wrote to Darrell off-List with a few of my opinions. But, I would like to offer the definition of "harry" from the dictionary on my desk: ".. to make a destructive raid on; assault" ".. to force to move along by harassing.." ".. to torment as if by constant attack.." And, "harried" - "harassed" ("to annoy persistently"). And, as I mentioned to Darrell off-List, the wife in the town in Maine in the 1890's was being "harried." And, if she chose to "save her life" by going to a Courthouse and asking for a divorce, she did something. Some people (women or men or child) do not have a choice, and cannot "do something" about the situation they are in. More times than we want to think about the victim was "harried to death" or at the very least ended up with a "very seriouos mental-illness." And, I also want to remind researchers how "women were treated" throughout the 1600's, 1700's, and 1800's, even in the "Colonies." So, we are discussing - genealogy ! This is even discussed in another book I have on my desk: "Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony." I wish I could think of a female ancestor of mine where I have read that she was somehow harassed, harried, or haunted by fear. But, that is not really something that we read about in "family histories." (On my extended family-tree, there were "divorces.")* (Except for the strong example of the "witch trials." But, I can mention the childhood of my grandmother. I don't remember if I've told that story on the VT List. But, she was taken in by an older couple when she was a baby, and she was adopted just after she turned 3. She lived in their home until she turned 10, and during that time she was told many "lies" about her birth-parents and who the older couple was. And, during those ~9 yrs., she was "hidden away" when important company came to call. And, she heard conversations where she found out that her Adoptive parents "knew" who her birth-parents were. And she went to her death in the 1960's never knowing who they were. "No one" in the family would tell her. ** That treatment of her stayed with her for the rest of her life. Betty (near Lowell, MA) * Oh, when trying to find out the history of divorce in the US, I remembered my other grandmother. And her story involves - Vermont. When she was 17, she eloped to VT with her boyfriend. It was 1916 and we can guess that she was pregnant. It was the week her boyfriend turned 18. They had 2 stillborns in a row and finally had 3 children. But, they fought badly for almost 20 years; finally divorcing in 1935. I don't know who was "at fault" in those ~20 yrs., but my father didn't like either one of his parents. So, I can "think" they were both "harried." (LEWIS / KIDDER couple from MA) ** To mention a few, more names, my grandmother was told her birth-name was Daisy WATROUS, but there is no proof of that. The adoptive couple in 1892 changed her name to Mary Anna Clark DEXTER after the maiden name of the adoptive-mother. My "educated guess" is that they were her maternal grandparents, and their married daughter in CT had a pregnancy outside of her marriage. That woman went to her death-bed proclaiming that she didn't even know her parents had adopted a little girl. But, her only son had spent summers in his grandparents' home in MA as a child and teen.