G
Galnextdoor
Guest
Back then, divorce was frowned upon. A man could divorce a woman without having much stigma attached to it. A divorcee’, on the other hand, was considered a trashy woman. (She couldn’t keep her man happy.) The jobs for woman in previous generations were pitiful and the sexual harassment they endured was part of the reason why a divorced woman who had to work was considered trashy. There was a time in the first half of the twentieth century that married or divorced women were not allowed to be teachers. (My grandmother was a teacher who had to quit when she got married, because married women were not allowed to teach.) My other grandmother was married off to a friend of her father’s when she was 17. He brought her back pregnant, 8 weeks later, because he said she kept acting like a child. Her father was humiliated. His people had been sheriff’s and judges etc. He gave her a room to stay in, but she had to work as a waitress the whole time she was pregnant. It was difficult work. She said she was frequently slapped on the bottom or pinched on the breast.
After awhile, she remarried a Catholic man. His parents didn’t think she was good enough for him. Her parents despised Catholics. When he went out to find work before WWII, their parents made sure that they never got together again. (Another story.)
Suffice it to say, she endured great hardship, with no help from anyone. Her parents and his parents wanted my father, but not his sisters. She wouldn’t give custody to either.
This is the type of thing women endured when they divorced. Most women preferred to be slapped across the bottom by their husband and have a roof over their head, rather than be slapped and pinched by strangers. Ah the good old days when everyone stayed married! It didn’t matter if your husband was a child molester like my ex- father-in-law, his wife honored the vows she took. They were the same age as my grandparents. They stayed together until he died. One of my ex’s- brothers dressed like a woman and thought he was in love with a transvestite. I often wondered what he would have been like if his father would have left him alone or if his mother had divorced his father. She was highly respected in the community and so was her family.
My aunt married a man who turned out to be a child-molester. Horror of horrors, she divorced him. The one child he molested turned out all screwed up. The others are productive tax-paying citizens. Did she announce to the world that her former husband was a child molester? No. The wife of a child molester was considered just as low as the molester himself. These things were not discussed in public, but being a divorcee’ was enough to get her shunned until the 1960’s. After that, her life became easier. She was allowed to become a bookkeeper and was able to earn a decent living for her children.
There were child molesters, wife beaters, child abusers, men who abandoned their families, but their was so much shame attached to it that it was never discussed in public. Women who left these husbands were left to live quiet lives of destitution. Women who stayed with these husband’s were left to live quiet lives of desolation. Ah the good old days, when people honored the vow til death do us part.
I know many people who are divorced. They didn’t divorce because it was an easy thing to do. They often do it to protect their children or in hopes of finding a man who will stand up to the duties and responsibilities of an adult. Divorce is a difficult thing.
Why don’t I hear the lament of everyone is living together, breaking up and living with some one else without ever having married in the first place? It’s very commonplace.
Even the OP admits that he was in a long term relationship with a live in that didn’t work out. He has been consoled by others. I guess it was okay because he’s not divorced.
Another history buff and one also very much interested in Elizabethan England, like me!!! 