Divorce

[hoddgirl]

Please can anyone tell me whether divorces were allowed in 1834 in Scotland. I have a family in Greenock where the wife married another man while her first husband was still living. Any help would be useful.

[SarahND]

Hello hoddgirl and

Yes, divorce was possible at that time, but was difficult and expensive to obtain. A legal separation was less expensive, but it did not allow the couple to remarry. The following is a fascinating book on the subject:
Alienated Affections: The Scottish Experience of Divorce and Separation, 1684-1830 by Leah Leneman, Edinburgh University Press, 1998

The index in the book only includes the names of the principals (usually the husbands and wives) in the divorce and separation cases. A number of years ago I put together a supplementary index with the names of the lovers, witnesses and other people mentioned in the court cases:

viewtopic.php?f=39&t=10535

Unfortunately, the dates are just too early for your family, unless they were already divorced or separated by 1830.

We have certainly seen cases of bigamy also, of course... Was the husband still in Scotland or had he gone elsewhere?

All the best,
Sarah

[Falkyrn]

As Sarah has said the procedure was possible and actually easier for women in Scotland than in England BUT the expense involved more often than not meant that the procedure was not used. see http://www.nas.gov.uk/guides/divorce.asp.

Another possibility is abandonment and subsequent presumption of death but more common than perhaps we today realise was what could be referred to as geographical divorce - i.e one or perhaps both moving to a different area and "reinventing" themselves. Any resultant marriages were of course bigamous. Although I suppose that only matters if you get caught.

[Currie]

See also “A Handbook of Husband and Wife according to the Law of Scotland”, published 1893.
http://archive.org/stream/ahandbookhusb ... 7/mode/2up

Alan