It has not been deemed necessary to consider at length the subject of divorce, except to mention the laws of the few States which discriminate against women. South Carolina is the only one which does not grant divorce; New York the only one which makes adultery the sole cause. In the remainder the causes have a wider range, but in all the records show that the vast majority of divorces are granted to wives. The following list is taken from the New York Sun (1902) and corresponds with information gathered from other sources:
Habitual drunkenness, in all except eight States.
Wilful desertion, generally.
Felony, in all except three.
Cruelty, and intolerable cruelty, in all except five.
Failure by the husband to provide, in twenty.
Fraud and fraudulent contract, in nine.
Absence without being heard from, for different periods, in six.
Ungovernable temper, in two.
Insupportably cruel treatment, outrages and excesses, in six.
Indignities rendering life burdensome, in six.
Attempt to murder other party, in three.
Insanity or idiocy at time of marriage, in six.
Insanity lasting ten years, in Washington; incurable insanity, in North Dakota, Florida and Idaho.
Husband notoriously immoral before marriage, unknown to wife, in West Virginia. [Pregnancy of wife before marriage, unknown to husband, in many States].
Fugitive from justice, in Virginia.
Gross misbehavior or wickedness, in Rhode Island.
Any gross neglect of duty, in Kansas and Ohio.
Refusal of wife to remove into the State, in Tennessee.
Mental incapacity at time of marriage, in Georgia.
Three years with any religious society that believes the marriage relation unlawful, in Massachusetts; and joining any such sect, in New Hampshire.
When parties can not live in peace and union, in Utah.
Vagrancy of the husband, in Missouri and Wyoming.
Excesses, in Texas.
Where wife by cruel and barbarous treatment renders condition of husband intolerable, in Pennsylvania.
By reference to the History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. I, pp. 482, 717, 745 and following, it will be seen that the resolutions favoring divorce for habitual drunkenness offered in the first women’s conventions, during the early ’50’s, almost disrupted the meetings, and caused press and pulpit throughout the country
