Heartsick and Astonished: Divorce in Civil War–Era West Virginia ed. by Allison Dorothy Fredette (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Heartsick and Astonished: Divorce in Civil War–Era West Virginia ed. by Allison Dorothy Fredette
• Katharine Lane Antolini

Heartsick and Astonished: Divorce in Civil War–Era West Virginia. Edited by Allison Dorothy Fredette. New Perspectives on the Civil War Era. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2023. Pp. xiv, 288. Paper, $32.95, ISBN 978-0-8203-6428-8; cloth, $114.95, ISBN 978-0-8203-6427-8.)

In Heartsick and Astonished: Divorce in Civil War–Era West Virginia, Allison Dorothy Fredette offers twenty-seven divorce cases between 1850 and [End Page 619] 1873 from Ohio County, (West) Virginia. This region is significant, according to Fredette, due to the extent of economic, political, and social transition it experienced in the mid-nineteenth century. It was a region gripped by the Civil War and a statehood movement with the county seat, the city of Wheeling, providing the leadership for the formation of West Virginia in 1863. Rapid transformations forced the construction of a new regional identity in which changes in divorce law were one small reflection. Wheeling, as Fredette explains, “was a city of free Blacks, enslaved people, and immigrants, of industry and agriculture, southern by geography and northern by nature” (p. 11). These dynamics were embodied within the bills of divorce, testimonies, and evidentiary letters submitted on behalf of the men and women wishing to end a marriage.

Fredette begins with a thorough introduction that provides the reader with the necessary historical context to begin the exploration of divorce cases included in the book. The selected records offer a snapshot of a community’s social change across a twenty-year period, according to Fredette, and she includes a discussion of the local and national socioeconomic changes captured for that period. I was especially drawn to her discussion of expanding and conflicting gender roles as exposed within the divorce suits. The changing divorce laws reflected the evolving debates about women’s legal and economic rights and the new cultural expectations of an emotionally fulfilling marriage and family life. Women were both the oratrix (plaintiff) and the defendant in these cases. As plaintiffs, women sought divorce on grounds of adultery, abandonment, and cruelty, unwilling to suffer any longer in silence. As defendants, women found the soiling of their reputation to be an acceptable sacrifice for freedom from a restrictive marriage and unhappy life. Many chose to ignore the summons to appear in court in their own defense.

Placing the divorce cases within the context of the Civil War and its aftermath reveals another level of women’s wartime experiences. Fredette documents a 284 percent increase in the Ohio County divorce rate after the war. Naturally, war is a physically, economically, and emotionally destructive force. Yet the rise in divorce rates illustrates a new measure of both the victimization and the perseverance of a cross-section of women. For some women, seeking divorce was the last desperate step in seeking stability. For others, it was a longed-for beginning of a new life. “[T]he divorce rate rose alongside the war’s end and emancipation,” explains Fredette. “It was no coincidence. The end of one hierarchical relationship called into question others” (p. 31).

After the introduction, Fredette divides the divorce suits by year and legal justification: adultery, abandonment, cruelty, and imprisonment. She also provides annotations for the identification of locations, participants, events, and legal terminology. Such organization may limit the book’s usefulness beyond the interests of regional scholars. Had Fredette’s insightful analysis accompanied every chapter, connecting the specific suits showcased within to the multiple interpretations only discussed in the separate introduction, it could serve as a powerful source for students in women’s history and legal studies courses. Nonetheless, Fredette illustrates the power of divorce records to expose the intimate lives of nineteenth-century couples and the human trauma embodied within them. [End Page 620]

Katharine Lane Antolini West Virginia Wesleyan College Copyright © 2024 The Southern Historical Association ...