The following statements by Harold Forsyth and John Maas may hold the keys
to a riddle I've been trying to understand for a number of years:

HF: "The second regime was under the Articles of Confederation (1781-1788).
Under that constitution, the states were declared to be sovereign."

JM: "I argue that the 13 colonies WERE in fact separate states albeit for a
short period of time. For ex., there was a brief period after the
Revolutionary war when NC refused to adopt the Constitution; for 7-8 months
NC was not a member of the new union, but then in a second convention at
Fayetteville NC decided to join.
. . .
The riddle:  A wealthy young widow/mother of 4 (Martha), raised in
VA/Sussex-Dinwiddie but lived her married life in VA/Mecklenburg, was
married 2nd in mid-1783 to an equally well-heeled widower/father of several
(John) who had grown up in VA/Brunswick but lived at the time of the
marriage (and after) in NC/Warren. For some reason, it was not until August
1792 that the marriage of John and Martha was also made a matter of record
in VA. The 1783 marriage year is unmistakable. Nonetheless, for several
years, the widow's land by her former husband (just across the state line
from where she and 2nd husband John lived in NC) was reported in the
Mecklenburg tax lists under her former married name (initially as the
"Estate" of her former husband). Only after the marriage to her 2nd husband
was formalized in 1792 did the property lists change to the name of her 2nd
husband. Neither the premarital agreement between John and Martha, nor the
will and estate records of John and Martha, shed any light as to why
VA/Mecklenburg did not recognize her surname by her 2nd marriage, or why
John & Martha opted to have their marriage formalized in VA after having
been married and living just across the state line in NC for 9 years. Even
after the VA ceremony, they continued to live in NC, and are not found in
any of the VA land or property tax lists, with the exception of the property
of Martha's first husband. One exception to this: A son from Martha's first
marriage did show up in the Mecklenburg tax lists for one year, in 1787,
about the time he came of legal age, but he, too, returned to live in NC.

In trying to understand the WHY of this, I have assumed that there must have
been some post-Rev.War statutory differences in property and inheritance
laws between VA and NC that would be significant enough to account for this.
I further assume that something happened in 1792 to precipitate the August
civil ceremony in VA, probably to protect the interests of the
yours-mine-ours family structure of John and Martha.

Any suggestions?

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