What would her options have been? Would her family have taken her back or what other possibilities were there for her?

Could a woman divorce her husband in those days? Did the law say anything about that?

Women, upon marriage, relinquished all rights to any property and money and future income they brought into the marriage. The husband became owner of all that. If she left the marriage, she would take nothing with her, including her children. Legally, she had no rights at all to get her own property back, nor any rights to maintain access to her children.

It wasn't until 1848 that that laws were reformed for women.

"Before married women's property acts were passed, upon marriage a woman lost any right to control property that was hers prior to the marriage, nor did she have rights to acquire any property during marriage. A married woman could not make contracts, keep or control her own wages or any rents, transfer property, sell property or bring any lawsuit.

Before 1848, a few laws were passed in some states in the U.S. giving women some limited property rights, but the 1848 law was more comprehensive. It was amended to include even more rights in 1860; later, married women's rights to control property were extended still more."

Link:http://womenshistory.about.com/od/marriedwomensproperty/a/property_1848ny.htm

This is a topic I've been interested in for quite some time. Thanks for bringing it up, Robert.

Erin

Fight it out with Joseph and stand up for herself as well as she could. (Although at a disadvantage, she has struck me as formidable in her own right.)

Find another man.

Or become destitute.

I would love to hear anything more you have to say about this.

I'm trying to refind my links on this and not having much success. But I'll keep trying.

Until divorce law was reformed (I believe in the late 19th century), women could not even petition for divorce. Men could, however. Desertion was quite common as a result. But since a married woman was considered property of her husband, she could be found and brought back against her will and forced back into the marriage.

Nice, eh?

I kind of stumbled onto this topic as I was researching abolition as part of the period of The Great Awakening. Abolition, suffrage, marriage and property reform acts, dress reform (for women) were all intimately linked in many of these movements.

So when apologists offer excuses as to why LDS, Inc wasn't leading the charge for abolition and women's rights because it wasn't a widely accepted part of american beliefs at the time, I can now call "bullshit" with confidence.

elee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm trying to refind my links on this and not
> having much success. But I'll keep trying.
>
> Until divorce law was reformed (I believe in the
> late 19th century), women could not even petition
> for divorce. Men could, however. Desertion was
> quite common as a result. But since a married
> woman was considered property of her husband, she
> could be found and brought back against her will
> and forced back into the marriage.
>
> Nice, eh?
>
> I kind of stumbled onto this topic as I was
> researching abolition as part of the period of The
> Great Awakening. Abolition, suffrage, marriage
> and property reform acts, dress reform (for women)
> were all intimately linked in many of these
> movements.
>
> So when apologists offer excuses as to why LDS,
> Inc wasn't leading the charge for abolition and
> women's rights because it wasn't a widely accepted
> part of american beliefs at the time, I can now
> call "bullshit" with confidence.

Women's rights and the abuses of patriarchy were an important part of my deciding to get out of Mormonism. I haven't thought as much about the issues for many years, though, and it is good to be reminded. So, thank you!

The apologists want it both ways: they claim to have a prophet who knows God's will and what is best. But when the prophet fails to address wrongs in society and feels no more compassion and is no more ethical than the average citizen, the apologists just say he was a man of his time. If the prophet is no better than anyone else, feels no more compassion, and provides no more ethical guidance or motive than anyone else in his period, what the hell good is he?

This is a link to a brief article on "coverture". I.e., the rational and legal definition of a woman once she enters into marriage:

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/laws/g/coverture.htm

This is a link to the wedding vows (marriage protest) between Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell at their wedding in 1855:

http://womenshistory.about.com/library/etext/bl_marriage_stone_blackwell.htm

We've come a long way, baby! ;)

You may like this Sunstone talk "Mormon Women and Domestic Violence: The Patriarchal Connection." The download is free.

https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/shop/products/?product_id=2277&category=3

like other people mentioned she would have had no legal rights. Divorce for men or women was pretty much non-existent.The law itself was really not accessible like it is now. Usually, the fed up party just left. A woman though would have had to have had a man to survive. In a land with few Wal-Marts and limited transportation a man would be necessary to do alot of the heavy lifting. I think she would have left Joseph and found a promising farmer or buisnessman that needed a spouse or she might have headed west to California or Oregon where she could have very likely prosepered single or married with the gold rush and westward expansion that was just starting to emerge.

I agree, desertion would have been a far more likely scenario. And, given her inability to conduct her own business, she would have had to find another husband or be completely destitute.

But as you also pointed out, law was thin on the ground on the frontier. "Going West" was a fairly common method of desertion, though typically, it was the man going west and then simply never sending for his family.

They would have given her the "Martha Brotherton/Sarah Pratt" treatment. She would have gone back to New York.