SELFISH INTENTIONS - K-REx - Kansas State University

In colonial America, absolute divorce with the right to remarry was a real possibility only
in the New England colonies dominated by Puritan thought. As the historical geographer Mary
Somerville Jones concludes about the significance of the Puritans’ religious views, these
colonies “readily accepted the concept of absolute divorce for serious marital offenses, which
had been elaborated by such leaders as Luther, Calvin, and Wesley. Therefore, New England
colonies permitted divorce, which could be granted by civil courts, the legislature, or the
governor.” 16 The most widely accepted grounds for divorce in the 1600s were adultery,
desertion (5 years), impotence, fraudulent contract, consanguinity, and bigamy. 17
This is not to say, however, that divorce was common in the New England colonies.
Even though Massachusetts and Connecticut had liberal divorce laws for that time, the two
colonies, with a combined population of 110,000, recorded a total of eleven divorces during the
1690’s. During a fifty year period in the 18 th century, from 1738-1788, that rate sharply
increased with the Connecticut legislature granting 390 divorces. Even though divorce statistics
from this period are unreliable, this number when compared with the surrounding colonies
proved Connecticut granted substantially more divorces than other New England colonies.
During this same period of time, Massachusetts granted approximately 192 divorces. As least
one historian believes that Connecticut had become a magnet for persons from other colonies
desperate to get a divorce. Mary Somerville Jones maintains that it “is possible to surmise that
even at this early date Connecticut was granting some out-of-state divorces, probably to New
York residents, since it was for many years the only state in New England allowing divorce for
the all-encompassing omnibus clause.” 18
16 Jones, 17.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid., 18. The omnibus clause allowed a petitioner to prove that there had been a marital breakdown.
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