Not exactly. A distinction must be made between the legal framework TJ
drafted as a member of the committee established to revise Virginia's legal
code in 1777-79, which presumably reflected what he and other committee
members such as George Wythe believed could appropriately be be implemented
in Virginia at the time and which didn't propose any fundamental change in
the divorce laws (please check my memory on this by consulting Thomas E.
Buckley, The Great Catastrophe of My Life: Divorce in the Old Dominion
[Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2002]); and the arguments TJ adduced as an
attorney preparing a bill of divorce for a client circa 1773-74, on which
see Frank Dewey, "Thomas Jefferson's Notes on Divorce," William & Mary
Quarterly, 3 ser., 39 (1982): 212-23.
The latter arguments took a far more liberal and theoretical approach, but
although perhaps a few among them were original to TJ and might therefore be
presumed to reflect his personal opinions, most were drawn widely from
precedents in various law codes and from works of European legal philosophy
and were assembled in a strategy of advocacy.
-- Jurretta Heckscher
On Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:03:06 EDT, Basil Forest <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>While reading The Mormon Question by Sarah Gordon, I came upon the following
>observation:
>
>"Not only had Jefferson dallied with his slave, Sally, engaging in an
>extralegal and interracial affair, he was hardly respectable on divorce.
Jefferson
>supported liberal divorce laws, much to the dismay of conservative
>Christians"
>
>Misogynist and divorce proponent?
>
>Basil Forest
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